Philip Glass - "Music in Similar Motion / Music in Fifths" LP, Album, 1973 (Chatham Square Productions)

The early music of Philip Glass is interesting to me because they are genuinely sculptures made of sound. I feel the music is prepared to take physical space.   His later work is very melodic, but the early works are like classical garage rock.  Made in lofts for people who live in lofts.   "Music in Similar Motion" is three electric organs and two soprano saxophones, plus flute played by Robert Prado, who it seems passed away soon after this recording in 1971.  The music Glass wrote was from another culture, and not necessarily from the New York world.  In fact, the music is transported into that culture.  Still, I think both pieces (the other being "Music in Fifths") are sculptures more than music.

The repetition of the notes played together are a series of riffs, that combined with the other musicians is hypnotic, yet organic in that it has a hefty weight to it all.  The music doesn't roll, but clearly, it rocks.   Best to be played loud.  

Philip Glass - "Songs From Liquid Days" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1986 (CBS)

There is the Philip Glass the opera composer and film track composer, but there is also Philip the songwriter.  "Songs From Liquid Days" is an album made in 1986, at the height of his fame/talents with respect to doing the perfection that is the "Mishima" soundtrack score.  Glass approached Paul Simon, David Byrne, Suzanne Vega, and Laurie Anderson to write lyrics to his set of music that are songs that stand by themselves and not part of an opera or any other project.  So essentially this is his first 'pop' album. 

"Songs From Liquid Days" is stamped inside my memory banks, and all I have to do is look at the song list that's on this album, and I immediately can hear it just by looking at the text.  Six long songs that are at times danceable,  but often hauntingly beautiful.  Glass is a great melodist, and the songs here are majestic, which is a great source of inspiration as the day turns into dark.  

It is also very New York City 1986, due that the lyricists were at their height of songwriting powers or reputation.  "Changing Opinion" is a fantastic Paul Simon lyric that is more of his observational works where he comments on the moments of the day.   I think in his own fashion, was trying to be a minimalist!   Laurie Anderson is also an observational writer, and this is one theme that seems to be running through all the songs.  The songs not surprisingly have a Broadway aesthetic.   Still, it's Glass' melodies that are the shining stars.  

Philip Glass - "Solo Music" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1975 (Shandar)

There are two different periods in Philip Glass's work or recordings.  The early works were truly minimal, and the later operas, orchestrations, are very much driven by melody.  Both periods have driven rhythms, but there is something special about the early works that I like a lot.  There is a zen quality to the work, that I don't want to say puts me in a spiritual place, but more aware of my mind going to other worlds.  Steve Reich hits me differently, because I'm aware of a system taking place, but Glass strikes me as being more emotional and riff-driven in that making a fist and hitting the air stance. 

"Contrary Motion" on side one is just Glass and his electric organ.  It's not a peaceful existence, but it is one that makes me sit down and listen to the work.  I never want to read the liner notes of a Glass album while I'm playing the record, on the other hand, I tend to read Reich's album notes, because of the structure of that piece being put together.   Reich is conceptual that focuses on the practice as well as the sound and Glass I think is just music.   Both do have a strong visual sensibility, but looking at the back cover of "Solo Music" it does truly look like a Brice Marden work of art.  A great album. 

Paul Bowles/Darius Milhaud/Gold & Fizdale - "Concerto for Two Pianos, Winds and Percussion" 10" Vinyl Album, 1950 (Columbia Masterworks)

Slowly (very slowly) I'm starting up a collection of Paul Bowles music on vinyl.  He is one of my favorite prose writers, who could write about alienation better than anyone on this planet.  In a sense, he's the ultimate "Existentialist" writer in his work as well as in life.  I have numerous books by and on Bowles, and still, one doesn't get a clear portrait of this odd figure.   He wasn't exactly the king of chit-chat or giving gossip, but he is one of those people who can be in a room, and you don't know who he is, but there is something powerful in his presence in that chamber.   There is a ghost-like skill he had, in that he was in the right place and time. 

What is not that well-known about him is his work as a composer.   Bowles first got attention for writing incidental music for the original Broadway production of various Tennesse Williams plays, such as "The Glass Menagerie."  He studied music under Aaron Copland, but what made him famous was his novel "The Sheltering Sky" published in 1949.    Although he wrote a lot of music, there are not that many recordings of his work.  It's interesting that "Concerto For Two Pianos, Winds and Percussion came out around the time of his first (and most famous) novel.  

Bowles fiction (both novels and short stories, which I feel he is the master) is dark.  The music, on the other hand, is light.  Still, "Concerto For Two Pianos" convey the Bowles spirit with respect to travel or an appreciation of other (foreign) cultures.  There's a restless quality to Bowles, and it shows up in his literature as well as in music.  I hear Asian, Pacific, and perhaps North African touches in this piece, as well as Manhattan New York.  It's modern in the sense that it's cosmopolitan and open to possibilities that were in the world at the time.   In essence, it's very Paul Bowles. 

The b-side is devoted to Darius Milhaud's "Carnaval à la Nouvelle-Orléans" (Carnival in New Orleans) and "Les Songs (Dreams)"   "Carnival.." is based on French Creole songs from New Orleans, and it's a musical portrait of a festival that took place in that city.  The only instrumentation on both pieces by Milhaud are the duo pianos played by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale.  The work is in an impressionistic and upbeat mood.  Like Bowles, Milhaud was interested in music from other cultures, and this piece has a slightly exotic touch as well.  Jazz made a huge impression on him, and there are traces of that type of music in his work.  It's interesting that Dave Brubeck was a student under Milhaud.  He also taught Burt Bacharach and Philip Glass. And Milhaud was a member of Les Six, a group of composers who worked with Jean Cocteau.  

Gold and Fizdale it seems collaborated together as pianists who worked on compositions that were written for two pianists.  The only other album I have by them is "A Picnic Cantata" written by Bowles with lyrics by the great American poet James Schuyler.  And that is superb as well.  Buying "A Picnic Cantata" as well as this album, I feel that I'm entering a fantastic rabbit hole, where if you reach the bottom, you're in this incredible sophisticated world of Manhattan citizens and their art.  The Bowles / Milhaud album is great because each composer compliments the other.  Gold and Fizdale had great taste. 

George Crumb - "Music For A Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1975 (Nonesuch)

I know his name well, but not his music whatsoever till I purchased this piece of vinyl of George Crumb's "Music For A Summer Evening."   I was intrigued by reading that the music on this album consists of two amplified pianos and percussion.  How can that possibly be a bad thing?  

The music here is a combination of great peace, and then dramatic mood change with the percussion and the sound from the two pianos.   There are also vocals in the mix as well.  That reminds me of Japanese Kabuki music, and that is another added twist to this work that's very American, yet looks beyond its border.  At parts, when the pianos are playing a melody, it sounds like something from the 18th-century European court music.  It's only traces of the melody here and there that comes through the textures, especially in "Myth" on side two.  

The percussion on this piece is a lot of instruments: vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel, tubular bells, bell tree, claves, maracas, sleigh bells, wood blocks and other such instruments. "Music For a Summer Evening" is a solid piece of mood, which I'm fond of, or at the very least a visitor in those woods. 

Olivier Messiaen - "Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité" 2 x Vinyl, Album, LP, 1974 (Musical Heritage Society)

I wanted to find the heaviest organ sounding album possible, and I believe I found it:  Oliver Messiaen's "Méditations" with him playing the organ at the Church of Sainte Trinité.  Messiaen is a composer that I know very little of but wasn't much of a laughing guy. This is meditation in the religious sense, where one focuses on the nature of a God in a church and reflecting on the offshoots of such a belief.  Think St. Thomas Aquinas. 

On the other hand, I get off on Messiaen's organ playing and the majestic overpowering sense of power out of his instrument and his skill as a composer.  It's not all bombast and power, there are quiet moments as well, but having this album in full volume is clearly a tunnel from one side (my home and turntable)  to God.  

Richard Strauss/Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, George Szell, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra - "Four Last Songs" LP, Vinyl (Angel Records)

Not a bad find for $1.99 at Amoeba Music in Hollywood.  At this point in my life, I know very little about classical music.  My main gateway to that world is Glenn Gould.  Which I suspect is a perverse entrance to 'long-hair' music.  This year, and due to classical music selections in various used record stores, I'm finding a lot of great sounds.   Richard Strauss "Four Last Songs" was totally unknown to me, except for David Bowie's love for this music.   If Bowie loved it, then I'm going to listen to it.  I don't have the actual recording that he had, but the Elisabeth Schwarzkopf / George Szell version is a wow. 

Strauss wrote the "Four Last Songs" as a parting gift or a reflexion on approaching death.  Goth classical?  No, not exactly.  Three of the songs have text by Hermann Hesse.  They're simple, but with stark imagery of time passing, and the moment when peace arrives.  It's not a downer but emotionally charged, with a profound sense of soul.  Which comes to Schwarzkopf's voice which is amazing.  A stunning looking woman, with a beautiful voice, what can go wrong?  Well, she does have a murky relationship with Hitler and company, that is similar to the relationship between Leni Riefenstahl and the Nazis. Nevertheless, a fascinating biography that needs to be read by me (and you).  Still, her singing is a perfect element in the cocktail of Strauss's music with the addition of Szell's orchestration.  

The flip side is five additional songs that are just as great as "The Last Four Songs."  Strauss was one of Glenn Gould's favorite composers, and now hearing this album, I need to explore this composer's music.  And oddly enough, Gould recorded some of Strauss's songs with Schwarzkopf, that apparently didn't go well.   It makes my head explode thinking of those two in the same room.   Sony put out a CD of those recordings, but I haven't had the chance to locate the CD, but it is on YouTube. Also, I suspect that I'm going to purchase more versions of Strauss's "Four Last Songs" in the very near future.   Any recommendations?

György Ligeti - Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez -"Chamber Concerto"/"Ramifications"/"Aventures"/"Nouvelles Aventures" LP, Vinyl, 1983 (Deutsche Grammophon )

Side one is beautiful orchestration that slowly and seductively leads to tension that is released little by little.  Pierre Boulez's conducting the orchestra and György Ligeti's intense score is an amazing listening experience.   His music seems to hold energy into a small space, and once it dispels into the ears or listening room, it's a release that is almost sexual.  The harpsichord comes in and out of the orchestration or mixes in a very efficient manner.   Great music.

Side two is "Nouvelles Aventures," and it's mostly vocal work with a touch of instrumentation here and there.  Again it's a tightly held piece of intensity which keeps the listener on their toes.  DADA or Letterist like in performance, I have a feeling that there is a visual side to "Nouvelles Aventures."