Visitors - Original Soundtrack

Great

Absolutely some of the most beautiful music you will ever hear from a motion picture - except Visitors is more of a work of art than a "motion picture."

Such a great score for an amazing film. Very perfectly combined and enjoyable. I highly recommend both for any visually minded folks.

I have been a huge fan of Philip Glass since the early 80s, have seen him live in performance many times, and am buying up many releases on his label, Orange Mountain Music, for which we are eternally grateful. I am continuing to discover older gems for the first time like "Days and Nights in Rocinha" and "Persephone"  From the Philip Glass Recording Archive, Vol. II: Orchestral Music  and newer masterpieces like  Glass: In the Penal Colony  and  Philip Glass : Les Enfants Terribles . But that doesn't mean everything including the kitchen sink should be released. I don't know what he was doing while writing "Visitors" (probably simultaneously working on six other scores), but it sounds like a bad parody of...Philip Glass. The music goes nowhere and lacks a single interesting passage. I'll try it out again a few more times in case I'm missing something, because I paid money for it, but I fear I'll have to consign it to my bad Philip Glass shelf, along with other uninspired creations such as  1000 Airplanes on the Roof  or  Philip Glass: Orion  (both plentifully available in your local secondhand CD shop).

glass at his best!!!!!

First off, I want to make it very clear that I am a huge Philip Glass fan. I have every one of his albums, love his work, and was greatly looking forward to hearing this composition. But was I disappointed! I didn't think it was possible for Philip Glass to write a truly bad piece of music, but I was mistaken. I guess even the great composers have an occasional 'off' day now & then, and this is clearly one of his clinkers. It's dreadfully dull, slow, seems to take forever to get going, and never seems to really come alive except for the briefest of moments midway through and even then not for very long. It basically sounds as though he phoned it in or began work on the piece, sketched out a few ideas for a day or two, then put it aside & said, "Ehh....this is good enough." (It's not, though...)I haven't seen the film for which this work is the score, so I can't comment upon that aspect of it, not knowing how well the music complements the visuals, etc. But listening to it from a strictly musical perspective, it falls far short from what one would expect from a composer clearly capable of so much more. Glass fans who particularly enjoy his film-scores are advised to look elsewhere & give this one a miss.

I haven't heard the 10th Symphony, but I know the 8th and 9th very well, and also some of the early ones. This music is much simpler than any of them. It sounds fine (although it's recorded soundtrack-style, with tremendous studio resonance and booming percussion, rather than classical-style) but listeners hoping for textures as rich as the symphonies, or forms as interesting, will be disappointed.

We were fortunate to attend the world premiere of this film at the Toronto Film Festival, with a live performance by members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Not only is this a remarkable and perfectly fitting soundtrack for Reggio's most daring and experimental film to date, it contains some of Glass's finest orchestral writing and could easily be classified, in performances and recordings without moving images, as a programmatic symphony in the tradition of Berlioz.

The language of this is more like his Low Symphony than the quatsi trilogy with which he also collaborated Reggio. The opening reminded me of Philip Glass does Beethoven 9, hmm I thought this could be interesting. Turns out it wasn't. This is Glass at his blandest. It may also seem trivial, but I was very disappointed with the packaging, not even a proper CD case. Doesn't even give a track list. Other CDs of his have a full track list and lots of photos from the film/play/opera or other project he worked on. This has none of that, no blurb on how the film was conceived and evolved, all in all very disappointing and poor value for money

No issueNot the best GlassDon't dissociate the music from the movie

5 étoiles pour la musique : du pur Glass, mais sans aucune agressivité, avec de magnifiques mélodies qui naissent tout en douceur et avec la progressivité du style si particulier du compositeur. 6 plages musicales, 77 minutes et jamais ennuyeux.Quant à l'interprétation, c'est celle, habituelle, de Denis Russel Davies et du Bruckner Orchester Linz. Propre, certes, mais jamais parfaite : quelques (rares) démarrages décalés des violons, des longues notes maintenues tant bien que mal, des montées en puissance de l'orchestre qui manque un peu de finesse (plage 2 vers 8'), et, enfin, une prise de son qui exagère inutilement les graves... Mais c'est un peu (trop) le lot des enregistrements de Glass qui travaille avec les mêmes musiciens (chef d'orchestre), et producteurs depuis toujours... Hélas, pas d'autres choix... Dommage.

Glass fans shouldn't be disappointed with this film soundtrack CD. It stands alone as a nice piece of music, unlike some soundtracks which only work when you're watching the film. It's instantly recognisable as Glass music, but is predominantly tonal and melodic, rather than rhythmic and minimalist. So it should have wider appeal...

Access the website and explore the faces without the music, and that is the atmosphere created by this rather beautiful composition.Strange how time can shape a composer to write on one hand 'Music in Twelve Parts' and then this.