Violin Concerto: II - Philip Glass

       Philip Morris Glass is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.   He was born in Maryland in 1937 and his interest in music started when he was a child and he played in his father's record store. He grew up studying music in different places with different people, and has since continued to have a very broad career. This is the second movement of his first major orchestral concerto, which he wrote in 1987 for violinist Paul Zukofsky. Glass was known for composing music for opera, film, and dance, and when transferring to this more ordinary genre he wanted to structure it in common terms: three movements as most concertos, and for a conventional sized orchestra. The second movement is my favorite because of the different moods and connotations in the different levels of instruments: the base is full of suspense, yet the lead violin is empowered by melancholy, and the way these two feelings grow together and integrate throughout the movement is both perfect and sensual.