Philip Glass Vinyl Records – Glassworks, Koyaanisqatsi & Essential Albums on Vinyl

Philip Glass is one of the most influential composers of the past fifty years — a figure who, alongside Steve Reich, Terry Riley and La Monte Young, rebuilt what concert music could be. Born in Baltimore in 1937, Glass studied under Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1960s before developing the repetitive, additive, arpeggiated language that came to be called minimalism. His Philip Glass Ensemble — a group of amplified keyboards, winds and voices — has toured and recorded his work continuously since 1968.

His catalogue is vast and spans operas (Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, Akhnaten), symphonies, string quartets, concertos, solo piano music, and some of the most admired film scores ever written: Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi for Godfrey Reggio, Mishima for Paul Schrader, The Hours and Notes on a Scandal for Stephen Daldry, and Candyman for Bernard Rose. Glass's influence on popular music is enormous — David Bowie, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin and countless others have cited him directly.

Philip Glass rewards vinyl like few composers. The additive rhythms, the harmonic pulses, the breathing of the ensemble all open up on analogue in a way that digital can flatten. The Glassworks Speed Mix reissues and recent Music On Vinyl film-score editions are particularly fine.

Best Philip Glass Albums on Vinyl

Glassworks (1982)
The gateway album. Six short pieces written specifically for home listening, performed by Glass and his ensemble. Opening and Island have become concert standards. The record that introduced minimalism to a mass audience without diluting it.

Koyaanisqatsi (1983)
The score to Godfrey Reggio's wordless film is the Platonic ideal of a Glass soundtrack — pulsing organ, chanting voices, glacial tempos opening up over long-form sequences. Best heard as its own album, not just as film music.

Einstein on the Beach (1976)
The four-and-a-half-hour opera, written with Robert Wilson, that rewrote what opera could be. The original Tomato Records recording is the essential document. Spread across four or five LPs, it is a commitment — and a revelation.

Solo Piano (1989)
The Metamorphosis pieces recorded by the composer himself at the keyboard. Deceptively simple, endlessly resonant. The intimate miking makes this one of the most vinyl-appropriate of all Glass records.

The Hours (2002)
Glass's score to Stephen Daldry's Virginia Woolf film is one of his most emotionally direct works — themes that rise and fall across the running time with extraordinary restraint. Nominated for an Academy Award, and still among his most-streamed works today.

Mishima (1985)
The Kronos Quartet recording of the string-quartet version of the Schrader film score. Denser and more agitated than his later work, and one of his finest concert pieces.

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