OMM – a descent into the maelstrom

orange mountain music brings older philip glass music. i didn’t know that beforehand –i’m the kind of guy that doesn’t read manuals either. while listening to a descent into the maelstrom i kept thinking this would have been been great music in the eighties. and how it seemed like the album could have been entitled glass meets vangelis. or how it came that all of a sudden glass was influenced by wim mertens. and why we had yet another variation of the same theme.

coming home, i finally read the text from the booklet

In 1986 Mr. Glass was commissioned by the Australian Dance Theatre to create and bring a piece to the Adelaide Festival of Arts in Adelaide, Australia. he chose to write a piece based on the Edgar Allan Poe short story “A Descent into the MaelstrÀÜm” and invited his collaborators to participate.

so there you have it, for once my intuition was right.

This compelling piece of music premiered in March, 1986 at the Adelaide Festival of Arts and was only performed by the Philip Glass Ensemble during the week of the festival in Australia. Consequently, it has had very little exposure to Philip Glass’ audience, although there have been bootleg recordings available on the internet.

even though no official recording of a descent into the maelstrÀÜm wasn’t made available we’ve been exposed to the melody numerous times. i have to say that i particularly like this version, in spite (?) of its distinct eighties sound.