Philip Glass: Music for Film

Over the past decades Philip Glass has become a household name in contemporary music thanks to his prolific activity and output across many music genres, including operas, concertos, symphonies and music for theatre. He has also systematically sought out collaborations with musicians and artists from all over the world. Due to his highly idiosyncratic and distinctive style, the American composer has been considered one of the frontrunners of minimalism in music, even though he himself regards his work rather as music with repetitive structures, in a continual search to integrate harmony, melody and rhythm into a single musical expression. In 2025 he received the World Soundtrack Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the art of film music.

The double-CD contains selections from Glass’s most famous film scores, including his triptych of Oscar-nominated scores, namely Kundun, The Hours and Notes on a Scandal. His many scores for documentaries are also represented through his breakthrough score for Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, its second sequel Naqoyqatsi and a piece from Errol Morris’s The Fog of War, among other tracks. Further highlights include music from Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream, Neil Burger’s The Illusionist and Paul Schrader’s Mishima.

In addition, more than half an hour of music on this album has never been released: all premiering are the selections from Secret Window, Taking Lives, the 9/11 documentary Rebirth, the complete score for Hamburger Hill and a suite from No Reservations. Since Glass’s tracks used in The Truman Show were demos, this album also debuts recordings of two orchestral pieces written for the film. Two final treats are the original complete ending of the piano duet from Stoker and a new arrangement of “Helen’s Theme” from Candyman. This selection of previously unrecorded music, dug up from the composer's archive and put together in close collaboration with his artistic team, makes the album a true collector's item.