Description

Volume 1 of the complete string quartets of Philip Glass is the latest recording by the multi award-winning Molinari Quartet. This digital-only release features string quartets 1 to 4 and will be followed by a second volume to be recorded next year. The complete set of eight quartets will eventually be released as a box set.

Philip Glass is an outstanding figure in contemporary music. A leading figure in the American minimalist movement, along with Steve Reich, John Adams and Terry Riley, Glass has led an astonishingly rich and diverse artistic career.

Glass’ early experiments with minimalism and repetition—one of the composer’s stylistic hallmarks—are evident in his First Quartet, written in 1966. The Second Quartet was written in 1983 for a stage adaptation of Company, a novella by Samuel Beckett. The Third Quartet, one of Glass’s most famous works, was composed for Paul Schrader’s 1885 film Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. In the Fourth Quartet, “Buczak” (1989), Glass tackles questions of form associated with the string quartet.