1. Knee Play 1
2. Act 1. Scene 1 - Train
3. Act 1. Scene 2 - Trial
4. Knee Play 2
5. Act 2. Scene 1 - Dance 1
6. Act 2. Scene 2 - Night Train
7. Knee Play 3
8. Act 3. Scene 1 - Trial / Prison
9. Act 3. Scene 2 - Dance 2
10. Einstein on the Beach/Knee Play 4 - Philip Glass, Glass, Philip
11. Knee Play 4
12. Act 4. Scene 1 - Building
13. Act 4. Scene 2 - Bed
14. Act 4. Scene 3 - Spaceship
15. Knee Play 5
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Einstein on the Beach
- Audio CD: 0 pages (1993-01-21)
- Publisher: Sony Bmg Europe
- Label: Sony Bmg Europe
- Format: Box set, Import
- Studio: Sony Bmg Europe
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 4 reviews
- Sales Rank in Music: #22028
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Stark and Poignant Masterpiece 2008-11-11
Comment: "Einstein on the Beach" is an epic work: long, challenging, and important. Thanks to Amazon.com and Phillip Glass' own Web site, one can hear sonic excerpts from the composition. In this case, however, the excerpts are somewhat misleading because each track is less about the sound itself and more about the accumulating weight of that sound as it is multiplied by the time that elapses as each movement unfolds and as the complete work is experienced.
Even so, I doubt this is the sort of work many will sit still for and fully attend to in some sort of marathon audition. Rather, it is a sonic "stream of consciousness" that will likely pass in and out of one's awareness as it progresses...something felt as much as heard.
What does it feel like? The answer to this question requires the price of admission, which is not trivial. But once admitted, one would do well to go all the way inside with high quality headphones. In the context of complete silence, the stark poignancy of the music can entwine itself with one's thoughts...coloring them with a haunting sense of the eternal that is simultaneously wonderful and wistful, hopeful and sad. If one is a knowledge worker and uses headphones to facilitate concentration in an office environment, the sonic landscape of "Einstein on the Beach" and the emotions it engenders can have a profound and positive impact on the work one is undertaking. This is awesome and potentially transformational stuff. This said, beware the format.
As an unabashed audiophile, I normally purchase music in CD or SACD format. While the MP3 version of "Einstein on the Beach" was shipped instantly, it was RIPed at a fixed rate of 256 KBPS. I would have preferred either variable bit rate or a fixed rate of 320 KBPS. As it is, the high end is a bit strident and the mix lacks "space" in comparison to even a low-end CD. The five stars are for the composition, not the format.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Tommyknocker of our soul 2007-09-29
Comment: In this opera Philip Glass pushes the two heritages he is using and referring to to an extreme that leads his music beyond classification, hence projects it into pure creativity. He uses the Ravel's Bolero genre or form so far and so amplified that we reach a totally hypnotic state. With very few notes, with extremely reduced musical phrases, with very few syllables and very short texts he builds many pieces that are rotating and spinning around repetitive nodal points in such an intricate manner that we just dive into them and enjoy the flow and flux, the ebb and reflux of the music. The second heritage is that of amplified music, is that of black rhythmic multiplicity. But instead of two rhythmic lines like in jazz or vodun, he plays on a lot more that are superimposed, intertwined or even crisscrossed or merged into an ever changing continuity, the many-faceted and eddied running water of a mountain brook or a major river when it is at its highest level. There too we have to keep still and quiet and silent in our nutshell of a boat and let it go down the current without any resistance or attempt at diverting it. We are at the mercy of these rhythmic lines that are emphasized and multiplied and amplified by the harmony of the notes behind into some rhythmic harmony. An absolute miracle. An absolute wonder. An absolute transfiguration. The joining of these two traditions and their development produces a music that reflects our modern world which is made of a constant and accelerating flow of sounds, information, communication, noise, messages. It is the world of absolute post-modernism where nothing is stable except in its very instability, nothing is permanent except in its very impermanence. There is no more perspective and depth. Movement is our very perambulating nature proceeding through a world of sounds that wraps us up in a blanket of warm wool that is homogeneous in texture and ever varied ever varying in its many threads and woven yarns. And that is the meaning of the title. Einstein opened the door to this world with his theory of relativity that ushered us into both the cosmos and modern physics. The beach is that vast expanse of infinite small grains of sand, each one being different from all the others and yet all of them being just of one essence. Glass reaches the relativity of the cosmos and the uniformity of the essence of sand, or if your prefer the relativity of sand grains on a beach and the uniformity of cosmic emptiness.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Unusually brilliant................ 2007-09-14
Comment: This is a bizarre and relentless opera-as the surreal title implies, more dream than drama. Where the earlier recording had an abrasive edge, this new one is more refined, melding the different elements, electronic alongside acoustic, more subtly and persuasively than before. Even so, the first train episode, over 20 minutes long, remains mind-blowing in its relentlessness. The impact is heightened by the vividness of the recording, with spoken voices in particular given such presence that they startled me as if someone had burst into my room. The vision remains an odd one, but with a formidable group of vocalists and instrumentalists brilliantly directed, often from the keyboard, by Michael Riesman, the new recording certainly justifies itself.
36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Original 1976 recording reissued 2006-08-06
Comment: This is a budget-priced reissue of the original CBS Records Masterworks release, which contains the original booklet with libretto and copious liner notes. The only differences are the cover artwork and price. Definitely a complete and utter steal! If you're at all curious about Einstein on the Beach, this is a must purchase.
4-CD set packaged in jewel case with slip cover.
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