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A View Through Glass

The Works

Solo Piano has been widely regarded as a contractual filler, but is actually one of his most pleasing recordings, and makes a fine first taste of his work. To Philip Glass, piano music is something intimate and his love for Schubert is apparent in Mad Rush which initially suggests Schubert's Du bist die Ruh and is less 'mad' than the keenly pulsating Metamorphosis collection. The 'madness' becomes heavily apparent in the classic scoring of the contrary motion arpeggios, which have previously been exploited in Music in Contrary Motion, which is accompanied by works of the time such as Music in Fifths, Music in Similar Motion, Music with Changing Parts and Two Pages. Glass's piano music was first introduced with an opening solo in Glassworks. The music is not demanding in comparison to the concert hall tradition of Rachmaninov or Liszt.

Koyaanisqatsi is a work which is a landmark in the Philip Glass repertoire. The title, from the Hopi language, means 1) Crazy life. 2) Life in turmoil. 3) Life disintegrating. 4) Life out of balance. 5) State of life that calls for another way of living. The title reflects the accompanying film which describes life around us in the world. It shows the state of the world we live in today and the battle of forces good and evil; the tradition industry and.

The work opens with familiar material from a daunting organ under which the word 'Koyaanisqatsi' is sung very slowly and low in a haunting texture. The music throughout barely moves from this fearful surface. The chorus act consistently with moving scales and prominent chromaticism to create a counterpoint harmonic texture which so dominates the work through its opening.

The pulsating semiquaver movement on a single note in the brass steadies the harmonic movement before the strings emerge with a grim modal melody which employs a layering of alternating fifths. Soon the turmoil definition begins when the harmonies are brought together in a thundering development. The chorus enter with a single vibrant syllable which enhances the modal melody. The music then calmly reflects with a quiet humming from the chorus. As the texture moves into rapid arpeggios it brings light to the tempered music with the addition of a welcomed major key. The music flows until the organ theme is tendered again and is reserved in a minor key with sung text from the chorus which progresses into a slow, depressing requiem role. The piece ends as it began with the title sung, ending with an unfinished cadence.

Anima Mundi was written for a half-hour wildlife documentary in 1991 in association with Godfrey Reggio. For Plato the term 'Anima Mundi' meant 'the animating principle of matter'; in fact the compact disk leaflet carries a quote from Plato's Timaes, which reads "... this world is indeed a living being endowed with soul and intelligence..." A large jungle cat stares at us from a box cover and a few visual images that lie in its path suggest the parent video. Glass's thundering simplicity is is instantly recognisable, one constantly wonders just who (or what) is screeching, muttering, panting, drumming or acting to the theme of the movement. The dark opening suggests panoramic horizons, but it is not long until we are introduced into an itching pulse of hazy invisible tribesmen.

The potential of the orchestra is fulfilled as Glass is not using the instruments to ride his orthodox style, but he uses the orchestral sound to create a world of music that positively conforms the purpose.

The third track The Garden has a Messiaenic flute. Here is the link to the 5th Quartet; the material of the rapid arpeggio theme used in both works is identical. Organ and chorus soon take over and we eventually reach some relatively Static Waters, a particularly haunting and unforgettable piece of writing. We are awarded more journey music in Perpetual Motion and, to close, The Witness - a mysterious retreat that seems to end in question.

The score is for twenty instrumentalists; strings, woodwind, brass and percussion; and eight singers, SATB. It is one of Glass's works that are more athletic in its rhythmic content. He treats few works with this conviction, like Powaqqatsi; Anima Mundi opens with pure percussion bringing in a melodic childrens' choir.

The Low Symphony, 1992, is based on the record Low by David Bowie and Brian Eno first released in 1977. The record consisted of a number of songs and instrumentals and used techniques which were similar to procedures employed by composers working in new and experimental music. Glass explains: "I have taken themes from three of the instrumentals on the record and, combining them with material of my own, have used them as the basis of three movements of the symphony. Movement one comes from "Subterraneans," movement two from "Some Are" and movement three from "Warszawa." "My approach was to treat the themes very much as if they were my own and allow their transformations to follow my own compositional attitude when possible. In practice, Bowie and Eno's music certainly influenced how I worked, leading me to sometimes surprising musical conclusions. In the end I think I arrived at something of a real collaboration between my music and theirs."

This symphony was not accepted by Glass's critics who felt it lacked sufficient development of his style compared to composers such as John Adams who has often written similarly comprehensive works making far greater use of the orchestras potential. There is no comparison between the Low Symphony and Adam's The Chairman Dances either technically or artistically. Glass is noted more for his ensemble work than for his orchestral compositions. The symphony seems to wander throughout the opening movement and seem more appropriate to a Spielburg film. The second movement seems more promising with its severe treatment of 'definite' harmonic progressions and melodic lines. Its repeating material surveys the movement but this seems to be more of an anchor until it reaches the middle section of the movement which is slow and shows the trends of Glass's horn writing from Powaqqatsi. This section is borrowed entirely from Powaqqatsi. It then, as expected, moves into a development of the first subject material. The final movement is slow and lashes on towards Mishima's mysterious beginning. It employs figures from the opening of Schubert's unfinished symphony.

His latest Quartet, number 5, contains complexity and virtuosity which concludes with a vivid exploration of Glass's music; it flows with consistency in its use of different material and with ideas that have yet to be explored, either now in this quartet or in another work. The five movement work has no breaks between movements. The first movement is truly an introduction lasting just over a minute before progressing into the second movement. This opening material is reproduced in the final movement.

There are many quotes from other works such as the Anima Mundi arpeggios. The opening chord sequence to Dance Piece #VIII from In the Upper Room is of similar nature to sections in the fourth movement, and also the use of falling chromaticism in the final movement is comparable with The Hydrogen Jukebox. This work, a collection of songs with Allen Ginsberg, accumulates he subtlety of simplicities through Glass's early material. It shows a vivid development through which the harmonies are not static, and the melodic line's shyness is now non-existent. The poetry's topics are wide ranging; obsessions, neuroses, difficulties, problems and perplexities that we we encounter as we end the millennium.

Indeed, the tone of the Fifth Quartet is a vivid one which is set in the opening bars. The sweet bell-like announcement with a pluck and a shimmer leap up through the instruments transforming the Glass trademark arpeggio. This quartet is a study in contrasts. It shows absurdly fast moving scale passages and fast rhythmic sections contrast with the slow chordal progressions. Dynamics are as abrupt.

The skill in this work lies in Glass's effortless ability to resolve the contrasts. The second movement, syncopated, swaying, barcarolle-like melody in shifting meters alternates with the plucked and bowed chords of the introduction, combined by a rocking bass pattern. In the third movement, a continually evolving dance-like figure initially alternates with a more regular, driving rhythmic passage, but gradually the two come together to form a transition to the blissful, long melodic lines of the next, slow movement. A quicker middle section to that movement prepares nger units being subdivided into smaller units. The Indian musician, on the other hand, works with much larger units that are created by bringing smaller units together which have a structure different from that of larger units they finally form. "These larger units or periods are integrated in a cyclical process. Other cycles with different rhythms are added afterwards like a wheel-work: everything works simultaneously in a continuous transformation" Glass says.

The overlapping and interweaving of rhythmic structures, and the almost total lack of harmonic development, lend the music a slow, curiously hypnotic effect, but can also produce passages of great drama, a factor which Glass has put to use in film soundtrack music. Koyaanisqatsi and Mishima are his best works in that genre.

Whereas the basis of Glass's earlier works was additive structure, an evolution can be seen after 1970, when he leans towards a growing vertical differentiation - the use of harmony as a structural principle. The musical texture has become richer and more differentiated through the expansion of Glass's ensemble and the notation of given lines in unison or parallel motion and the introduction of rudimentary counterpoint. The concern with rhythmic structure was no longer dominant.

This interest in harmonic differentiation continues through to 1974 with Music in Twelve Parts. In addition to the application to previously used techniques such as additive process, repetitive construction, continuous quaver movement, pulsation, a stable harmony per part and the introduction of sudden modulations with each transition to a new part, Glass introduces a number of new techniques. For instance, Part 1 of Music in Twelve Parts is notable for the presence of a perfect fifth (F# - C#) that is audible continuously as a "new resulting musical pattern" but is not written as such it is the result of a number overlapping figures.

In creating his own style, Glass illuminated still further the relation between simplicity and complexity. His music has been called 'mesmeric', 'uplifting', 'mystic', and full of 'religious serenity'. Traditional composers complain that his music is insultingly simplistic; of course it is, if the principle is a complexity that only a peer can penetrate. But if the goal is a music with structure and integrity and conceptual fascination that excites and moves an audience, then music that fails to do that has fallen short. Glass's music has complexities its critics rarely consider. Rhythmic units fly by with such speed that it takes a player considerable concentration not to get lost. Lines sometimes overlap in ways that are difficult to perform or perceive. And when played at great speed and the high volume that Glass favours, alien acoustical phenomena emerge - beats and combination tones - to lend the music an unexpected textural richness. The highly amplified volume which Glass prefers is part of the connection Glass has with rock; where the non-rock listeners become literally uncomfortable.

Glass strongly maintains that he is a theatre composer, which defines as any type of visual performance whether it is dance, film or opera; he has a long-established policy of working in collaboration with artists from the visual arts and writing as well as theatre and music, a tendency which he feels has had a profound effect on his approach to music. The subjects of his operas are imposingly large - science is presented by Einstein on the Beech, politics by Satyagraha (the early political struggles of Ghandi, and religion by Akhnaten (Egyptian theism), and he insists that the best music is conceived in 'world terms', presumably on a large scale and with impressively large concepts. The operas are successions of set pieces (arias, choruses, interludes, etc.), all based on chaconnes of considerable length, and without noticeable melodic or harmonic change. Visually they are also largely static. A singer may cross the stage, climb a pole, and then descend again, all in a period of ten minutes. But nothing else happens.

Glass says "pieces I wrote ten years ago were only written once. Now I find I spend more time re-writing and re-thinking things, maybe because a certain complexity has appeared in the music in recent years and I simply can't let it go ,on such an easy basis as I did before. I also find that, in re-writing, I can make my biggest improvements. As you get older as a composer, you bring more to the music: you have more experience; your technique becomes more supple... by the age of 30, I began to get fluency, because of the sheer amount of practice I'd had. I had maintained that fluency for about fifteen years and then at 45 I began slowing down again I didn't lose the fluency but I began to be more critical of what I was doing.

Glass's comfortable harmonic language does undoubtedly have its roots among the groundsprings of musical romanticism; but when it comes to levelling 'harmonic balance' at Wagner, that is no more or less useful than observing 'minimalist' trends in Beethoven (the Pastoral Symphony's first movement development, for example) or Bach (the late canons). Glass's musical exposition is - at least as presented 'Organ Works' - based largely on thematic repetition, subtle rhythmic and harmonic variation and fundamental conceptual simplicity. Furthermore, it inhabits a world in suspension, where much is made out of very little, "minimalism."

Glass's separate works identify themselves by with two distinct features; we can categorise works with the current influence at the time of composing with Koyaanisqatsi, The Violin Concerto, 125 Airplanes on the Roof, Solo Piano, The Photographer and Glass Pieces. These all employ the familiar scoring of the electronic guided style with the customary progressive arpeggio. Quartet #5, Mishima, Itaipu, The Canyon, The Low Symphony, In the Upper Room, The Hydrogen Jukebox, Powaqqatsi and Anima Mundi contain minor influences of the arpeggio but these do not dominate the work.

A particular characterisation which Glass uses in the latter is that of the flute bursting with a subliminal arpeggios. The is more apparent in Anima Mundi and Quartet #5 which were both written in 1991. The harmonic texture is also very similar in the changing progression of keys and chords. Glass says that he writes in period blocks which contain a certain style of writing portrayed in the works at the time. Anima Mundi and Quartet #5 are perfect examples of this.

Powaqqatsi and the Violin Concerto were both written in the same year, 1987, but they illustrate opposite styles. The Violin Concerto throughout contains the inflexible arpeggio subject where as Powaqqatsi completely omits the use of this. This shows the crossover of styles from 1982 with Koyaanisqatsi to the Violin Concerto in 1987 where he moves into the next development of style and material with Powaqqatsi, which then moves on to works such as Hydrogen Jukebox, Quartet #5 and Anima Mundi. The move is not so smooth as explained since works such as Mishima and In the Upper Room contain the crossover material which are all pre 1988.