January 31, 2007

  • HB: Glass & Schubert

    Today marks the birthdays of two quite different musical voices:  Philip Glass (1937) and Franz Schubert (1797-1828). 

    SCHUBERT

    Schubert is perhaps one of the great song writers of the 19th Century.  Who has not studied his "Erlkonig" in theory or music history classes.  It's a bugger to play and the stamina needed by a pianist to make it through the song suggests that Schubert was not the genteel musician that he is often made out to be.  It is really through the tremendous number of "lieder" that Schubert is worth the "great" composer status.  He is also known for the two movement fragments that make up the "Unfinished" Symphony (known to 80s kids as the theme used in The Smurfs).  Schubert is an interestingly subtle orchetral colorist.  It is often hard to appreciate that if you are a young player in an orchestra.  Most Schubert symphony recordings tend to suffer from an attempt to either saddle him as the inheritor of Beethoven, thus muddying the music, or as an incapable orchestrator, thus speeding through the music. 

    I have always enjoyed the way the great Sir Thomas Beecham approached Schubert.  The symphonies really sparkle when they need to and enter into the depth of early German Romanticism when appropriate under his baton.  The piano sonatas are more difficult works to enter into because they combine Mozartian sublimity with Beethoven emotion.  Schubert seems to work better in miniatures like the Impromptus but the sonatas can be rewarding.  Andras Schif and Mitsuko Uchida seem to have found the right approach in their recorded versions of these sonatas.  Murray Perahia's recordings of the smaller pieces are delightful.

    Here are a few suggested recordings to get you started:

           

    GLASS

    Philip Glass is often noted as being the "father" of minimalism.  This technique was amply demonstrated in the classic Glassworks.  There as other early releases, Glass's music seemed to not quite fit into popular sounds or classical ones and these early experiments may have given rise to other musics later categorized as "New Age." 

    Glass's style continues to evolve proving that what seemed like simple and mindless repetition had a greater potential for exploration.  What is interesting to hear over the course of Glass's musical output is the subtle blending of instruments within the steady pulse.  It is actually almost inherently "Impressionistic" in its shimmering blend of sounds.  More recent works are finding ways to incorporate world music sounds and fragments and Glass has begun to incorporate flashes of orchestral color that takes a page from the post-minimalist movement.  But most can identify a Glass piece from the opening few bars and that in itself is a major accomplishment.

    The composer has found himself entering the realm of film music in the last couple of decades.  His music for the Johnny Depp 2004 horror story, Secret Window, was an amazing piece of film music.  But he is better known for his work on Scorsese's Kundun (1997) which received both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.  Also worth a listen is the fascinating final score to Godfrey Reggio's "qatsi trilogy," Naqoyqatsi one of the best scores of 2002.  This past year he provided music for several films.  Roving Mars is a documentary that falls along the lines of most of Glass's music.  It is harder to see this particular score being much different from much of his other work.  The Illusionist is really one of his best efforts for commercial film and here we hear Glass incorporating thematic and melodic development into the fabric of his pulsing accompaniments.  It is a darker cousing to his music for The Hours.  The recording (and DVD presentation) is a little heavy on the bass though.  Finally, Glass has been nominated for his work on Notes on a Scandal.  I'll talk more of this score in the next few weeks.