Read on to discover more about the popular – and playable – Philip Glass Piano Etudes…
Philip Glass – the composer
Now 87, Philip Glass continues to add to a body of work he began in earnest in the early 1960s. After his initial education in the US, he travelled in 1964 to Paris to study under Nadia Boulanger, a period in which he felt himself increasingly moving away from modernism.
And then, encountering the minimalist work of Steve Reich at a concert in New York further inspired the development of his own now-distinctive style, with its mesmerically repeated phrases and tonal harmonies. One of the most influential composers of the last 50 years, his output has covered everything from solo piano works to operas.
Glass Piano Etudes – a work for amateurs and professionals
He has written dozens of operas, symphonies, concertos and film scores, but Philip Glass says, ‘If I’m to be remembered for anything, it will be for the piano music, because people can play it’. And it’s true that his piano works, in particular the Etudes, have become some of his most popular pieces with both amateur and professionals alike.
The virtuoso Yuja Wang often plays the Sixth Etude as a recital encore; Víkingur Ólafsson recorded Glass for Deutsche Grammophon with the same reverence he brought to his JS Bach. Over the past 12 years, since the Etudes were completed, there have been over a dozen complete recordings, while many more musicians, including Glass himself, have recorded one of the books or a personal selection.
Glass Piano Etudes – improving technique and stamina
As the title suggests, the Etudes had an educational purpose – to begin with, at least. A performer with his own busy live performance schedule, Glass wanted to improve his piano technique. Like so many other pianists, he dug out a copy of Charles-Louis Hanon’s The Virtuoso Pianist in Sixty Exercises and got to work at the keyboard.
But you can’t keep a good composer down, and it was perhaps inevitable that Glass would end up creating his own exercises for a workout. The idea snowballed and went public; the conductor-pianist Dennis Russell Davies commissioned six of the Etudes for his 50th birthday in 1994 – and the first ten, which became Book 1, were dedicated to both him and to production designer Achim Freyer.
For any pianist who has ever flexed their fingers playing Hanon studies, their influence is not hard to detect in Book 1. There are even hints of Dohnányi’s uniquely painful (but effective) Essential Finger Exercises in the repetition of patterns and chords. Glass said he wanted to ‘explore a variety of tempi, textures and piano techniques’. Luckily, his minimalist style, with its repeated blocks and looping ideas, offers any pianist a good chance to build stamina and perfect an even touch. Different technical aspects are challenged: the strength of the right hand’s fourth and fifth fingers in No. 3; the evenness of the left hand in No. 4; trills in No. 7. The Sixth Etude demands the player to repeat the same note over and over, turning it into a haunting melody.
Conjuring the right mood…
Even with the strong didactic focus of Book 1, and even within the parameters of his trademark minimalism, conjuring a mood is all important. Like the many composers who have written Etudes before him – think Hélène de Montgeroult, Chopin, Debussy – Glass turns exercise into an artform. In Book 1, that means the pianist needs to draw out the character of the angsty triplets of No. 1, find the dreamy off-kilter lilt of No. 2 and lean into the sober quality of No. 5. (Any fans of the TV series Succession may wonder if Nicholas Britell is paying homage to Glass’s Eighth Etude in his brilliant score.) For Glass, the experience of playing Book 1 paid off. ‘I learned a great deal about the piano,’ he wrote, ‘and in the course of learning the music, I became a better player.’
Glass Piano Etudes – the second volume
That wasn’t the end of the story. After a break to work on other music, Glass returned to his Etudes. By 2012, he had added a second book with another ten pieces, bringing the complete set to 20. And the focus had shifted. ‘I found the music was following a new path,’ he explained. ‘The music in Book 2 quickly began to suggest a series of new adventures in harmony and structure.’ Right from No. 11, with its resonant bass notes and fortissimo climaxes, the ambition feels bigger, the canvas larger. There’s a sense Glass is flexing his compositional muscles as well as strengthening his fingers.
Even though they have become popular, the Etudes were personal, private pieces at first. His tour manager Linda Brumbach recalled, in an interview with Classical Music magazine, that Glass would ‘retreat into his dressing room, into his very quiet place, and compose… they became an extraordinary body of work, but they were meant only to be played by Philip’.
Yet the composer must have sensed they’d have a wide audience, because in 2014 the complete set was published. ‘We then started touring the Etudes all over the world, bringing people in to play them from the jazz and pop worlds as well as classical musicians,’ said Brumbach. ‘Philip just adored building this community around these pieces.’
Glass Piano Etudes – inspiring artists far and wide
The first complete public performance of them took place in 2014 – and although it’s quite a feat to play all 20 Etudes in one swoop, there have been other performances since, sometimes with multiple players. Just last year, a lavish new edition was published, including a volume of essays in which artists from a variety of genres paid tribute to Glass’s music, including film director Martin Scorsese, performance artist Laurie Anderson and world champion figure-skater Nathan Chen. Other musicians have borrowed them for their instruments too: for percussion, steel drums, and in a beautiful version by Lavinia Meijer for harp. Pieces that started out as piano exercises have inspired artists far and wide.
Glass Piano Etudes – the best recording
Anton Batagov (piano), Orange Mountain Music OMM0120
When whittling down this list, one of the hardest aspects was finding a set that was consistently good throughout, in which the pianist’s approach could encompass the demands of all 20 pieces.
One recording that balances all these elements is by Anton Batagov, captured live in 2017 in a concert in Moscow’s Svetlanov Hall on a Steinway piano. Until the applause at the end of the CD, there’s no hint of an audience, but perhaps there is that spontaneity and spark that can come from recording a live event.
What’s hard to miss is Batagov’s poetic view of the music, which brings out the softer edges in comparison to some other recordings. He brings out details that others don’t, too. There’s a spring-in-the-step of No. 3 that eludes others, for instance, while the inner lines and sculpted melodies of No. 1 shift to the fore, and No. 7’s plaintive refrain feels more profound than elsewhere.
‘When you play it, it sounds so Russian,’ Glass himself told Batagov, so the story goes. Batagov’s reply? ‘But it is Russian.’ Perhaps his view explains his penchant for rubato, not heard to this extent in any other recordings, but never self-indulgent or unwarranted musically.
There are other rewards too, particularly in the variety of tone and colour he conjures across the whole compass of the keyboard, where often other players opt for a one-size-fits-all palette. And, if you’re listening to all 20 in one go, by the time we reach the elusive No. 20, there’s a true sense of having travelled on a transformative journey.
Philip Glass Piano Etudes – three other great recordings…
Maki Namekawa (piano), (Orange Mountain Music OMM0098)
Made in 2014, when the complete Etudes were hot off the press, this studio album features the first recording of Book 2 alongside a complete Book 1. Maki Namekawa is a wonderful, crisp guide to these pieces. Her approach is less poetic than Anton Batagov’s, and always closely focused on the musical patterns – so if a more analytical approach is to your liking, this is an album to go for.
Víkingur Ólafsson (piano), (Deutsche Grammophon 94796918)
Completists may want to look away now – recorded in 2016, this album only features 13 of the 20 Etudes. However, it is so brilliant that it is impossible not to include here. Víkingur Ólafsson finds a subtle beauty in each Etude, treating them with reverence and care. The Second Etude floats in with perfect serenity, the Sixth bristles with urgency, while the 20th is like a dream haunted by a half-remembered Chopin nocturne. Plus the album includes several arrangements with Ólafsson’s fellow Icelanders, the Siggi String Quartet.
Jeroen van Veen (piano), (Brilliant Classics 95563)
This recording was released in 2017 on a budget label, Brilliant Classics, but there’s nothing cheap about Jeroen van Veen’s performance. The Dutch pianist is a specialist in minimalist music, and there’s an air of authority about his album. It is recorded in a rather resonant acoustic, on a bright piano, but there’s a lovely clarity to everything. Van Veen is relaxed and straightforward, sounding very much on his home ground, though perhaps doesn’t push to find the imaginative insights of, say, Ólafsson. But it’s still a great place to start with the Etudes.
And one to avoid…
We’ll make no judgement here that an amateur pianist is tackling Glass, or even that this appears to be a vanity recording. But for the prospective buyer looking to add the complete Etudes to their library, it is worth flagging that, with wrong notes making a regular appearance, Nicholas Teague’s recording of 2020 – available on major streaming sites – sounds more like a faltering sight-reading session than a serious attempt at mastering the technical and musical challenges posed by these works.