Jenny Lin – Glass: Piano Works (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Jenny Lin – Glass: Piano Works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:02:22 minutes | 1,87 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Steinway and Sons

On June 5, 2020 Steinway & Sons releases Philip Glass: Piano Works (STNS 30127) from pianist Jenny Lin. The album begins with “Opening” from Glassworks, the composer’s first album on CBS in 1982. In the five movement Metamorphosis Glass reused some of his music from the film The Thin Blue Line. Mad Rush (1979) is perhaps Glass’s most popular piece of piano music. Distant Figure – Passacaglia for Solo Piano (2017) is his most recent piece for solo piano.

Jenny Lin has come to inhabit the soul and best performance practices in Glass’s music. Her result, as you can hear on this recording, is a performance of mystery and humanity.

Pianist Jenny Lin has recorded a great diversity of piano music over the years, but in mid-career, she seems to have emerged as a champion of Philip Glass, touring with the composer and making several recordings. The keyboard music of Glass has never been a terribly common facet of his output, which seems to require the sensory envelopment of large forms, but Lin does it justice. The result here is an attractive sampling, following on the grand success of her performances of the composer’s Etudes, and beautifully recorded by her label, Steinway & Sons. She is sensitive to the development of Glass’ musical language, seemingly entering into the composer’s mind as he pushed and pulled at his basic minimalist arpeggiations. The pieces here range chronologically from 1979 (Mad Rush, written for an appearance by the Dalai Lama in New York) to 2017 (Distant Figure — Passacaglia for solo piano), with the centerpiece being Metamorphosis. This five-movement work was abstracted and arranged by Glass from his music for the 1988 film The Thin Blue Line, and it’s an effective suite that builds from simple textures to syncopations and big dramatic gestures of the kind Glass was beginning to develop at the time. Nowhere is the music technically difficult, but to bring it to life is not simple, and that’s what Lin accomplishes here.

Tracklist:

1. Jenny Lin – Opening (06:23)
2. Jenny Lin – Metamorphosis No. 1 (05:21)
3. Jenny Lin – Metamorphosis No. 2 (06:32)
4. Jenny Lin – Metamorphosis No. 3 (03:35)
5. Jenny Lin – Metamorphosis No. 4 (06:01)
6. Jenny Lin – Metamorphosis No. 5 (05:27)
7. Jenny Lin – Modern Love Waltz (03:28)
8. Jenny Lin – Passacaglia for Solo Piano “Distant Figure” (11:33)
9. Jenny Lin – Mad Rush (Version for Piano) (13:59)

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