November 2008 Archives
On September 30th, 2008, a declaration was made. A flag was planted atop the mountain range of classical (or serious, depending on which word tastes less bad in your mouth) music. It signaled that Philip Glass, groundbreaking composer, commercial success, septuagenarian and Baltimore native, is officially to join the ranks of historically great composers; those venerated selection whose musical inventions have critically changed the medium itself.
This flag was a white cube, or more specifically a 10-disc boxed set retrospective of Glass' work titled Glass Box. Produced by the ever doting and conscientious Nonesuch label, the set features famed artists' portraits of the composer on each side of the cube, and housed inside are each disc in a separate digi-pak plus a 200-page booklet of notes, essays and photographs. The discs are packed, totaling over 12 hours of playtime. A more flattering tribute one cannot imagine. And when I first laid eyes on it, I had but one thought: I want that.
After acquiring a copy in mp3 form, I had to give pause. How to best approach this mammoth? I mean, I'm always throwing on new albums for investigation, but this was quite different, and I don't simply mean the exponential size. Glass is a name I know well, but for his music I cannot say the same. My experience of his work is limited to a 1990 album he did with Ravi Shankar entitled Passages, and the coda he wrote for the little-known Paul Simon song "The Late, Great Johnny Ace" off his 1983 album Hearts and Bones. I'm a fan of other minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Terry Riley (although Glass has stated he prefers the term "music with repetitive figures"). As mightily prolific as he is, and as renowned as he continues to be, I'm at a loss to explain why it has taken me until now to really delve into his work.
I suppose the consternation over this question is what afforded me the alacrity in my decision: listen to the whole damn thing, front to back, and don't disrupt the process with any other music.
It has taken three days. As I write, I am listening to the tenth and final disc.
Reflections are muddled and numerous. Let's go one by one.
The first disc focuses on Glass' "early works" by selecting three of his better-known extended pieces from the late 1960's. These pieces each follow nearly identical rules of multiple ostinato figures as they change slowly and subtly. It's very close to Reich's principles of metric phasing, but I think Reich did it better. Perhaps that's why it's good that Glass later took the idea of repetitive figures in different directions. But this first disc was the low point; the 45-minute "Music with Changing Parts" was torturously long, even with 20 minutes edited out from the original recording.
Disc two did not improve my outlook much, as it focused on Glass' best-known--and perhaps not coincidentally, longest--early work, "Music in Twelve Parts". The disc included four movements, each around 15 or 20 minutes. The tedious development of the music was relieved by the dramatic changes that would happen when a new movement began.
Even into disc three, I was feeling rather put upon. Here were selections from arguably Glass' most famous and significant work, the opera Einstein on the Beach, and I was having quite a difficult time digesting it. Perhaps it might help to see the opera performed, but moments like hearing a woman repeat the same four sentences endlessly with almost no variation in inflection drove me to madness. By the end I was in a fetal position, compulsively repeating sequences of numbers and solfedge syllables.
Disc four brightened considerably, and I must owe it to the fact that it included music from what Glass designed as his commercial success, the rather accessible Glassworks album. It's times like these when he impresses me profoundly with his mastery of chord progressions. I would say his overall success is owed as much for that as for his compositional innovations. The way he can move through major and minor chords in the most unorthodox way and still end up with something highly emotive and wrenching reminds me of Radiohead. The back half of this disc followed in the same vein with selections from the album Analog.
Disc five, comprised of selections from the opera Satyagraha, washed over me pleasantly but without leaving lasting impressions.
Having just seen the film Koyaanisqatsi (which can be described as a breathtakingly beautiful documentary for the art house), I anticipated hearing the music from it again, along with music from its sequel Powaqqatsi, on disc six. This is some of Glass' most ethereal and moving music, ranging from the despairingly bleak to the unabashedly joyful.
Disc seven included three string quartets and four piano études. I enjoyed these pieces, but at this point I felt I'd almost been tricked into believing that no other music exists but for what Philip Glass has conceived. However, that's just a byproduct of fasting in this way.
The mishmash of material comprising disc eight (including selections from other operas and a symphony) did not coalesce, and each piece was shortchanged while the whole amounted to less than the sum of its parts.
Two beautiful and sophisticated symphonies, Nos. 3 and 8, filled out disc nine. By this time I felt I knew Philip Glass so intimately, and his music so intuitively, that I had a supernatural connection to them. Classic Stockholm syndrome: I've fallen in love with my captor.
Disc ten has just finished. A collection of pieces for films ranging from "Mishima" to "Dracula" to "The Hours", Glass has proven that he does not support the film, but steals the show. He does not make incidental music, and don't you dare call it ambient. It's up to the actors and directors to make sure they can keep up.
This ends the great experiment. I would say that in the end I have developed a love/hate relationship with Philip Glass and his music. But, the strongest relationships always have some amount of love and hate. So I guess you can count me as a fan. I don't know if I would recommend this trial to others, but I would recommend to you, the reader, to go out and find something do to that you have never done, something that you think might change you, and see what happens. And if you need some music for this activity, I might recommend something delicate yet strong, something simple yet ingenious, something through which one can view the world...
