Philip Glass

Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an Academy Award-nominated American composer. His music is frequently described as minimalist, though he prefers the term theatre music. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public (apart from precursors such as Kurt Weill and Leonard Bernstein), in creating an accessibility not previously recognized by the broader market.

Glass is extremely prolific as a composer; he has written ensemble works, operas, symphonies, concertos, film scores and for the piano. Glass counts many visual artists, writers, musicians and directors among his friends, including Richard Serra, Chuck Close, Doris Lessing, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Wilson, John Moran, Bill Treacher actor, Godfrey Reggio, Ravi Shankar, David Bowie, the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, and electronic musician Aphex Twin, who have all collaborated with him.

He is a strong supporter of the Tibetan cause. In 1987 he co-founded the Tibet House with Columbia University professor Robert Thurman and the actor Richard Gere. He has two children from his marriage to JoAnne Akalaitis, a theater director (m. 1965, div. 1980), Zachary (b. 1969) and Juliet (b. 1971). Glass lives in New York and in Nova Scotia.

Life and Work

Beginnings, education and influences
Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland as the son of Jewish migrants from Lithuania. His father owned a record store, and his very refined record collection consisted to a large extent of unsold records, and thus Glass encountered modern music (Hindemith, Bartók, Shostakovich) and classical music (Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartets and Schubert's two Piano Trios), at a very early age. He then studied the flute as a child at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, and entered an accelerated college program at the University of Chicago at the age of 15, where he studied Mathematics and Philosophy. He then went on to the Juilliard School of Music where he switched to primarily playing the keyboard ; his composition teachers included Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma. During this time, in 1959, he was a winner in the BMI Foundation's BMI Student Composer Awards, one of the most prestigious international prizes for young composers. In the summer of 1960 he studied with Darius Milhaud, and composed a Violin Concerto for a fellow student, Dorothy Pixley-Rothschild.

A next step was Paris, where he studied with the eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger from 1963 to 1965, analyzing scores of Johann Sebastian Bach (The Well-Tempered Clavier), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (the Piano Concertos) and Beethoven. Glass later stated in his autobiography Music by Philip Glass (1987) that the new music performed at Pierre Boulez's Domaines Musicale concerts in Paris lacked any excitement for him (with notable exceptions of the music by John Cage and Morton Feldman), but he was deeply impressed by performances of new plays at Jean-Louis Barrault's Odéon theatre and the films of the French New Wave, by auteurs such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.

After the work with Ravi Shankar in France on a film score (Chappaqua), Glass travelled, mainly for religious reasons, to north India in 1966, where he came in contact with Tibetan refugees. He met Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, in 1972.

His distinctive style arose from his work with Ravi Shankar and his perception of rhythm in Indian music as being entirely additive. When he returned home he renounced all his earlier compositions which were written in a moderately modern style comparable to the music of Darius Milhaud, Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber, and began writing austere pieces based on additive rhythms and a sense of time influenced by Samuel Beckett, whose work he encountered when he was writing for experimental theater. The first of the early pieces in this minimalist idiom was the music for a production of Beckett's play Comédie, 1963, in 1965 for two soprano saxophones, a fourth was a string quartet (No.1, 1966).

Minimalism: From Strung Out to Music in 12 Parts
Finding little sympathy from traditional performers and performance spaces, Glass eventually formed an ensemble in New York City in the late 60s with fellow ex-students Steve Reich, Jon Gibson and others, and began performing mainly in art galleries. These galleries were the only real connection between musical minimalism and minimalist visual art — apart from personal friendships with visual artists, who had similar aesthetic interests, and were supporting Glass's and Reich's musical activities (and often made the posters for concerts).

The first concert of Philip Glass's new music was at Jonas Mekas's Film-Makers Cinematheque in 1968. This concert included Music in the shape of a square for two flutes (an homage to Erik Satie, performed by Glass and Gibson) and Strung Out for amplified solo violin (performed by the violinist Pixley-Rothschild). The musical scores were tacked on the wall, and the performers had to move while playing. Glass's new works met with a very enthusiastic response by the open-minded audience which consisted mainly of visual and performance artists, who were highly sympathetic to Glass's reductive approach.

Apart from performing his music he worked as a cab-driver, had a moving company with Steve Reich and worked as an assistant for the sculptor Richard Serra. During this time made friends with other New York based artists like Sol LeWitt, Nancy Graves, Laurie Anderson and Chuck Close. After certain differences of opinion with Steve Reich, Glass formed his own Philip Glass Ensemble (while Reich formed Steve Reich and Musicians), an amplified ensemble including keyboards, wind instruments (saxophones, flutes) and soprano voice. At first his works continued to be rigorously minimalist, diatonic and repetitively structured, such as Two Pages, Contrary Motion or Music in Fifths (a kind of an homage to his composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, who spotted out "hidden fifths" in his student works). Eventually Glass's music grew less austere, becoming more complex and dramatic, and in his consideration, not minimalist at all, with pieces such as Music in Similar Motion (1969), Music with Changing Parts (1970). The series culminated in the four-hour-long Music in Twelve Parts (1971-1974), which was begun as a sole piece in twelve instrumental parts, but developed into a cycle which summed up Glass's musical achievement since 1967, and even transcended it — the last part features a twelve-tone theme, sung by the soprano voice of the ensemble.

The Portrait Trilogy: Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten
Glass continued his work on south street with two series of instrumental works, Another Look at Harmony (1975) and Fourth Series (1978-79), but in turn his music theater works from this time became more famous. The first one was a collaboration with Robert Wilson - a music theatrical piece which was later designated by Glass as the first opera of his portrait opera trilogy: Einstein on the Beach (composed in 1975 and first performed in 1976), featuring his ensemble, solo violin, chorus and actors. The piece was praised by the Washington Post as "One of the seminal artworks of the century."

Glass continued his work for music theatre with composing his opera Satyagraha (1980), themed on the early life of Mahatma Gandhi and his experiences in South Africa. This piece also was a turning point for Glass, as it was his first one scored for symphony orchestra after about 15 years, even if the most prominent parts were still reserved for solo voices (but now operatic) and chorus.

The Trilogy was completed with Akhnaten (1983-1984), a powerful vocal and orchestral composition sung in Akkadian, Biblical Hebrew, Ancient Egyptian. In addition this opera featured an actor, reciting ancient Egyptian texts in the language of the audience. Akhnaten was commissioned by the Stuttgart Opera in a production designed by Achim Freyer. (It was premiered simultaneously at the Houston Opera in a production designed by Peter Sellars). At the time of the commission, the Stuttgart Opera House was undergoing renovation, necessitating the use of a nearby playhouse with a smaller orchestra pit. Upon learning this, Glass and conductor Dennis Russell Davies visited the playhouse, placing music stands around the pit to determine how many players the pit could accommodate. The two found that they could not fit a full orchestra in the pit. Glass decided to eliminate the violins, which had the effect of "giving the orchestra a low, dark sound that came to characterize the piece and suited the subject very well".[6] In the same year Glass again collaborated with Robert Wilson on another opera, the CIVIL warS, premiered at the Opera of Rome.

Theatre music: Glass and Samuel Beckett
Glass's work for theater from this time (apart from his works for his ensemble and music theater) included many compositions for the group Mabou Mines, which he co-founded in 1970. This work included further music (after the ground-breaking Play) for plays or adaptations from the prose by Samuel Beckett, such as The Lost Ones (1975), Cascando (1975), Mercier and Camier (1979), Endgame (1984) and Company (1984). Beckett approved of the Mabou-Mines production The Lost Ones, but vehemently disapproved of the production of Endgame at the American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge, Massachusetts), which featured Joanne Akalaitis's direction and Glass's Prelude for timpani and double-bass. In the end though he authorized the music for Company, four short, intimate pieces for string quartet, which the were played in the intervals of the dramatization. This piece was eventually published as a String Quartet (Glass's second), and as a concert piece for string orchestra.

Post minimalism: From the Violin Concerto to the Symphony No.3
Starting with the composition of operas and theater music, Glass has — especially since the late 1980s and early 1990s — written works more accessible to ensembles such as the string quartet and symphony orchestra, in this returning to the stylistic roots of his student days. In taking this direction his chamber and orchestral works were also written in a more and more traditional and lyrical vein. In his works, Glass occasionally even employs old musical forms such as the Chaconne - for instance in Sathyagraha (1980), and the slow movements of his Violin Concerto (1987) and the Symphony No.3 (1995). In the same way, his pieces often allude to historical styles (Baroque, Classical, early Romantic and early 20th century classical music), but mostly without abandoning his highly individual musical style or lapsing into mere pastiche.

A series of orchestral works which were originally composed for the concert hall commenced with an almost neo-baroque three-movement Violin Concerto (1987) in the idiom of Akhnaten. In 1992 the Concerto was performed and recorded by Gidon Kremer and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. This turn to orchestral music was continued with a large-scale Sibelian symphonic Trilogy (The Light, The Canyon, Itaipu, 1987-1989), The Voyage, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, and two three-movement symphonies, "Low" 1992, and Symphony No.2 (1994). Glass described his Symphony No.2 as a study in polytonality and referred to the music of Honegger, Milhaud and Villa-Lobos as possible models for his symphony, but the gloomy, brooding, dissonant tone of the piece seems to be even more evocative of Dmitri Shostakovich's symphonies.

Central to his chamber music from the same time are the last two from a series of five string quartets which were written for the Kronos Quartet (1989 and 1991), and the piece Music from The Screens (1989). These works show a very different side of Glass's output. The Screens has its roots in a theatre music collaboration with the Gambian musician Foday Musa Suso and the director Joanne Akalaitis (Glass's first wife), and is, on occasion, a touring piece for Glass and Suso. Apart from Suso's influence, the musical texture is remotely evocative to classical European chamber music ranging from Bach's Sonatas and partitas for solo violin and the Suites for cello, to French chamber such as Claude Debussy's and Maurice Ravel's work in this genre.

With the Symphony No.3 (1995), commissioned by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, a more transparent, refined and intimate chamber-orchestral style resurfaced after the excursions of his large-scale symphonic pieces (mirroring similar developments in the work of his contemporary and colleague Steve Reich). In its four movements Glass treats a 19-piece string orchestra as an extended chamber ensemble, and seems to evoke early classicism (Bach's string symphonies and Haydn's early symphonies show some quite similar stylistic features), as well as the neoclassicist music of Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók and again Ravel. In particular, the second movement is much freer than anything else before in Glass's output since 1966, whereas in the third Glass re-uses the Chaconne as a formal device, creating haunting string textures. The companion piece to the symphony is another Concerto (also 1995), written for The Raschér Saxophone Quartet, and also possibly inspired by Les Six and Mozart.

Music for Piano: Metamorphosis and the Etudes
Since the late 1980s Glass has written more works for solo piano, starting with a cycle of Five Pieces for a theatrical adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis (1988), and continuing with his first volume of Etudes for Piano (1994-1995). The first six Etudes were originally commissioned by the conductor and pianist Dennis Russell Davies, but the complete first set is now often performed by Glass — "who is no piano virtuoso", according to critic John Rockwell[citation needed]— himself. Rockwell dismissed Metamorphosis (as well as all other works by Glass since Akhnaten) as "simplistic", but praised the Etudes as "powerful", comparing them to Bartók's ouvre for piano[citation needed]. Most of the Etudes are composed in the idiom of the Second and Third Symphonies and Saxophone Quartet Concerto as well as the Opera triptych from the same time (which is the subject of the next section), while others (Etude No.10) are composed in retrospect to Glass's style of the 1970s.

List of compositions by Philip Glass

Works for the Philip Glass Ensemble
600 Lines (1967)
Music in Fifths (1969)
Music in Similar Motion (1969)
Music with Changing Parts (1970, recorded 1973)
Music in Twelve Parts (1971-1974)
North Star (1977)
Dance (1979, with Lucinda Childs and Sol LeWitt)
Glassworks (1982)
Orion (2004)

Operas
Einstein on the Beach for the Philip Glass Ensemble (1976, with Robert Wilson)
Satyagraha (1980, libretto by Constance De Jong)
Akhnaten (1983)
the CIVIL warS, Rome Section (1984, with Robert Wilson)
The making of the representative for Planet 8 (1985-88, libretto by Doris Lessing, after her fourth novel from "Canopus in Argos")
White Raven (1991, with Robert Wilson)
The Voyage (1992, libretto by David Henry Hwang)
The marriages between zones three, four, and five (1997, libretto by Doris Lessing, after her second novel from "Canopus in Argos")
O Corvo Branco (1998, with Robert Wilson, libretto by Luísa Costa Gomes)
Galileo Galilei (2002), libretto by Mary Zimmerman and Arnold Weinstein.
Waiting for the Barbarians for voices, chorus and orchestra (2005, after the novel by J.M. Coetzee)

Chamber operas, music theatre
A Madrigal Opera for voices, violin and viola (1980)
The Photographer for soloists, chorus and orchestra (1982), based on the life of Edweard Muybridge.
The Juniper Tree (1985, with Robert Moran)
A Descent Into the Maelstrom (based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, 1986)
The Fall of the House of Usher (libretto after the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, 1987)
1000 Airplanes on the Roof for voice and ensemble (text by David Henry Hwang, 1988)
Hydrogen Jukebox for voices and ensemble (libretto by Allen Ginsberg, 1990)
Orphée for voices and chamber orchestra (1993, after the film by Jean Cocteau)
La Belle et la Bête for voices and the Philip Glass Ensemble or chamber orchestra (1994, after the film by Jean Cocteau))
The Witches of Venice, children's opera-ballet (2005)
Les Enfants Terribles, Dance Opera for voices and three pianos (1996, after Cocteau's novel and the film by Jean-Pierre Melville).
Monsters of Grace, chamber opera for the Philip Glass Ensemble (1998, with 3D digital footage directed by Robert Wilson, libretto from works of Jalaluddin Rumi)
In the Penal Colony for voices and string quintet (2000, libretto after the short story by Franz Kafka)
The Sound of a Voice for voices and chamber ensemble including pipa (2003, libretto by David Henry Hwang)

Works for solo piano
How Now for piano (1968)
Two Pages (for Steve Reich) for piano (or electric organ) (1969)
Modern Love Waltz for piano (1977)
Fourth Series Part Four (Mad Rush) for piano (1979)
Trilogy Sonata for piano (1975/1979/1983, from Einstein, Sathyagraha and Akhnaten, arranged by Paul Barnes in 2001)
Cadenzas for Mozart's Piano Concerto No.21 (K. 467, 1786) (1987)
Metamorphosis for piano (1988)
Wichita Vortex Sutra for piano (1988)
The French Lieutenant Sleeps from The Screens for piano (1989)
Night on the Balcony from The Screens for piano (or harpsichord) (1989)
Tesra for piano (1993)
The Orphée Suite for piano (1993, transcribed by Paul Barnes in 2000)
12 Pieces for Ballet for piano (1993)
Overture from La Belle et la Bete for piano (1994, transcribed by Michael Riesman)
Etudes for piano, Volume 1 (1994-1995)
Dreaming Awake for piano (2003, written & recorded by Glass as a benefit for Jewel Heart.)
Music from the Hours for piano (2003, transcribed by Michael Riesman and Nico Muhly)
A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close, two pieces for piano (2005)

Works for two pianos
In Again Out Again for two pianos (1967)
Six Scenes from Les Enfants Terribles for two pianos (1996, transcribed by Maki Namekawa and Dennis Russell Davies)

Chamber music
Three String Quartets (from the early 1960s, withdrawn)
Play for two saxophones (1965, music for Samuel Beckett's play)
Music for Ensemble and Two Actresses for wind sextet and two speakers (1965)
String Quartet No.1 (1966)
Piece in the Shape of a Square for two flutes (1967)
Head On for violin, cello and piano (1967)
Another Look at Harmony, Part III for clarinet and piano (1975)
Fourth Series Part Three for violin and clarinet (1978)
String Quartet No.2 Company (1983, composed for a dramatization of Samuel Beckett's novella)
Prelude to Endgame for timpani and double-bass (1984, for the play by Samuel Beckett)
String Quartet No.3 Mishima (1985)
String Quartet No.4 Buczak (1989)
Music from the Screens for chamber ensemble (1989, a collaboration with Foday Musa Suso)
Cymbeline for ensemble (1991, music for the play by William Shakespeare)
String Quartet No.5 (1991)
Love Divided By for flute and piano (1992)
In the Summer House for violin and cello (1993, music for the play by Jane Bowles)
Concerto for Saxophone Quartet (1995, also orchestral version, see Works for solo instruments and orchestra)
Dracula for string quartet (or piano and string quartet) (1998, music for the 1931 film)
TSE for Relâche (2002)
Music from The Sound of a Voice for flute, pipa, violin, cello and percussion (2003)

Works for (other than piano) solo instruments
Strung Out for violin (1967)
Gradus for saxophone (1968)
Arabesque In Memoriam for flute (1988)
France from The Screens for violin (1989)
Melodies for saxophone (1995)

Symphonies
Symphony No. 1 Low (1993)
Symphony No. 2 (1994)
Symphony No. 3 for 19 string players (1995)
Symphony No. 4 Heroes (1996)
Symphony No. 5 Choral for soloists, chorus and orchestra (1999)
Symphony No. 6 Plutonian Ode for soprano and orchestra (2001)
Symphony No. 7 Toltec for orchestra and chorus (2005)
Symphony No. 8 (2005)

Other works for orchestra (with chorus and voices)
Company for string orchestra (1983, composed for a dramatization of Samuel Beckett's novella)
The Olympian: Lighting of the Torch and Closing for orchestra and chorus (1984)
Two Interludes from the CIVIL warS for orchestra (1984)
Phaedra for string orchestra and percussion (1985)
In the Upper Room for chamber orchestra (1986, music for Twyla Tharp's dance piece)
The Light for orchestra (1987)
The Canyon for orchestra (1988)
Itaipu, a symphonic portrait for chorus and orchestra in four movements (1989)
Passages for chamber orchestra (a collaboration with Ravi Shankar) (1990)
Concerto Grosso for chamber orchestra (1992)
T.S.E. (T. S. Eliot) for voices and ensemble (1994, music for a theatre work by Robert Wilson)
Songs of Milarepa for baritone and chamber orchestra (1997)
Days and Nights of Rocinha, Dance for orchestra (1997)
Psalm 126 for orchestra and chorus (1998)
Dancissimo for orchestra (2001)
The Passion of Ramakrishna for chorus and orchestra (2006)

Concertante Works
Piano
Piano Concerto No. 1 Tirol, for piano and string orchestra (2000)
Piano Concerto No. 2 After Lewis and Clark, for piano, native American flute, and orchestra (2004)
Suite from The Hours, for piano, string orchestra, harp and percussion (2002/2003)
Harpsichord
Harpsichord Concerto (2002)
Violin
Violin Concerto (1960, withdrawn)
Violin Concerto (1987)
Echorus for two violins and string orchestra (1995, version of the Etude No. 2 for piano)
Cello
Cello Concerto (2001)
Saxophone
Facades, for two saxophones (or flute and clarinet) and string orchestra (1981)
Passages for saxophone quartet, string orchestra, piano and percussion (1989, arranged by Dennis Russel Davies, 2001)
Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra (1995)
Timpani
Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra (2000)

Vocal works
Music for Voices (1970)
Hebeve Song for soprano, clarinet and bassoon (1983)
Songs from Liquid Days for voices and ensemble (texts by Paul Simon, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne and Laurie Anderson, 1986)
De Cie for four voices (1988)
Planctus, Song for voice and piano (1997, for Natalie Merchant)

Works for chorus
Another Look at Harmony, Part IV for chorus and organ (1975)
Fourth Series Part One for chorus and organ (1977)
Three Songs for chorus a-cappella (1984, texts by Octavio Paz and others)

Works for organ
Fourth Series Part Two (Dance No.2) for organ (1978)
Fourth Series Part Four (Mad Rush) for organ (1979)
Voices for organ, didgeridoo and narrator (2001)

Other works
One Plus One for amplified tabletop (1968)
Sesame Street Cues (1977) [ASCAP Title Code: 498083802]
Pink Noise, acoustic installation (1987, with Richard Serra)
Brown Piano, Martingala, Double Rhythm, Boogie Mood, Sax, Variation: alarm bleeps for Swatch wristwatches (1994, some with Jean Michel Jarre)

Compilations
Songs from the Trilogy, including songs from Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten
Philip Glass donated a track to the CD Too Many Years: A Benefit for Clear Path International

Film scores
Godfrey Reggio's trilogy Koyaanisqatsi (1983), Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002)
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1985)
Hamburger Hill (John Irvin, 1987)
The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988)
Mindwalk (Bernt Amadeus Capra, 1990)
A Brief History of Time (film) (Errol Morris, 1991) (biopic based on Stephen Hawking's popular physics book)
Anima Mundi (Godfrey Reggio, 1992)
Candyman (Bernard Rose, 1992) (based on Clive Barker's short story, The Forbidden)
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (Bill Condon, 1995)
Jenipapo (including a song written for Suzanne Vega, 1995)
The Secret Agent (Christopher Hampton, 1996)
Bent (Sean Mathias, 1997)
Kundun (Martin Scorsese, 1997) (Academy Award nomination)
The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) (three original tracks, as well as material from Powaqqatsi, Anima Mundi and Mishima)
Dracula (1998) (re-release of Tod Browning's 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi)
Shorts (Michal Rovner, Shirin Neshat, Peter Greenaway and Atom Egoyan)
The Hours (Stephen Daldry, 2002) (Academy Award nomination)
The Fog of War (Errol Morris, 2003) (an interview of Robert McNamara, former U.S. Secretary of Defense)
Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry (2004)
Secret Window (David Koepp, 2004)
Taking Lives (D.J. Caruso, 2004)
Undertow (David Gordon Green, (2004)
Neverwas (Joshua Michael Stern, 2005)
Partition (Vic Sarin, 2005) (a third collaboration with Ravi Shankar)
The Inner Life of Martin Frost (Paul Auster, 2006)
The Reaping (Stephen Hopkins, 2006) (rejected)
Roving Mars (George Butler, 2006)
The Illusionist (Neil Burger, 2006)
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2006)
Notes on a Scandal (2006)