This is a strange record­ing. What­ever one thinks of Glass’ music, it has an under­ly­ing, almost phys­i­cal, energy that comes out clearly in every live per­for­mance I’ve wit­nessed or heard in record­ing. And the com­bi­na­tion of one of the lead­ing new music ensem­bles, Michael Ries­man and the friendly con­fines of Le Pois­son Rouge, should be cre­atively combustible.

But instead, Glass­works is exceed­ingly cool. The pace is mea­sured, but that’s not a prob­lem, it’s that the play­ing has a pro­foundly objec­tive qual­ity to it, the musi­cians seem­ing to recede from the stage to let the music take over. But they are still respon­si­ble for mak­ing the notes and the sounds, and so the sub­dued feel­ing is odd. “Facades” has an inher­ently glacial beauty, but their is an intense focus to the music as well and that is miss­ing, and the glacial qual­ity extends to the rest of the piece. It’s very beau­ti­ful son­i­cally, but may leave some feel­ing of distance.

That being said, the per­for­mance of Music in Sim­i­lar Motion is excel­lent and has a direct feel and pur­pose to it. This is one of Glass’ great works, and is both lit­tle know and too-little recorded. The CD is worth it for that piece alone, depend­ing on how you feel about money.