There’s nothing else quite like Águas da Amazônia in Philip Glass’s catalogue of works. Originally composed in 1993 as incidental music for a dance production by the Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo, the multi-movement suite – each one named after a river in the Amazon basin – is scored for a non-standard group comprising percussion, synthesiser and flute. While the instrumentation partly suggests Glass’s ensemble works of the 1970s and early 1980s, its use of marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel and more unusual-sounding percussion instruments sets it apart from what one might expect from the composer.

These unique qualities were already noted by Ivan Moody when he reviewed Uakti’s original recording (Philips, 7/02), where he observes that Águas da Amazônia ‘opens a new perspective on the composer’. Third Coast Percussion’s new recording injects further life and colour into this intriguing work. A change in the order of the movements imparts a more flowing character to Third Coast’s performance in general. At the same time, more timbral variety and contrast is applied within each movement. For example, effective contrasts between loud and soft passages keep the momentum going in ‘Xinghu River’, while rising and falling flute and percussion lines in ‘Tiquiê River’ – somewhat obscured by the large cathedral-organ-type keyboard sound in Uakti’s recording – move to the foreground of the mix. Third Coast also offer a far punchier take on ‘Negro River’, which clocks in at around a minute faster than Uakti’s more sluggish performance.

Nevertheless, the real revelation on this recording is flautist Constance Volk, whose extemporisations and improvisations – another unusual feature for Glass’s music – lift an already excellent recording to a new level. The second track on the album, ‘Purus River’, serves as an early indicator of what is to follow, the flute taking on a more obviously solo role. Volk’s flute-playing really takes off on ‘Japurá River’, however: breathy interjections, rapid flutter-tonguing and sweeping melodic shapes appear like vivid splashes of musical paint on the musical canvas. The flute’s ghostly whispering lines at the beginning of the final track on the album, ‘Madeira River, Part II’, burst into an ecstatically joyful melody at the end, emerging as if from the wellspring of nature herself. Worth exploring not only for Volk’s standout contributions but also for Third Coast Percussion’s focused performance, which does much to reveal Águas da Amazônia as a hidden gem in Glass’s output.

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