With Figures of Glass (Piano Etudes – Edits), Vanessa Wagner offers a renewed listening perspective on Philip Glass’s Piano Etudes, shaping a curated selection of edited versions drawn from her acclaimed recording of the complete cycle. These edits do not alter the substance of the works; rather, they refine the perception of time, revealing the emotional force of the music with renewed clarity.
Conceived in parallel with Figures of Glass, a hybrid project developed as a duo by Vanessa Wagner and Collectif Scale, the release extends a dialogue between piano and light, sound and space. At the heart of a scenographic installation, Vanessa Wagner interprets Glass’s Etudes by exploring the visual imagination embedded…
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Philip Glass came late to serious piano study. Though he played from the age of seven on, it was really only as a student at Juilliard where he began to apply the kind of sustained effort that a professional career demanded. Even so, he was at a disadvantage in comparison to the child prodigies and wunderkinds who had been playing the concert circuit since grade school.
He wrote the first ten Études as a way to increase his skill, focusing each on an area where he felt he needed practice. As such, the Études were rarely performed in public or by anyone not named Philip Glass until fairly late in the composer’s career. A complete recorded set of the Études was not available until 2014. Since then a number of pianists have recorded the material:…