Glass- Dances

[Sean]

I wrote this for Amazon- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philip-Glass-Dance/dp/B000026283/ref=sr_1_4/026-0142809-0728453?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1194889720&sr=1-4

Dance No.1, one of the most amazing musical works of all time

It really is. I'm both a scholar and keen listener, familiar with several thousand hours of music across all centuries and Glass's Dance No.1, a 20 minute 1979 piece for soprano and quintet, is the work I've listened to more than any other. It has truly incredible magnetism and exhilaration, creating an insatiable fascination with the attention transfixed and mesmerized by every last detail: possibly the most unturnoffable and compulsive thing ever written its returns are almost unique in music.

It's hard to imagine a more accomplished and sensitive performance and production, and Iris Hiskey's voice has some of the most ravishingly feminine, alluring harmonics in all singing: she touches in the notes precisely in line with the understated nature of the work's radiance and ecstasy, adding to the fascination. The intense onward lines and intoxication parallel sexual and narcotic experience and the solfage syllables sung have erotic overtones. Such is its communicative power it's the sort of piece that would be rather interesting to play at a nightclub with a massive sound system to see people's reaction, with the gripping rhythms and motivic fragments recognizable by the pop crowd. And what strong melodic voice Glass has, identifiable from just a few notes.

As a new genre minimalism has a somewhat limited number of great and significant works, but this is one. Good minimalism raises some interesting questions about how the attention works- its remarkable involving quality seems to be related to the process of strong ideas being repeated before they can begin to be processed or reconciled intellectually, focussing the mind instead on the inexhaustible fascination of the aesthetic. Some have difficulty with the surface homogeneity in place of traditional depth structure but this piece really crushes the objections of writers like Robert Fink or Roger Scruton.

Dances Nos 1,3 & 5 are designed to be played at high volume and with an edge on the treble balance: without this, or on some steros, much of the inner detail is lost and the result can be bland- playing in the car can be ideal with the sound bouncing off the walls. 3 & 5 are a little less interesting: 3 is built around a powerful hypnotic sequence but is more simply repetitive and less developed, and the ideas in 5 aren't quite as strong or inevitable- it's also not sung by Hiskey. Nos.2 & 4 are for solo organ, again full of interest and intelligence.

A real phenomenon, enhancing one's mood as almost nothing else ever written, this is music of sheer ascent as the booklet rightly says. It is exhilaration incarnate.

[Larry Rinkel]

Wow - I went to music camp with Iris Hiskey in the early 60s. Haven't heard of her since.

Maybe I'll order this, Sean. It better be as good as you say. 

[Sean]

Alright Larry, well it's meant alot to me and I still play it in the car, but I think the right equipment is important on this one, you need to hear the inner detail and what Glass is doing.

[BorisG]

One CD will be adequate for collecting Glass.

[BachQ]

Sean, what is your personal hierarchy for dances 1 through 5, and why?

[longears]

[Sean]

Hunuman the monkey god-http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/StandingHanumanCholaDynasty11thCentury.jpg

Dm- see the original notes here. No.1 is a phenomenon. 3 & 5 are for similar forces but don't find the same inspiration. 2 & 4 are for organ.