Bruce Brubaker is an exceptional pianist who, like Stephen Edwards in my previous post, is also recording piano arrangements of works you wouldn’t normally associate with solo piano playing.
Brubaker has recorded several albums that include solo piano arrangements of pieces from the operas of Philip Glass.
The most moving (and my favorite) is the recording of Satyagraha: Act 3, Conclusion from Glass’s opera Satyagraha about the life of Mahatma Gandhi during his stay in South Africa . This arrangement works incredibly well as a piano piece and Brubacker’s recording of it is sublime. The recording is on Glass Cage recorded in 2000 for Arabesque Recordings.
Other Glass opera works recorded by Brubaker include Knee Play No. 5 from Glass’s seminal Einstein on the Beach. This is the main theme from this 6-hour plus opera. The recording is from Brubaker’s 2007 release on Arabesque entitled Hope Street Tunnel Blues.
Brubaker has also recorded piano arrangements from John Adams’ 1987 opera Nixon In China. His arrangement of Pat’s Aria is on the 2003 album “Inner City” also on Arabesque. Nixon in China is explores the truths beyond the headlines surrounding President Nixon’s historic 1972 encounter with Mao and Communist China.
You can find all of these recordings on Amazon.com. If you have an emusic.com account, I believe most of these albums can be found there as well.
Minimalist opera as solo piano music? – turns out, in the hands of the very capable Bruce Brubaker, it works exceptionally well.
Classical Music as Film Soundtrack 