The two 1979 dances for organ that bracket Steffen Schleiermacher’s all-Philip Glass keyboard recital represent the composer’s signature arpeggio-driven style at its funkiest. Perhaps that has to do with Schleiermacher’s use of an electronic organ, where the bass notes have a percussive, distorted, garage-band sonority. As a result, the works gain rhythmic immediacy and probably will attract Glass’ pop music audience more than the altogether grander, more majestically sonorous pipe organ interpretations by Donald Joyce on Catalyst.
The Trilogy Sonata is cobbled together from Glass’ early operas. The Knee Play episode’s arpeggios cast a hypnotic effect via piano solo, and you’d never know that the original scoring is for male voices and violin. By contrast, the diverse textural strands marking Satyagraha’s conclusion lose a lot when shorn of their idiosyncratic orchestral color. I also think that Paul Barnes could have gone further with the Akhnaten dance by moving certain repetitions up and down the octave, notwithstanding the original orchestration’s admittedly dark patina (Glass’ string section doesn’t use violins). However you respond to this music, there’s no doubting the precision, clarity, and commitment Schleiermacher brings to Glass’ idiom.
