Philip Glass isn't the kind of composer to be daunted by the traditional curse of writing a ninth symphony. In fact, he has already completed a 10th, which will be premiered in August. Even so, Glass's whole symphonic output seems to have accumulated almost by stealth, and has never attracted the kind of attention focused on his operas and film scores. Some of the earlier symphonies have had vocal elements; others have followed an extra-musical programme or narrative, but like the Second, Third and Seventh, the Ninth, first performed in Linz in January this year, is an abstract piece in three movements that lasts around 50 minutes. The fact that the work begins in D minor, like Beethoven's and Bruckner's Ninths, suggests Glass was not entirely unaware of the tradition he was continuing, though his idea of symphonic dialectic is, of course, worlds away from theirs and the subsequent movements – the hypnotically drifting, beautiful second, and the more urgent, slightly troubled third – are in A and E respectively. If the music occasionally hangs fire, its craftsmanship, as ever with Glass, is exemplary, and this performance under Dennis Russell Davies, who has commissioned eight out of the nine Glass symphonies so far, is authoritative.