Orange Mountain Music is proud to present the new album DODECAGON, a reimagining of a classic album from a quarter-century ago by Italian pianist Arturo Stalteri. In the late-1990s, Stalteri was a pioneer in interpretations and arrangements of Philip Glass’s piano music. His album, Circles, became one of the early classics of the Glass piano repertoire. When approached by OMM about an anniversary re-release of Circles, Stalteri responded with the idea to re-record, re-interpret, and re-imagine these Glass works which had existed in his music being for over 25 years.

The result is DODECAGON. The title is drawn from the name of a shape with twelve sides – corresponding to the twelve tracks on the album. Stalteri opens with “Opening” from Glassworks. Rather than a straightforward reading, his 90-second version remixes the sound of the piano creating an impression of the piece, rather than just another straightforward reading. The pianist then proceeds directly into two movements from Glass’s Metamorphosis piano-cycle. From that brooding beginning we take a right turn into Glass at his most upbeat and positive with the composer’s first film score North Star from 1977, deftly reworked in the recording studio in an arrangement for two pianos by Stalteri. The pianist/producer gives the impression that what is background is actually foreground, and what is distant is nearby.

In a leap forward in time, Stalteri touches on Glass of the 1990s with his Etude no.8 from 1994 before heading back to 15 years before, when Glass’s most austere and powerful structures began to have a Romantic glow in works such as Mad Rush (1978) and the finale from his opera Satyagraha (1980). The album comes to a satisfying conclusion with Stalteri’s extremely dramatic rendition of Closing from Glassworks.