If you are a fan of modern classical composition, you are likely aware of the minimalist movement and composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Adams,and Philip Glass. Glass gained fame in the 70′s for his operatic work ‘Einstein on the Beach’, and has been heard in many films with Academy Award nominations for Kundun, The Hours, and Notes on a Scandal. His work is not nearly as avant-garde as Riley, nor as rhythmically challenging as Reich, nor as epic as Adams, instead offering a combination of stark soundscapes, touching melodies, and passionate movements.

This week I got a notice that Amazon had the Philip Glass “The Orange Mountain Music Philip Glass Sampler Vol.I” for FREE, and being a fan of his work but only having a small collection of his recordings, I immediately grabbed the MP3 download and loaded it on my iPod. For nearly a week I have been thrilled with the nice variety of textures, styles and tones in the 21 song collection.

If you are interested in checking out modern classical music that offers a deep listening experience without veering too far into the ‘out there’ world of the avant-garde, I strongly recommend checking this out – it IS free, after all!

Another interesting tidbit: while driving around this weekend, my older son commented that the Etude No. 2 sounded very much like something my younger son had been writing on my MIDI system, and during his weekly piano lesson my younger son actually reproduced the opening segments from memory and mentioned it to his teacher. Cool stuff!

Source: Amazon.com
Image courtesy of PhilipGlass.com