Philip Glass (b. 1937)
The Complete Piano Etudes
Vanessa Wagner (piano)
rec. 2025, Vincennes, Coeur de ville Auditorium, France
Reviewed as lossless download
InFiné IF1099 [132]

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the two Books of Etudes composed by Philip Glass have become the most recorded piano music (possibly any classical music) of the last half century. If anything else from that period, comprising twenty individual pieces and over two hours, has more than ten recordings (plus lots of part sets), I would be interested to know what it is.

The Glass Etudes have captivated me since I heard the partial set by Víkingur Ólafsson (review), so I was interested to see that in his review, Peter Bright felt that Vanessa Wagner’s versions had more in common with Ólafsson’s than other readings, specifically those by Maki Namekawa on Glass’s own label. Wagner is a French pianist whose teachers included Leon Fleisher and Murray Perahia. Her discography numbers around twenty recordings across a range of labels, but I don’t think any of them have been reviewed on MWI before my colleague Peter Bright wrote about this new release.

Glass’s original intention for the Etudes was to improve his own piano playing, but as the set developed, he decided to take them beyond his own “reach”. So the second Book in particular contains works of substantial complexity, some written for specific pianists. For those who are dubious about the music of Philip Glass, thinking it all sounds the same, but who have decided to read this review nevertheless, rest assured there is plenty of variation across the twenty. Certainly they are internally repetitive, but that is Glass after all.

If you don’t know these works at all, can I suggest you start, as I always do, with No. 6, a work of surging Romantic passions.  Ólafsson’s performance is simply staggering, and it says something about Vanessa Wagner’s that it wasn’t entirely dwarfed, though it did lack the final degree of overwhelming power in the massive climaxes. So an encouraging start.

Now I don’t intend to go through each of the other nineteen individually, because I would run out of adjectives too quickly. Let me simply pick a few out that will illustrate the virtues of the set.

With No. 1, there isn’t competition with Ólafsson. It is a work that brings to mind Glass’s glorious filmscore for The Hours, and Wagner imbues it with a strong poetic feel. Her version, at almost eight minutes, is more than twice as long as the composer’s, and significantly longer than the majority of other versions I know which are usually around five. It doesn’t sound a lot slower than the others, so perhaps she repeats a section (with Glass, it is a little hard to tell, even if I had had the score).

I didn’t think I’d write the sentence “this is actually better than the version by Víkingur Ólafsson” but for Etude 2, it is certainly the case. The piece has a huge dramatic arc, to which Wagner gives a fuller rein than Ólafsson or anyone else I’ve heard.

Number 5 is, to quote myself from an earlier review, “hypnotic (even for Glass), eerie and haunting”, and in a review earlier this year of the set by Máire Carroll, I praised her performance of it as one of the best of her set (Delphian – review). However, I think Wagner’s is even better, accentuating the hesitancy, and in doing so, getting close to Ólafsson.

Number 15 is full of Romantic passion and grandeur, and Wagner dives straight into the deep end of passion, whereas Ólafsson begins much more gently, and thus when the surges come, they are much more dramatic.

Number 18 is another that has a feel of The Hours, and it had another excellent performance by Máire Carroll, who plays up the Romantic longing a little more than Wagner, though neither gets close to Ólafsson. Number 20 is the second longest of the set (after Number 7), and is mostly meditative. She takes two minutes less than Ólafsson, who I feel dwells a little too much over it (there, I’ve said it again!).

To summarise, Wagner treats these works as music to be interpreted, not as training exercises to be simply played mechanically, or in at least one case (Horvath – Grand Piano) as fast as possible. She finds poetry and introspection, as well as passion and high emotions, and I have been very impressed.

The piano’s sound is relatively cool, not as rich as that produced for Ólafsson, but at no point does it become tiring, which some sets do. I suggest that is further credit for Wagner’s playing. With the download, there are no booklet notes, but from what Peter Bright said about the CD release, that is no great loss.

This is an exceptional recording, and it goes straight to the top of my list of the complete Etudes. Nothing will ever compare with Ólafsson’s recording, but at times, these come closer than anyone else I’ve heard.

David Barker

Previous review: Peter Bright (October 2025 Recording of the Month)

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