Philip Glass — Glassworks [Vinyl LP · 180g]

Philip Glass — Glassworks [Vinyl LP · 180g]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album Reissue, 180g
• Catalogue Number: MOVCL008
• Barcode: 8718469535149
• Genre: Classical / Minimalism
• Label: Music On Vinyl Classical
• Originally Released: 1982
• This Edition Released: 19 May 2014
• Pressing: 180g audiophile LP reissue on Music On Vinyl Classical, pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Glassworks is the album that pulled Philip Glass out of the downtown New York loft-minimalism scene and onto the pop charts. Written and recorded in 1982 for CBS Masterworks, it was deliberately conceived as a "Walkman album" — an accessible introduction to Glass's language for the newly-portable cassette generation, and it did exactly that, becoming his commercial breakthrough.

The six pieces stand on their own but flow as a set. The unaccompanied solo piano Opening gives way to the interlocking soprano saxophones and flutes of Floe; Islands sits somewhere between pulse and stillness; Rubric closes side one with one of Glass's most propulsive ostinato pieces. Side two opens on Facades — soprano saxophones over string pulse, and arguably the best-known single piece in the Glass catalogue — before the closing Closing returns to the opening piano theme in a near-mirror form.

This 180g LP reissue on Music On Vinyl Classical restores Glassworks to vinyl at audiophile weight, pressed at Record Industry in the Netherlands.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Opening
2. Floe
3. Islands
4. Rubric

Side B

1. Facades
2. Closing

Credits

• Philip Glass — Composer, Keyboards
• Philip Glass Ensemble — Performers
• Michael Riesman — Music Director, Conductor
• Originally released on CBS Masterworks, 1982
• 180g LP reissue on Music On Vinyl Classical (2014)