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
theater composer. 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 solo works. 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, actor
Bill Treacher,
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 Glass was born in
Baltimore, Maryland as the grandson of
Jewish immigrants from
Lithuania. His father owned a record store, and consequently Glass's record collection consisted, to a large extent, of unsold records, and thus the composer encountered modern music (
Hindemith,
Bartók,
Shostakovich) and Western 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 Musicales 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 working with
Ravi Shankar in France on a film score (
Chappaqua), Glass traveled to northern
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 that were written in a moderately modern style comparable to the music of
Darius Milhaud,
Aaron Copland, and
Samuel Barber and began writing pieces based on repetitive structures 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).
Beginnings, education and influences Finding little sympathy from traditional performers and performance spaces, Glass eventually formed an ensemble in
New York City in the late 1960s 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 Cinemathèque (
Anthology Film Archives) 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 that 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 he made friends with other New York based artists such as
Sol LeWitt,
Nancy Graves,
Laurie Anderson, and
Chuck Close. After certain differences of opinion with Steve Reich, Glass formed the
Philip Glass Ensemble (while Reich formed
Steve Reich and Musicians), an amplified ensemble including keyboards, wind instruments (
saxophones,
flutes), and
soprano voices. 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 and regarded them as cardinal sins). Eventually Glass's music grew less austere, becoming more complex and dramatic, with pieces such as
Music in Similar Motion (1969),
Music with Changing Parts (1970). The series culminated in the 4-hour-long
Music in Twelve Parts (1971–1974), which began as a sole piece in twelve instrumental parts but developed into a cycle that 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. Though he finds the term minimalist inaccurate to describe his later work, Glass does accept this term for pieces up to and including Music in 12 Parts.
Minimalism: From Strung Out to Music in 12 Parts 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 piece of musical theater that 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 theater 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, and
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 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." In the same year, Glass again collaborated with
Robert Wilson on another opera,
the CIVIL warS, which premiered at the Opera of Rome.
The Portrait Trilogy: Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten 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 that 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.
Theater music: Glass and Samuel Beckett 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 structural 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 these works, Glass occasionally even employs old musical forms such as the
Chaconne—for instance in
Satyagraha (1980), his Violin Concerto (1987) and Symphony No.3 (1995). In the same way, his pieces often allude to historical styles (
Baroque,
Western classical, early
Romantic, and early
20th Century Western classical music), but mostly without abandoning his highly individual musical style or lapsing into mere pastiche.
A series of orchestral works that were originally composed for the concert hall commenced with an almost
neo-baroque 3-movement Violin Concerto (1987) in the style of
Akhnaten. Among its multiple recordings, 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 3-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 seemed 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 that 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 theater 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 music such as
Claude Debussy's and
Maurice Ravel's work in this genre.
With 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
neo-classical 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. On the commercial recording of Symphony No.3, its companion piece is another Concerto (also 1995), written for
The Raschér Saxophone Quartet, and also possibly inspired by
Les Six and
Mozart.
Post minimalism: From the Violin Concerto to the Symphony No.3 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), with other pieces such as "Mad Rush"(1979), Witchita Vortex Sutra, A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close (2005) 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. The critic
John 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 oeuvre for piano. Most of the Etudes are composed in the post-minimalist/more expressive style of the Second and Third Symphonies, and Saxophone Quartet Concerto as well as the opera triptych from the same period.
Music for Piano: Metamorphosis and the Etudes Glass's prolific output continued to include operas, especially a second opera,
triptych (1993–1996), based on the work of
Jean Cocteau, his prose and his films (
Orphée (1949),
La Belle et la Bête (1946), and the novel
Les Enfants Terribles,
1929, later made into a film by Cocteau and
Jean-Pierre Melville, 1950). In the same way it is also a musical homage to the work of a French group of composers associated with Cocteau,
Les Six.
Furthermore, in the first part of the trilogy,
Orphée (1993), the inspiration can be (conceptually and musically) traced to
Gluck's opera
Orfeo ed Euridice (
Orphée et Euridyce, 1762/1774)..
Les Enfants Terribles (1996, scored for voices and three pianos), is indebted in its writing for the piano ensemble, as
Orphee, to another key musical work from the 18th century:
Bach's Concerto for Four
Harpsichords (or four pianos) in A minor, BWV1065. It is perhaps no coincidence that Bach's Concerto was part of the soundtrack for the 1950 film, as was Gluck's opera for Cocteau's 1949 film
Orphee.
Glass's continued activity in opera was a direct result of his original "opera", Einstein on the Beach. The work could only mounted in opera houses, thus the composer because a composer of "operas." With this introduction, the composer embarked what has become the largest part of his output, a composer of operas with now 22 to date.
A second opera triptych: Orphée, La Belle et la Bête and Les Enfants Terribles Philip Glass is acknowledged to be one of the most influential voices of the 20th Century. Years later, Glass, who had become friends with Bowie, composed certain pieces from themes of Bowie and Eno's collaborative albums
Low and
"Heroes", which were originally written in Berlin in the late 1970, in his first (
"Low", 1992) and fourth (
"Heroes", 1996) symphonies. In 1997, he released
Music for Airports, featuring a live instrumental version of
Brian Eno's work of the same name, performed by
Bang on a Can All-Stars, on his Philips/PolyGram (now
Universal Music Group-distributed on the composer's recording label POINT Music.
Glass also collaborated with songwriters such as
Paul Simon,
Suzanne Vega,
Natalie Merchant, and the electronic-music artist
Aphex Twin (resulting in an
orchestration of Aphex Twin's piece
Icct Hedral in 1995). Point Music eventually closed operatations, however, Glass continues to own a recording studio, which is frequented by artists such as
David Bowie,
Björk,
The Dandy Warhols,
Lou Reed,
Patti Smith, and
Iggy Pop. Glass also influenced numerous musicians such as
Mike Oldfield (he covered parts from Glass's
North Star in
Platinum) and bands including
Tangerine Dream,
Phish,
Talking Heads, and
Coldplay ("Clocks,"
A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002).
In 2002, Glass along with his longtime producer Kurt Munkacsi and artist Don Christensen, started the record label (
Orange Mountain Music), dedicated to "establishing the recording legacy of Philip Glass" and have to date released ~40 albums of Philip Glass' music.
Influences and connections The largest part of Glass's recent activity has been his many film scores, which almost accidentally started with the orchestral score for
Koyaanisqatsi (
Godfrey Reggio, 1982), and continuing with two biopics,
Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (
Paul Schrader, 1985, resulting in the String Quartet No.3) and
Kundun (
Martin Scorsese, 1997) about the
Dalai Lama, for which he received his first
Academy Award nomination. In 1988, Glass began a collaboration with the filmmaker
Errol Morris with his score for Morris's celebrated documentary
The Thin Blue Line. He continued composing for the
Qatsi trilogy with the scores for
Powaqqatsi (Reggio, 1988) and
Naqoyqatsi (Reggio, 2002). He even made a cameo appearance in
Peter Weir's
The Truman Show (1998), which uses music from
Powaqqatsi,
Anima Mundi and
Mishima, as well as three original tracks by Glass, performing at the piano. In 1999, he finished a new soundtrack for the
1931 film
Dracula.
The Hours (
Stephen Daldry, 2002), which earned him a second Academy Award nomination;
Taking Lives (
D. J. Caruso, 2004); and
The Fog of War (
Errol Morris, 2003) are his most notable scores for films from the early 2000s, containing older works but also newly composed music. He composed the score for
Secret Window (
David Koepp, 2004) as well as the music for
Candyman (
Bernard Rose, 1992) and its sequel,
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (
Bill Condon, 1995), plus a film adaptation of
Joseph Conrad's
The Secret Agent (1996). Most recently, Glass composed the score for
Neil Burger's
The Illusionist and
Richard Eyre's
Notes on a Scandal in 2006, garnering his third Academy Award nomination for the latter. Glass's newest film scores include Scott Hicks'
No Reservations and
Woody Allen's
Cassandra's Dream.
Music from Naqoyqatsi (
file info) —
play in browser (beta)
- From Naqoyqatsi by Philip Glass
Problems listening to the file? See media help. New Directions: Symphonies, Chamber Operas and Concerti
Glass's most recent piece of musical theater is his first opera on a grand scale in eight years, Waiting for the Barbarians, after J.M. Coetzee's novel, with a libretto by Christopher Hampton. It premiered in September 2005.
Only two months later, in November 2005, a Symphony No.8, commissioned by the Bruckner Orchester Linz, was premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. After three symphonies for voices and orchestra, this piece is a return to purely orchestral composition, and like previous works written for the conductor Dennis Russell Davies (the 1992 Concerto Grosso and the already mentioned Symphony No.3), it features extended solo writing (not unlike in the late 18th-Century Sinfonia concertante or Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra). Critic Allan Kozinn described the symphony's chromaticism as more extreme, more fluid, and its themes and textures as continually changing, morphing without repetition, and he especially pointed out the "unpredictable orchestration" of the symphony, mentioning a "beautiful flute and harp variation in the melancholy second movement."
Glass has also worked alongside Leonard Cohen on an adaptation of Cohen's poetry collection Book of Longing. The work, which premiered in June, 2007, in Toronto, Canada, is a piece for seven instruments and a vocal quartet, and contains recorded spoken word performances by Cohen and imagery from his collection. Glass's work "Songs and Poems" for solo cello was premiered in 2007.
Among new works in various stages of completion: Appomattox a new opera surrounding the events at the end of the American Civil War (2007); two symphonies (2007/08); a second Violin Concerto; and a second Volume of Etudes for piano.
Recent works: Waiting for the Barbarians and the Symphony No.8
1976 - Music With Roots in the Aether: Opera for Television. Tape 2: Philip Glass. Produced and directed by Robert Ashley. New York, New York: Lovely Music.
1983 - Philip Glass. From Four American Composers. Directed by Peter Greenaway.
1985 - A Composer's Notes: Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera. Directed by Michael Blackwood. Michael Blackwood Productions. A co-production of Michael Blackwood Productions, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Channel Four Television, Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, and Sveriges Television TV I. Released on DVD in 2005.
1986 - Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera. Directed by Mark Obenhaus. Films
This article contains a trivia section. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items into the main text and removing inappropriate items.
Philip Glass is the first cousin once removed of Ira Glass, host of the nationally syndicated radio show This American Life. Philip Glass's father is Ira Glass's great uncle.. The contentious conversion of the state religion to monotheism that Glass incorporated as a theme remains a topic of scholarly debate following recent discoveries.
A knock-knock joke often told by musicians pokes fun at the repetitious nature of much of Glass's work.
Glass's "Metamorphosis Five" is featured in Valley of Darkness, the second episode of season two of the new version of Battlestar Galactica. In the scene, Starbuck returns to Caprica and plays the piano solo on a CD player in her apartment, claiming that her father was the one playing it.
Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread Is the title of a one-act play in David Ives's cycle of one acts titled All in the Timing. It is a scored play about someone seeing Glass in a bakery.
"The Canyon" was used as the opener for the 1999 Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps production Inventions for a New Millennium. The vanguard tied for the 1999 world championship.
Philip Glass's original music from the section of the track "Pruit-Igoe" was used in the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto IV.
The "Evil Eye" background music played on the TV series Scrubs (played when Janitor stares at someone to intimidate them) is in fact from Philip Glass Koyaanisqatsi. Trivia
Footnotes
Bartman, William and Kesten, Joanne (editors). The Portraits Speak: Chuck Close in Conversation with 27 of his subjects, New York: A.R.T. Press, 1997
Grimes, Ev, "Interview: Education, 1989", in Richard Kostelanetz and Robert Flemming (Editors), Writings on Glass. Essays, Interviews, Criticism, University of California Press, 1999
Jones, Robert T., ed. (1987). Philip Glass. Music By Philip Glass New York: Da Capo Press.
Knowlson, James (2004). Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, New York, Grove Press.
Kraynak, Janet (ed.). Please Pay Attention Please: Bruce Nauman's Words, Cambridge & London: MIT Press, 2003 (2005 paperback edition) - Writing and Interviews.
La Barbara, Joan. "Phillip Glass and Steve Reich: Two from the Steady State School",(1974) in Richard Kostelanetz and Robert Flemming (Editors), Writings on Glass. Essays, Interviews, Criticism, University of California Press, 1999
Potter, Keith (2000). Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge, UK; New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schwartz, K. Robert (1996). Minimalists, New York: Phaidon Press. See also
Official site
Philip Glass at the Internet Movie Database
Philip Glass at All Music Guide
Philip Glass at MusicBrainz
Philip Glass at the Open Directory Project
Philip Glass on the Web, an extensive fan site
An excellent site on Glass and Samuel Beckett Other sites
Philip Glass, "Igor Stravinsky: His Rite of Spring heralded the century. After that, he never stopped reinventing himself — or modern music", Time, 8 June 1998
Philip Glass, "A Composer's Century", Andante.com, 2002 Interviews
The Composer's Page at Chester Music & Novello, including a biography and a list of works
The essay as a pedagogical tool
Cargo trams
High Arch