DiscoGlassy

Philip Glass

Soho News

1981

© GlassPages, 1997

Cover Picture

References

• Soho News SH001 (Only on LP format, 45 R.P.M.).

Credits

• All music composed by Philip Glass.
• Published by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc. (ASCAP).
• Philip Glass: Keyboards.
• Jeff Myers: Tenor.
• Iris Hiskey: Soprano.
• Produced by Kurt Munkacsi and Philip Glass.
• Recorded and mixed at Big Apple Studio and Greene St. Studio, NYC.
• Album coordinator: Tim Page.
• Asst. coordinator: Jim Spanfeller.
• Art Work: Joe Davis.
• © 1981Aurora Music Foundation, Inc.

Tracks

• Side One

Dressed Like an Egg

1. Part 5 (1:34).
2. Part 4 (3:13).
3. Part 6 (2:17).

• Side Two

1. Mad Rush for organ (6:47).

Total Time 13:51.

Notes

This record contains two minor works written in the mid-'70s. This is their first release in any form. Soho News is proud to offer them to the public, in commemoration of Philip Glass' four evenings at Town Hall (Feb. 13-16, 1981) and in anticipation and celebration of the American premiere of Satyagraha, to be presented at the Brooklyn Academic of Music this Fall.

Mozart heard his melodies in Prague cafes. HMS Pinafore was the prize of Victorian organ grinders, and Verdi was sung in 19th century Italian streets. But in recent years the public didn't care much what "classical" composers were doing. Rock, jazz and show tunes replaced classical music as the cantus firmus of the times. Never before had the division between "serious" music and "popular" music been so wide.

Now this has begun to change, and the music of Philip Glass is one of the reasons. Glass's work, based on the incessant repetition of elegant musical fragments, has become very popular lately. His records actually sell, an unheard-of phenomenon in New-Depression America, and any concert he gives is invariably packed. His music has been called "minimalist", "modular", "music based on repetitive structures", and "trance music", all inadequate labels for a compositional style that is too chimerical to fix in a simple phrase.

Among Glass' best-know works are Music in 12 Parts, Music in Similar Motion and Two Pages for Piano and Organ, prosaic titles for music rare in its poetry. In addition, there are the operas: the revolutionary Einstein on the Beach (1975), which sold out two nights at the Metropolitan Opera House, and Satyagraha (1980), a work much more traditionally operatic, featuring a spiritual depth and new introspection that may mark an entirely new path for Glass.

For a time, academic composers defended their work by claiming and eventual historical absolution -we'd all understand what they were doing in a few years. This is not what the music of Philip Glass is about. This is music to be loved, sung on the streets, whistled on the subway, contemplated on long country evenings. No didacticism is apparent, and we need not wait for the judgment of time. It is music for today's listener -today.

Tim Page
Classical / New Music Coordinator
SOHO NEWS
Consultant and announcer, WNYC

Pictures

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