Philip Glass: King Lear

In 2019, Philip Glass composed incidental music for a Broadway production of Shakespeares King Lear, starring none other than Glenda Jackson in the title role. The music is for string quartet. His score has spawned an independent King Lear Overture (not the same as the two-minute Overture heard on this release), and now a recording of the entire work on the composers Orange Mountain Music label, with the various cuts put together into continuous music for his handpicked quartet. Glass is certainly to be commended for consistently broadening the stylistic range in his music, even into his 80s. This score mostly harks back to his earlier repetitive style, but there is a new wrinkle: the requirements of incidental music, with its shifting action on stage, precludes the use of Glass typically large-scale structures. He changes gears effectively with music that, though simple, evokes the action and characters of the play. Glass even tries his hand at a few Shakespeare songs, sung in a slightly punked-out style by Ruth Wilson as Cordelia. The only long-form piece is the penultimate Here Is My Pledge, beginning with that line by the Duke of Albany that begins the final terrible unraveling. Glass mood here is somber, and the music imparts a tragic calm to the carnage playing out on stage. Beautifully recorded, as usual, this is another strong work of Glass old age.