Philip Glass: Classic or Dud? Search and Destroy

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?

I guess so, yeah. And precisely for the reasons you describe. I do think Pärt is a far more interesting composer than his supposed peers, though. Aside from the famous 3rd symphony, I find Górecki insufferable both as ear candy and as a Bearer of Grave News.

It's back! (many XPs to Jon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cSo6FaqyX0

Premiering the Lodger Symphony with Angelique Kidjo on the South Bank tonight, wish I could be there.

Yes, I was looking at the page for it this morning thinking just the same.

The new piece with Third Coast Ensemble (on Spotify, etc.) is definitely worth a listen. His first all-percussion composition.

Oh cool - I dig the way he has used percussion in his symphonies

realized I haven't stanned my piano crush Víkingur Ólafsson's Glass album in here

https://dg.lnk.to/vikingur_glass_pianoworks

And today, the whole ten yards -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTXIQZQtZS8

I like this, it's a little starker than the Nonsuch version.

https://vimeo.com/193274320

If that were in slow motion and three hours long it would make a good Godfrey Reggio film.

Saw something recently where he said that he'd tried to get away from his signature sound, but couldn't. Seemed unhappy about it, or at least humbled.
His new music for Lodger lyrics couldn't be any worse than the original album, which I always found frustrating after Heroes and Low, not to mention most of Bowie's others up to that point.
North Star is a good soundtrack from the 70s---haven't played it since then, but did later see the film, a documentary about the artist Mark de Suvero, and thought it worked well both ways, as accompaniment or stand-alone record. The doc starts with the artist, swimming to the surface of a lake and gradually emerging, looking like an ancient statue of a hero or god--but then he lurches up onto the land and starts scuttling uphill before reaching his balance. He was injured in his loft studio's freight elevator, but he's adjusting, and his own sculptures, which at first look precarious, have their own sense of symmetry.
Same with the music, although it's not grand or heroic; as I recall, each track develops one fairly distinctive theme from small segments, riffs even. instrumental and/or vocal, and it all fits. Didn't seem compelling---I was more into punk, Funkadelic, Miles at the time---but refreshingly different for my '77.

Xgau recommended it to Eno fans, which is why I bought it (also because somebody else related it to Ray Manzarek, and later Glass said he enjoyed the Doors' Fillmore East shows, also produced Manzarek's album of Carmina Burana).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuY82p6MSag

Just posting this here because I have a slight obsession with this composition and I've seen it get zero love so far on the thread:

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

Since this thread is live again, and I've got it in my clipboard from the Beck poll thread:

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

Been seven years now, and this still just takes my breath away.

Oh wow @ complete Music in 12 Parts. Sometimes I forget how good that early stuff can be.

A recording of the MI12P Barbican concert in 2017 (which I saw) went up on D!me@dozen the other day.

I've been enjoying this transcription for piano of the Mishima score http://www.makinamekawa.com/mishima/

Saw him and the Ensemble in Dublin on Saturday doing Music in Twelve Parts. The concert was great but he did not look well. He didn't take part in the following evening's performance of Koyaanisqatsi and won't be at the Barbican tomorrow night for Music with Changing Parts (the Ensemble will play without him). Hope he gets well soon.

some kind of drama in the audience yesterday too

What a show. Unreal after all these years. Hope #philipglass is better tomorrow. We had a wonderful night apart from dramatics at the end. Get in the bloody ambulance

— Twatter a right dump (@C1ust3r) October 27, 2019

Phelim McDermott's production of Akhnaten looked even more gorgeous at the Met in New York earlier this month than when I saw it at the ENO a few years back. Not that I saw it live but I saw the live broadcast in cinemas:

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

There's an audio stream up on the BBC Radio 3 website for another three weeks or so.

Wonder how he's doing, it's always at the back of my mind now when I see these thread revives.

I think he's OK at the moment following his illness in Europe, he was out and about for the final performance of Akhnaten the other week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD7961Hp99A

A previously unrecorded piece from 1970, Music in Eight Parts, hit streaming services today. I reviewed it.

Oh nice, I think I found a midi file of this a while back and made a little version in ProTools, was it an unfinished manuscript or something that someone found on his publisher's archive? I can't quite recall.

Ah, the answers lie therein :)

Hey I went to college with Peter Hess! Oberlin Jazz major, really nice dude.

The oberlin -> Glass and related projects runs deep.

Just a heads up that the Met website is streaming the recent productions of Akhnaten and Satyagraha this week. Not 100% convinced by the staging of Satyagraha but the Akhnaten is a total masterpiece:

https://www.metopera.org/user-information/nightly-met-opera-streams/week-14/opera-streams-weekly-guide/

The last concert I went to before quarantine and everything started was a performance of Music in Twelve Parts, on February 29 at the Annenberg Center in Philly. It was pretty amazing.

Yeah, I saw about Eight Parts in The New Yorker recently, want to hear that.
Posted about xpost Twelve Parts on Rolling Reissues (label has a bunch of others on bandcamp, incl full streams of their recent Morricone and Pharoah Sanders reissues):
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0913454654_10.jpg
Music in Twelve Parts. Concert à Paris​,​1975
by Philip Glass
Lost PHILIP GLASS Recording from 1975 (1h10).

ORTF Recordings by the Philip Glass Sextet,
live at Studio 104, Maison de la Radio, Paris.

Also included a very rare Philip Glass interview from 1974 in his NYC loft during the rehearsals of this piece, produced for the french radio by Daniel Caux.
Remastered from the orginal master tapes (ORTF).
he newly discovered and unreleased concert from 1975 recorded by the Philip Glass Sextet at La Maison de Radio, Paris.
The sextet is composed of Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Dickie Landry,
Michael Riesman, Joan La Barbara and Richard Peck.

Music in Twelve Parts is a set of twelve pieces written between 1971 and 1974. This performance in France includes part 1, 2, 3, 11 and 12 on a double LP.(+ download code)
© INA 1974-1975
℗ 2019 Transversales Disques
credits
released April 24, 2020
full album streamhttps://transversales.bandcamp.com/album/music-in-twelve-parts-concert-paris-1975