Les Enfants Terribles

Glass' harmonies and patterns gain added strength and freshness played on multiple pianos with their combined sense of attack and percussive intensity, and avails himself of more pointed harmonic language here than is his usual wont. While Glass doesn't make a big noise about his time of study with Darius Milhaud (no one who did so does), his approach to the vocal writing in Les enfants Terribles is not dissimilar to Milhaud, side-stepping conventional melodic turns and tone painting to imbue Cocteau's French with a sort of harmonized speech. The total package grabs one's attention right away, and holds it throughout both of the discs in the set -- one is eager to move from the first to the second. This highly personal and well-realized work was recorded at about the time Elektra Nonesuch was putting out practically every note of music that Glass wrote. Perhaps the group decided to pass on this project; now the recording is nearly a decade old, and Glass has decidedly moved on to other things. Nonetheless, Nonesuch's loss is Orange Mountain Music's gain, and ours as well, as Les enfants Terribles is well worth going out of one's way to get. To those who think Glass lost his edge many years ago, take note. -Review by Uncle Dave Lewis