recordings
Music in Twelve Parts
2008
Music by Philip Glass
Philip Glass & The Philip Glass Ensemble
Michael Riesman, Music director

Catalog

Orange Mountain Music OMM0049

Tracks

Disc 1
Part 1 16:06
Part 2 16:21
Part 3 16:26

Disc 2
Part 4 20:58
Part 5 17:16
Part 6 15:00

Disc 3
Part 7 20:33
Part 8 18:36
Part 9 12:40

Disc 4
Part 10 17:26
Part 11 15:01
Part 12 18:02

Notes

“Music in 12 Parts would most likely be classified as a minimal work, it was a breakthrough for me and contains many of the structural and harmonic ideas that would be fleshed out in my later works. It is a modular work, one of the first such compositions, with twelve distinct parts which can be performed separately in one long sequence, or in any combination or variation.”

– Philip Glass

Music in Twelve Parts, written by Philip Glass between 1971 and 1974, is a deliberate, encyclopedic compendium of some techniques of repetition the composer had been evolving since the mid 1960s. It holds an important place in Glass’s repertory – not only from a historical vantage point (as the longest and most ambitious concert piece for the Philip Glass Ensemble) but from a purely aesthetic standard as well, because Music in Twelve Parts is both a massive theoretical exercise and a deeply engrossing work of art.

— Tim Page

Credits

Live recording from a performance on April 8, 2006 at Auditoreum Fausto Melotti in Rovereto, Italy.

Performed by Philip Glass and the Philip Glass Ensemble

Music Director: Michael Riesman
Woodwinds: Jon Gibson, Richard Peck, Andrew Sterman
Keyboards: Philip Glass, Michael Riesman, Mick Rossi
Vocals: Lisa Bielawa
Recordist: Dan Dryden
Stage sound engineer: Stephen Erb

Executive Producers for Orange Mountain Music: Philip Glass, Kurt Munkacsi and Don Christensen

Associate Director Orange Mountain Music: Richard Guérin

Album produced by Don Christensen

Edited, Mixed and Mastered by Ichiho Nishiki at the Looking Glass Studios, New York

Cover Art Album: Frank Stella
Design: Don Christensen

Cover design iTunes release: Lissi Sigillo

Special Thanks: Jim Keller, Zoe Knight, Tim O’Donnell (Dunvagen Music Publishers), Christian Rutledge (Looking Glass Studios) and Linda Brumbach (Pomegranate Arts)

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COMPOSITIONS:
Music in Twelve Parts

RECORDINGS:
GlassJukebox on Nonesuch
Philip Glass Ensemble Live in Monterrey, Mexico on Orange Mountain Music
Music in Twelve Parts on Nonesuch