theladyrose | Entries tagged with philip glass

Do I actually detect some fragments of melody in Philip Glass's Notes On A Scandal score? My knowledge of music theory is virtually nonexistent, but this definitely isn't his old school minimalism. If this and snow in Malibu doesn't indicate that there's something freaky going on in the world, I don't know what is.

I'm also starting to understand why film critics panned the score for being too overwrought and taking the edge off of some potentially black comedy. Glass is definitely capable of great subtlety - the Hours and Glassworks are some of my favorite works of his characterized by this more reflective tone - but it sounds like he's gone with a La Belle et le Bête-ish approach here. There are some moments highly reminiscent of the Hours, though the orchestration sounds much fuller and the tone more dissonant.

To continue with the film music ramblings, I've come across an original recording of Elmer Bernstein's the Man with the Golden Arm title theme. The website also has some great recordings of pieces from different film scores performed by the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra Society; I recommend Miklos Rozsa's lovely El Cid.

blofeldscat
, please forgive my ignorance in not knowing where to put the accent marks.

Much to my delight, I've found an affordable recording of Bernstein's 'Toccata for Toy Trains' - I almost typed 'Toycatta' there. There's a re-recording conducted by the composer on the FSM-released Elmer Bernstein's Film Music Collection, but the Eames Brothers film compilation contains the gem, 'Westinghouse in Alphabetical Order,' which was written as musical accompaniment for a stock holders' meeting to look over company merchandise! Now if I could find a recording of either of Bernstein's stage musicals, Merlin and How Now, Dow Jones or John Barry's Lolita, My Love...

I am starting to see why people claim that I am obsessive compulsive, except I'm not. Right.

There's a lot of Harry Potter madness over at the Harvard Coop; there must have been at least 150 people crowded into the bookstore at 11 tonight. Danielle, Sophia, Sophia's roommates, and Filippe (Sophia's roommate's boyfriend or unofficial 3rd roommate) and I waited outside just to see what people were doing. We noticed that quite a few people had arrived in costume (the best one was of Professor Trelwaney whose name I am sure I have misspelled) and many more arrived with painted lightning bolt "scars." The line was ridiculously long, so I'll probably get the book tomorrow or later this week as I still have other required reading to do.

Ellie got me a Phillip Glass compilation from the NY Metropolitain Museum of Art, Up Close, and I've got to say that the more I listen to it the more I believe Glass to be an absolute genius. There are composers who experiment for the sake of trying to attract attention, and there are composers who experiment in order to redefine the elements of musical composition while paying homage to the work of past masters. Glass is of the latter category, but he's the sort of composer whom people immediately worship or hate. Personally I'm intrigued by his redefinition of Impressionism as minimalism in exploring the development of harmonic fragments. To oversimplify somewhat, minimalism is just Impressionism taken to the extreme.

I never cease to be amazed by how pretentious I can sound despite the fact that I have no idea what I'm talking about.

And as a random note: I thought that this article was pretty cool about Israel monitoring the health of models (thanks to