Philip Glass: Classic or Dud? Search and Destroy

I've just flicked through the book so far, main revelation is that he once picked up Salvador Dali when working as a cab driver.

"I've just flicked through the book so far, main revelation is that he once picked up Salvador Dali when working as a cab driver."

I wonder who was in the glove box

The book is great. Really chatty, interesting and full of insights. Definitely a memoir rather than a full-blown autobiography and very selective as to what he puts in and what he leaves out. But I love the stuff about him being a working musician who very quickly got to grips with the economics of survival in 1970s New York, not just with his day jobs but through touring with his ensemble, playing his own music just like a rock band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUu6U7m_2IU

And incase anybody missed it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuVOBmWC0RU

anyone ever seen Akhnaten performed live? I just pulled the trigger on a ticket to see it in late November since seeing Einstein was a transformative event in my music-seeing life and I've owned and loved the LP set for years, but I have no idea what kind of experience to expect.

Yeah I saw it in London earlier this year, the same production as the one you'll see in LA. Should have posted about it at the time, it was totally spectacular and wonderful. And the jugglers!

holy wow, Akhnaten was stupid great; I may have liked it more than Einstein. the juggling was indeed jaw-dropping but the coolest bit to me was the alligator people (possibly because I was sitting in the upper balcony looking down, which was probably the optimal perspective). I really regret only going once.

Should be noted that his score for the recent The Crucible Bway revival was amazing and made me wish more plays had that kind of constant background scoring.

So the score for Glass' Music In Eight Parts (1970) sold at Christie's recently, it was never recorded and was abandoned by Glass pretty much at once as he moved on to different systems of working that resulted in Music In Twelve Parts, it remained unseen until Christie's put scans of it up on their website for the auction and this (slightly crude) rendering has just appeared on Youtube.

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

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Books-Manuscripts/glass-phillip-autograph-music-manuscript-signed-6098304-details.aspx?lid=1&from=relatedlot&intobjectid=6098304

https://www.medici.tv/en/concerts/philip-glass-ensemble-music-changing-parts/

"Music with changing parts" (1970) from Carnegie Hall last Friday. Available to watch until May 17.

Off to see Satyagraha at the ENO next week.

I saw that last weekend, I wasn't sure if three hours of Glass would work for me but both visually and musically it's never less than transfixing.

This is probably a long shot but does someone out there have a rip of the Virgin Records 'Music In Twelve Parts' that I could have?

I think it's just the first couple of parts that actually are on the rekkid.

Seconded. I only have the re-recording and have always wanted to hear the original. It’s definitely been on CD but not in print these days

Einstein touring Europe from Nov and into 2019, in a somewhat compressed format with no staging and Suzanne Vega reciting -

https://www.ictus.be/einstein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c_UksiIbC0

Saw him play solo a week ago and debut a new piece made for the Third Coast Percussion Ensemble (recording coming out in a few months).

During the onstage Q&A, he talked about how playing in and composing for his high-school marching band had a big effect on his work.

XXP to myself and Jon - this went up on youtube today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKJ_5m8TasM

first two parts of 12 parts are some of my favorite pieces of music ever.

damn i'm too late - removed by user.

But... there is a (complete for the time? About 2CD length) live 1981 performance out there which I downloaded and am listening to now and though the sound quality is definitely a B it slays

hella cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2WsCpkLUqM

Anthony Roth Costanzo, "Liquid Days", dancer Ron "Myles Yachts" Myles

another cool glass piece from NPR's 100 eoy tracks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmEpJh9u_0w

So nice.

I love some of his early '70s stuff - Music with Changing Parts, Music in 12 Parts, etc. - but I'm beginning to think he's largely full of shit.

In what sense?

In that his stuff isn't really that interesting, mostly coasting on pretty simple ideas, and that he doesn't seem particularly interested in challenging himself or his listeners. I don't know, maybe I'm not qualified enough to say.

Freelance reviewer Joe Banno liked Glass' latest effort live:

Philip Glass continues to intrigue. Glass’s Symphony No. 12 — which received its world-premiere performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Thursday — possesses all of the composer’s trademark noodling arpeggios, hiccupping syncopations and hieratic brass fanfares. But the symphony form has always inspired Glass to transcend these minimalist formulas and find thrilling worlds of orchestral (and, as here, vocal) color.

With its prominent organ part — the Disney Hall pipe organ sounding splendid in James McVinnie’s hands — the work’s scoring suggests the sound of the 1970s-era Philip Glass Ensemble blown up into a full-scale French organ concerto: part rollicking fairground calliope, part Grand Guignol spectacle. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, which commissioned the piece, was conducted with dedicated warmth by John Adams and played this work as if the musicians had known it all their lives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/philip-glass-continues-to-intrigue-with-world-premiere-of-his-thrilling-twelfth-symphony/2019/01/12/23c5082c-167d-11e9-90a8-136fa44b80ba_story.html?utm_term=.98c1afd8ca50

Symphony No. 12 is Glass’s third symphony based on material from David Bowie and Brian Eno’s “Berlin Trilogy” of albums. But unlike the purely orchestral “Low” and “Heroes” symphonies, based on Bowie’s melodies, Glass resets Bowie’s elusive, stream-of-consciousness lyrics from the “Lodger” album to music of his own devising, in something akin to a symphonic song cycle. Glass’s lyric setting has often felt straitjacketed by attempts to wedge words into his repetitive musical patterns. In Symphony No. 12, Glass creates a freer, more expressive singing line and, rather than employing an operatic soloist as usual, has given the vocal part to West African pop star Angélique Kidjo.

Those are fair criticisms imo, Josh. I'm not even sure if he would claim that he has wanted to challenge himself or his listeners in decades.

He's a solid songwriter and has a knack for pathos-laden melodies. Whether that's enough is debatable, but I happen to like it every now and then.

I must admit, I've never really thought of Glass as a songwriter, Songs from Liquid Days (a comparatively minor work) apart. As for simple ideas, I would say that Akhnaten and Satyagraha are as multi-faceted as 20th century opera gets, and aren't exactly unchallenging given that they are sung in (mostly) ancient Egyptian and Sanskrit respectively.

Those are from 1979 and 1983. He definitely did challenging things back then but I think he has been largely coasting for a long time at this point, which, OK, can work at times.

Sorry, I should have specified that I was thinking of his output from the 1980s and beyond. His Bowie symphonies also reflect this more song-oriented approach (very broadly speaking, of course – it's the melodies that strike me as systematically songful in his later years) or his fifth string quartet, which I very much enjoy. It's just a hunch, though.

Funny, I think it was hearing about a return to the Bowie/Eno stuff that set me off, more or less. The first time he did it it really felt like piggybacking on their names (iirc, they were even on the album cover with him). Then I thought, more of that? Do we need that? I guess he's been pretty busy, but I've not really encountered much of his stuff that was anything more than pleasant. As opposed to his erstwhile rival Steve Reich, whose stuff has imo always been edgier and more challenging. But again, I'm not going to pretend to be qualified, there's a lot of music that I've missed. Most of it, probably. I don't know, Philip Glass always reminded me of someone like Salman Rushdie, rightly lauded early on but then kind of coasting once he crossed over to the broader pop culture.

I agree he has not been surprising in a long time but I think he just has this zone he carved out which he now inhabits and which gives him pleasure to inhabit and which frequently gives me pleasure, sometimes deeply so, to hear, and I don’t nec need it to be on him to be the guy pushing the front of the wedge at this point. He writes too much and too consistently, yes, but his stuff still sounds thoroughly personal to me.

I prefer him and Riley to Reich. (I’d say i like to hear Reich-influenced music more than I like to hear Glass-influenced music but when it comes to the original articles I like glass more).

Symphony 8, several of the concerto series, and his film work have all been high water marks of his last couple decades imo. Have barely listened to the Berlin ones, will try to revisit.

I agree he has not been surprising in a long time but I think he just has this zone he carved out which he now inhabits and which gives him pleasure to inhabit and which frequently gives me pleasure, sometimes deeply so, to hear, and I don’t nec need it to be on him to be the guy pushing the front of the wedge at this point.

Exactly. There are plenty of composers out there if you want to be "challenged" all the time. When I want to listen to Philip Glass-style music, I am glad to know that there's a vast library of it available to choose from.

That's interesting, pomenitul. I had assumed you were being cheeky. Not only do I not think of him as a songwriter, for the most part, but I've never thought of melody as his strong suit. I'd probably like more of his later work if I felt like there were more captivating melodic lines. Maybe I should listen to the 5th string quartet.

I do think some of his scores work well as film music, btw, esp The Hours. I still love Reich's work, and I like other artists who mostly keep working their own niche, so I'd probably need to work to articulate what it is that gets me to rmde about Glass at times. I think part of it is just the "writes too much and too consistently" thing.

the hours, the illusionist, taking lives, and (parts of) visitors are glass film scores that have kicked ass in the post-Kundun era imo

(visitors album really too long though)

Speaking of The Hours, 'The Poet Acts' is almost Schubertian in its melancholy. Likewise the violin concerto's second movement. More to the point, I also have fond memories of his Songs and Poems for solo cello.

dud, i was at a concert in the early eighties and his minimal euphony music really got on my nerves. concerning minimal music i prefer steve reich.

And is it just me or does the 'Opening' of Glassworks sound better under Jeroen van Veen's fingers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys0DULorvms

Steve Reich is the 'prestigious' pick among the trinity (take that, La Monte Young) of American minimalists and I can definitely hear why. But I still prefer Glass's neo-Romantic sappiness, at least when he gets it right.

I'd also like to briefly hijack this thread and remind everyone that if you're a fan of minimal piano pieces then you need Hans Otte's Das Buch der Klänge in your life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwIxpa6OTIE&list=PLmba6uZehumsDtOObBvOqC7CvF8RX9u9I

The link appears to be broken, perhaps because it refers to a playlist. Just search 'hans otte das buch der klänge henck' on YT and it should come up (Herbert Henck's recording surpasses Hans Otte's own imho).

there's a recording on naxos of that right

Not to my knowledge. The Henck recording is on ECM, whereas Otte's own is on Kuckuck and Celestial Harmonies.

Glass sometimes teeters on the brink of self-parody/kitsch to me, possibly because of the weak/easy melodies, possibly because his music does often work better as a backdrop for movies and documentaries. I'll try to explore some of his more recent stuff, since I'm so out of touch. Curious that Reich, Adams et al. never got into Hollywood, to the best of my knowledge. Who are Glass's other crossover peers, Gorecki? Part?