Philip Glass: Music in Twelve Parts

do not, i repeat, no not buy this unless you are curious of philip glass' early works or are interested in twentieth century music and it's more experimental twists and turns. having said that, this may be the best music for going into both a trance and a frenzy. it's obsessive, bizarre, joyful, and about 3.5 hours long. my personal favorites are probably parts 7, 2, 1, and 8. part 7 seems to have a dangerously overjoyed state that it somehow finds a way to both sustain and build over the course of 20 minutes... along the way, ducking into passages of weird semi-chants and sounds that swirl like a frenzied child. part 2 is another great up tempo selection. the only way i can find to describe it properly is to say it's something akin to listening to bad, synthetic grocery store muzak undergoing some bad acid freakout. and i mean that in the best possible way. part 8 is another good high-spirited piece that is better in its second half than its first. and part 1 is the best of the slower pieces i find... never gets dull and yet keeps the trance state more subdued then its crazy cousins. for me, these are the best parts. if you enjoy these, i say it's mostly safe to spread out.... but maybe buy the parts a few weeks or a month apart. it worked for me!

To Bongo Joe, This recording is available part by part. (You have probably figured that out after you posted, I hope.) Those twelve individual parts were released first for US$1.99 each, then the whole performance was released in 2008 as an entire album for the sum of twelve parts. This recording is of a performance that the Philip Glass Ensemble did of Music in Twelve Parts in Rovereto, Italy in the Spring of 2006. Enjoy!

Simply put, Philip Glass may be the one of the greatest contemporary composers of our time. While he is no Gershwin, he is still a fine composer. His works are interesting and enjoyable. He uses a mix of styles and themes; Boolez is biased, I think. Philip Glass may not be Gershwin, but he certainly is NOT repeatitive, nor does he repackage older works under new titles for resale. If you are looking for some interesting contemporary classical, then you could do much worse than Philip Glass.

To the last reviewer. All the individual parts from this recording are available as single downloads, just search for "Part 1 Glass" etc. I believe this to be the best and most affordable recaording of this huge piece. It is in fact a new recording, and not as Boolez indicates, a re-release. This recording is from 2006. Boolez insists on negatively reviewing all the new Glass releases. Perhaps he may be bitter, like the real Boolez that no one likes him.

Everyone knows I'm not the biggest Glass fan. I am amazed that he's able to re-release the same exact recordings in various different packaging and still manage to sell it. There must be some pretty stiff cool-aid out there.

why is this whole album "album only?!" I only wanted to DL 1 track and can't even do that! hmmmmmmm