Philip Glass: Classic or Dud? Search and Destroy

Glass played the Roxy? On Sunset? Wild. What year?

music with changing parts is one of the dopest things ever made

xpost

So when do folks suggest this shift in his strategies begins?

I see Glassworks as the turning point. (More on this later.)

Glass played the Roxy? On Sunset? Wild. What year?

I think '82 or '83? It was right after Glassworks came out. It's a tiny stage, I've played it myself; the sound in that room when they got into the Einstein stuff was fucking amazing

I like the weird sort of New Brucknerism he's come to on things like Symphony No. 8. Yes, it's worlds away from Music in 12 or even Koyaanisqatsi but there's something about it. You can really bask in this shit.

pretty interested by this by the way. the last time I was paying any attention to Glass he hadn't written any symphonies at all, so I should really check this out.

should I take acid before I go see Einstein on the Beach? I am leaning toward yes.

xpost Sym 8 is def my fave so far, though I haven't heard every one of them. The first couple of them were the Bowie-Eno-derived ones.

The first couple of them were the Bowie-Eno-derived ones.

see and that is sort of where my inattention to Glass since The Photographer felt justified to me. I love Bowie & Eno, think they're great, but as sources for symphonies? That feels gimmicky in the worst please-pay-attention-to-us-we're-the-classical-world way: and I say this as a guy presently doing work in that same rock-meets-elsewhere world. But I don't know - I feel like there's a certain way of doing it (Kronos on Hendrix, I fear, which I feel guilty saying, but) where it's just kinda sad.

I know I know without actually having listened to them I'm just being a grouch, but it just looked like Glass's careerism at its worst. Can't begrudge a guy trying to get the loft paid off but still.

Total trainspotter Philip Glass question : in the credits to Koyaaniqatsi it says something like "additional music by Michael Hoenig", who I guess is the Agitation Free / Tangerine Dream guy. So does this mean Glass didn't actually write all the score? Something like this track doean't really sound like him, for the first couple of minutes at least :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o64zjJeXClw

The first couple of them were the Bowie-Eno-derived ones.

see and that is sort of where my inattention to Glass since The Photographer felt justified to me. I love Bowie & Eno, think they're great, but as sources for symphonies? That feels gimmicky in the worst please-pay-attention-to-us-we're-the-classical-world way: and I say this as a guy presently doing work in that same rock-meets-elsewhere world. But I don't know - I feel like there's a certain way of doing it (Kronos on Hendrix, I fear, which I feel guilty saying, but) where it's just kinda sad.

I know I know without actually having listened to them I'm just being a grouch, but it just looked like Glass's careerism at its worst. Can't begrudge a guy trying to get the loft paid off but still.

Oh i totally agree with you, it turned me off big time. But I think he's got to a more interesting 'nothing particular to prove' zone with his symphonies now and I really dig it. Do try #8.

There was a two month period in 1999 where I could listen to nothing but The Photographer

The Photographer is FAR and away my favorite thing he's ever done. it reminds me of Lindstrom for some reason.

In 92 I was a junior in high school and I took the photographer LP out from the library and taped it. I'd drive around town with my windows down totally blasting it. I don't love a lot of his stuff just before or since but definately have a soft spot for it.

Checked BAM for tickets today and can't tell if I missed them or the general tix aren't for sale yet. I know a guy touring as part of the tech crew so maybe he can help.

Just got tickets to Einstein on the Beach for Sat, Sept 22nd! :) Waaaaay back in the balcony, but I am so, so pumped to finally see this!

They just went on sale about 15 minutes ago for non-BAM members:

http://www.bam.org/einstein
http://commerce.bam.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=6637

It's so great, I'm sure you won't be disappointed. Matt#2 and I were so taken with it we're going to go see it again in Holland next year.

I'm going wed night. Balcony.

My seats are pretty fucking terrible for the small fortune that i'm paying for them

When i was considering whether or not I would last the full 5 hours (or my ass would) I tweeted Alex Ross to ask when would be a good time to bail for 5 mins (he had been tweeting about how great it was) he suggested somewhere in the middle of Night Train.

Philip Glass is coming to the Seattle area in October, but he's not performing Einstein On The Beach. Instead it's PG and Foday Musa Suso performing music from a soundtrack to “Powaqatsi” -- $65
*shrug*

I'd seen a handful of Glass-composed pieces performed here and there over the years, but seeing Glass w/ his band play for two solid hours outside near Battery Park earlier this summer was probably the most spellbinding thing I've seen this year. Wanted to run up to all the players and give them a big ol hug just for the physical / mental endurance it must take to pull off a lot of these pieces. To watch a performance of Act III from The Photographer, especially the vocal section, is just ... ugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOU0koRXNcU

Dan, you've been? What did you think?

I'm going in two weeks.

Good god, the Knee Plays -- I was in tears by the fourth one. Glass doesn't compose much else that's got this pre-Renaissance (polyphonic?) choral thing, does he? But more to the point, WHY DOES IT AFFECT ME SO?

i was re-listening to Music in Twelve Parts the other day, for the first time since seeing Einstein. am i correct in thinking that one of the Music in Twelve Parts songs was featured in Einstein (near the end)?

Everything Glass has done up to Einstein was a case study and all these things combined let to Einstein. So yes, there us Music in Twelve parts in there, and the several different 'a different look at harmony's' are in there, among other pieces.

This guy's got a bunch of surprisingly good quality audience videos from multiple stops on the 2012 Einstein tour.

(He's also got a bunch of Captain Beefheart TV appearances, the complete Live from the Met: Nixon in China film, and a terrible looking-and-sounding video boot of a complete Laurie Anderson show from 1986.)

Total trainspotter Philip Glass question : in the credits to Koyaaniqatsi it says something like "additional music by Michael Hoenig", who I guess is the Agitation Free / Tangerine Dream guy. So does this mean Glass didn't actually write all the score? Something like this track doean't really sound like him, for the first couple of minutes at least :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o64zjJeXClw&feature=plcp

― don't slip in mud (Matt #2), Thursday, July 19, 2012 1:41 PM (3 months ago)

You're right about the music in that YouTube clip. I found a playlist online from a 2004 performance by Michael Koenig which includes this:

- Koyaanisqatsi, Clouds & buildings, Michael Hoenig, Michael Hoenig, Gema
- Koyaanisqatsi, Slow people, Michael Hoenig, Michael Hoenig, Gema
- Koyaanisqatsi, Microchip, Michael Hoenig, Michael Hoenig, Gema

"Slow People" and "Microchip" are both drone pieces that bridge between segments of the film ("Clouds & Buildings" probably is too, but I'm not remembering the sequence off the top of my head). Hoenig was also credited as Music Supervisor for the film, and with Glass having composed a lot of the score while they were shooting rather than in post-production, I'm guessing Hoenig filled in a couple of gaps in the score once they got down to editing.

I saw Einstein at Berkeley Saturday night and it was AMAZING. there were many cool parts but my favorite was the opening - basically they just let Knee cycle for a while until the audience collectively (and without instruction as far as I could tell) quieted down and let things start. this was also my first time hearing Glass performed live so I was kind of knocked out by the sheer stamina on display by the musicians; this was four and a half of non-stop no-intermission painstakingly incremental action action action.

also I cannot imagine how mortifying it must be to be That Guy at the Philip Glass opera who has to use the bathroom midway through and force the whole row to get up & break the trance. or, god forbid, That Guy whose phone goes off.

I say use the bathroom during the Trial sequences.

XP - Yea, they did that in London too, it was lovely to come in and have the players cycling away already.

I had the same worries about coming and going but PG has said that it's fine to do so, I tweeted Alex Ross for his opinion on the best time to have a break and he said in the middle of Night Train, which I agree with.

no way...I think Night Train is the most beautiful segment musically...the least happens physically but its such a beautiful image/sound!

I agree with dan, the trial sequences seemed like the least essential part of the whole thing for me.

The part that really floored me was the Building section, with that phenomenal sax solo. Not at all what I expected to hear at a PG concert but it provided a welcome contrast to all those pounding arpeggios (which I also love, of course).

I just hope I get to see the whole production again sometime.

I hear that, knowing the chances of hearing it again, at least in PG's lifetime were slim I'm going to see it in Amsterdam early next year.

I wasnt as into the sax solo. I appreciate the improv nature of it, but the solo I'm used to from the 90s nonesuch recording was much more sustained/droney, whereas what I heard at Bam was a bit more "jazzy". Still great, but I preferred the 90s one.

I loved the jazzy nature of it! Added a whole extra dimension to the piece for me.

each new version has to switch things up a little, but the original 'Building' sax solo is the overt tip of the hat to Young & Riley post-Coltrane sheets-of-sound style minimalism, so it really stings when they mess with it. I nearly gave in to this guy's super-soulful bluesy solo as he built to the high note but when he didn't hit the high note and went for skronk, my patience ran out

I also initially fought the unusually saucy take on 'prematurely air-conditioned supermarket' during 'Trial/Prison', really vamping it up, but by the end I was completely won over, she made it hers

I struggled a bit while watching, as you do with something you've been listening to since freshman year of high school, but... what a piece this is, I now wish I had gone twice

let me rephrase that last post

oh my god you guys the faces the numbers the twirling I can't even believe it YAY

What do the Glass aficionados think of Beck's 20-minute piece interpolating a large number of Glass' works?

http://soundcloud.com/dunvagenmusic/nyc-73-78

if he did a 20 minute piece based on Charles Ives or Scott Joplin and put it out with his Glass & Harry Partch pieces, it'd be my favorite album of his since Mellow Gold

Ha! I had almost that exact thought--was thinking Reich or Riley, but Ives would be *perfect*. Yeah, it would be an incredible album. Going to by the "Reworked" thing, but I'd really rather have this piece on its own. Nothing else on there comes close to the grandeur, grace, or beauty of Beck's.

If I can rephrase my original post, is there something particularly liturgical (or even holy?!) about the music of the knee plays? The second the first one started, I was already beginning to get overwhelmed with emotion.

Also, any plans for a recording of the current tour?

Nothing else on there comes close to the grandeur, grace, or beauty of Beck's.

Yeah, agreed. The rest of the pieces are nice enough, but Beck's really wowed me.

Hm, this is pretty nice.

Question for those who saw the 2012 tour: Did the bed get a round of applause then it reached vertical? I saw it in 1984 and 1992, and the audience gave it a hand both times.

Philip Ass.