Philip Glass: Symphony for Solo Piano - Classical Music for Meditation, Study & Relaxation | Perfect for Piano Enthusiasts & Music Lovers

Orange Mountain Music is proud to present SYMPHONY FOR SOLO PIANO, a virtuosic solo piano version of Philip Glass s Symphony No.8 arranged and performed by Pawel Markowicz. In late 2005 and early 2006, Glass s Symphony No.8 had its premiere performances in the United States and in Europe by its commissioner, the Bruckner Orchester Linz. The piece, perhaps Glass s most orchestrationally dynamic symphony, was released on recording in May 2006. At that time, Markowitz, a gifted teenage Austria pianist, heard the new Glass symphony, bought the OMM recording which was released, and acquired the full orchestral score to the new work. For the better part of the last 14 years has been refining, practicing, and perfecting his solo piano reduction of the extremely complicated work. Glass s Eight Symphony is a watershed moment of sorts. Beginning right around the Millennium, Glass s creative life went into overdrive. The year 2005 saw not only the premiere of his Seventh Symphony but also his grand opera Waiting for the Barbarians and no fewer than five major film scores. In the midst of this was the composition of his Eighth Symphony which stands alone among his extant twelve symphonies for many reasons. Symphony No.8 marked Glass s first purely instrumental symphony in over a decade for full orchestra. Inasmuch, Glass referred to the symphony as being - about the language of music itself -. The first movement is a dynamic display of a composer at the height of his powers and in full stride. The giant 19-minute movement lays out eight individual themes tied together by stretto passages in the orchestra. These themes are then laid out simultaneously in one of Glass s most glorious displays of counterpoint. Markowicz takes the movement at a breakneck tempo and somehow manages to balance all the individual voices in a virtuoso high-wire act. The second movement is a 12-minute passacaglia (a repeating harmonic pattern with melodic variations on top.) This movement represents as far as Philip Glass has ever stretched the idea of tonality, and can be seen as an homage to Shostakovich, especially in the hands of Markowicz. The pianist-arranger had a new challenge with the short third movement finale, which the New Yorker cited as the symphony s chief innovation (surprised be the enveloping sadness of the symphony s ending.) Markowicz channels the trajectory of what might be Glass s finest instrumental work by embracing how Glass described this work: There s nothing ambiguous about the Eighth Symphony, it s a work that goes from dark, to darker, to darkest.