From The Music Of David Bowie & Brian Eno ‎– "Low" Symphony
by Philip Glass

From MadhattanJack 12/22/2025 22:35 | #312264

As good as this is from a purely musical standpoint, the problem with saying it's "based on" three tracks from "Low" is that listeners are probably expecting the three movements to have more than just superficial similarities to those three tracks (like the keys they're played in), they're probably expecting the elegiac tone and the vague sense of mystery they had to be preserved. But there's no effort to do that here whatsoever. It's as if George Gershwin listened to "Low" a couple of times and said, "hey, let's spruce these up!" and then just went off and did his own thing with them. So it isn't really a proper gateway into Bowie's Berlin Trilogy for classical fans either, because when those folks hear "Low" after hearing this, they'll just think it's meandering, depressing, and boring. As it is, this album is a great choice for anyone who's looking for high-quality background music, something that doesn't try to blow you away with pounding percussion and dynamics but also doesn't try to put you to sleep. I like it, but for Bowie and Eno fans, it's really just a curiosity at best.