Brooklyn Rider plays Philip Glass (2011)

The New York based string quartet Brooklyn Rider performs the complete Philip Glass string quartets including the early String Quartet No.1 (1966) and a world premiere recording of Glass s score to the 1997 film BENT starring Mick Jagger, Clive Owen, and Ian McKellen on this new 2-disc set titled Brooklyn Rider plays Philip Glass. Glass s string quartets include his score to the Samuel Beckett play Company (String Quartet No.2), the Paul Schrader film on the life of Japanese writer Yukio Mishima String Quartet No.3 Mishima and an elegiac remembrance of artist Paul Buczak in String Quartet No.4 Buczak. The fast-rising Brooklyn Rider is violinists Johnny Gandelsman, Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords, and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The group tours extensively in the USA and abroad.

The innovative and exciting NYC string quartet Brooklyn Rider has a new CD from In a Circle Records in which the group records Philip Glass's entire string quartet oeuvre, which is the 5 numbered quartets plus the world premier recording of the Suite from "Bent" for String Quartet.

Brooklyn Rider, whose CD Dominant Curve was included in the Washington Post's list of top ten classical albums from 2010, was the right choice to premiere this important work. Bent, winner of the 1997 Cannes 'International Critics Award' tells the story of doomed relationships between gay men in Nazi Germany. The first of its 8 movements opens with a plaintive cello melody wending its way through a forest of suppurating strings, and one can feel the danger, the flight, the violence of the film. There are rays of hope in this work, however slim they may be. Brooklyn Rider understands how to perform this music from an intuitive, gut-level standpoint; one misplaced accent, one slightly shifted emphasis and the meaning of the whole structure is lost; the repetitive nature of Glass's motives both vertically and horizontally amplifies the importance of each little change, and without attention to every minute detail both technically and emotionally there will be nothing left. From the terrifying cello chords exploding from the smooth texture in the fourth movement to the forlorn wailing of the solo viola which is the only instrument heard in the final movement, the power of the composition shines through.

Some of the other quartets also come from film scores, including #3 which came from the 1983 film Mishima about the life of the quixotic Japanese author who committed seppuku in the early 70s. Very different in character from the Bent, there is less of the ceaseless in and out arpeggiation and more homophonic movement and stark chordal textures. String Quartet #1 was composed in 1966 but not first recorded until more than 20 years later. It is more experimental: its atonal warbling that at times veers toward a pizzicato almost completely lacking in pitch requires very different techniques of the group, and they render the ceaseless pulse with painful exactitude.

There is wondrous variety to be found in this release, each quartet with its own unique character, and Brooklyn Rider has the relentless energy required to sustain interest in the somber, often haunting sound world through which Glass's compositions wander. This release represents another big win from an unconventional and visionary group, and is an important contribution to both string quartet and Philip Glass discography.

Tracklisting:

CD 01

1. Suite from Bent for String Quartet - 1997 Movement I
2. Movement II
3. Movement III
4. Movement IV
5. Movement V
6. Movement VI
7. Movement VII
8. Movement VIII
9. String Quartet No.3 Mishima 1957 Award Montage
10. November 25 Ichigaya
11. Grandmother and Kimitake
12. 1962 Body Building
13. Blood Oath
14. Mishima Closing
15. String Quartet No.1 Part 1
16. Part 2

CD 02

1. String Quartet No.4 Buczak Movement I
2. Movement II
3. Movement III
4. String Quartet No.2 Movement I
5. Movement II
6. Movement III
7. Movement IV
8. String Quartet No.5 Movement I
9. Movement II
10. Movement III
11. Movement IV
12. Movement V