Glass: Complete String Quartets - String Quartets Nos. 5-7, Vol. 2 Quatuor Molinari

• Philip Glass (b. 1937): String Quartet No. 5:
• 1 Glass: String Quartet No. 5: Movement I. 01:19
• 2 Glass: String Quartet No. 5: Movement II. 03:01
• 3 Glass: String Quartet No. 5: Movement III. 06:03
• 4 Glass: String Quartet No. 5: Movement IV. 04:48
• 5 Glass: String Quartet No. 5: Movement V. 07:09
• String Quartet No. 6:
• 6 Glass: String Quartet No. 6: Movement I. 09:06
• 7 Glass: String Quartet No. 6: Movement II. 08:42
• 8 Glass: String Quartet No. 6: Movement III. 06:47
• String Quartet No. 7
• 9 Glass: String Quartet No. 7 17:47
• Total Runtime 01:04:42

Info for Glass: Complete String Quartets - String Quartets Nos. 5-7, Vol. 2

Volume 2 of the complete string quartets by Philip Glass is the latest recording from the multi award-winning Molinari Quartet. This digital-only release features string quartets 5 to 7 and will be followed by a third volume to be recorded next year. The complete set of quartets will eventually be released as a box set.

Along with Steve Reich and John Adams, Philip Glass is one of the main figures in American minimalist music. These three musicians have often been confined to specific parameters in their own creative pursuits. Steve Reich and John Adams were quickly regarded as composers focusing on rhythmic patterns and harmonic matters, respectively. As for Philip Glass, his propensity to use scales and arpeggios has often been underlined, and even disparaged or caricatured. While these reductive characterizations are not unfounded, they still deserve some clarification. What is most important to remember here is that labels evolve over time and cannot be used to describe a lifetime’s work.

As far as Philip Glass’s music is concerned, this cliché mainly applies to productions from the 1970s and 1980s, since the composer’s language would later undergo an astonishing evolution. This repetitive phase was perhaps a necessary step towards a broader conception and a more personal discourse, which Glass would continue to develop and refine throughout his career. His string quartets Nos. 5 to 7 are an encapsulation of his artistic development over three decades.

String Quartet No. 5 was commissioned by the renowned Kronos Quartet and premiered in New York on February 15, 1992. It reveals a new breadth of vision and a more in-depth, sophisticated musical development. Clearly, Glass deepens his reflections on the very form of the string quartet and what it means for a contemporary composer to approach the rich tradition of the genre. The work takes its place in this notion of tradition with eloquent assurance, with five classically inspired movements and a more substantial discourse. This is a truly postminimalist approach: after exploration and experimentation, it’s time for language to come of age.

Quatuor Molinari

Molinari Quartet
Internationally acclaimed by the public and the critics since its foundation in 1997, the Molinari Quartet has given itself the mandate to perform works from the 20th and 21st centuries repertoire for string quartet, to commission new works and to initiate discussions between musicians, artists and the public.

Recipient of nineteen Opus Prizes awarded by the Quebec Music Council to underline musical excellence on the Quebec concert stage, the Molinari Quartet as been described by the critics as an “essential” and “prodigious” ensemble, even “Canada’s answer to the Kronos or Arditti Quartet”. The Molinari Quartet has established itself as one of Canada’s leading string quartets.

In addition to many Canadian works, including the 13 quartets by R. Murray Schafer, the Molinari Quartet’s repertoire includes among others, quartets by Bartók, Berg, Britten, Corigliano, Debussy, Dutilleux, Dun, Glass, Gubaidulina, Kancheli, Kurtág, Ligeti, Lutoslawski, Martinu, Penderecki, Prokofiev, Ravel, Rihm, Schnittke, Schoenberg, Shostakovich and Webern.

The Molinari Quartet was heard twice as soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit and in April 2018 premiered the Concerto for string quartet and orchestra by Samy Moussa with the Orchestre Métropolitain of Montréal under the direction of Nicholas Carter. The Quartet has been invited to perform in numerous concert series and festivals including IJsbreker (Amsterdam), Présences (Radio-France, Paris), Festival Octobre en Normandie (France), Les détours de Babel festival (Grenoble, France), IXth International Festival of contemporary music Musica Nueva (Mexico), Brand-New Music in Katowice (Poland), Akademia Muzyczna Karola Szymanowsky (Poland), Musiques au présent (Québec), Festival Vancouver, Vancouver New Music, Banff Centre, Music Toronto, New Music Concerts (Toronto), Toronto Summer Music Festival and Academy, Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, National Arts centre of Ottawa, New Music Edmonton, Tonus Vivus (Edmonton), Neworks Calgary, Orford Festival, Montréal / Nouvelles Musiques, Musimars (Montréal), Festival Domaine Forget, Festival international de Lanaudière, GroundSwell (Winnipeg), Arte Musica series (Montréal), Five-Penny concert series (Sudbury), Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, etc. In November 2013, the Molinari Quartet performed a 7 concert tour in China including concerts in Shanghai and Beijing and in November 2016, it toured Poland and Armenia.

The Molinari Quartet has commissioned Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s 7th and 12th quartets and has also premiered his 8th, 10th and 13th Quartets, written also for the Molinari. The Quartet has commissioned and premiered several works from Canadian composers such as Otto Joachim, Nicolas Gilbert, Michel Gonneville, Marc Hyland, Éric Champagne, Michael Matthews, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Pat Carrabre, John Rea, Denis Gougeon, Laurie Radford and Ana Sokolovic as well as giving North-American premieres of many works.

The Molinari Quartet is the only quartet to have all of R. Murray Schafer’s thirteen string quartets in its repertoire. Its recordings on the ATMA Classique label (complete quartets by Schafer, Schnittke, Kurtág, Gubaidulina) have received international critical acclaim including two Editors’ Choices by Gramophone magazine and rave revues from, among others, The Strad, Fanfare, Diapason, etc. Its recording of the complete Kurtág quartets has received a Diapason d’Or in December 2016 and the Echo Klassik award for 20th and 21st century chamber music in July 2017.

Launched in October 2001, the Molinari Quartet International Competition for Composition has had an enormous success. Over its six editions it has received over 850 new quartet scores from 69 countries.

Booklet for Glass: Complete String Quartets - String Quartets Nos. 5-7, Vol. 2