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Artist:

Philip Glass

Philip Glass
Born January 31, 1937 in Baltimore, MD
  • Country: USA
  • Genres: Opera, Chamber, Vocal, Keyboard, Symphonic, Choral, Concerto, Orchestral, Film, Ballet

Biography

Philip Glass is generally regarded as one of the most prominent composers associated with the minimalist school, the other major figures being Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Adams. His style is quite recognizable, owing to its seeming simplicity of repeated sounds, comprised of evolving patterns of rhythms, which are often quite complex, and rhythmic themes. In some of his early works, like Two Pages (1967), the whole of the piece evolves from a single unit or idea that expands as notes are added. In later works, expansion comes via the lengthening of note values or through other inventive processes. Many describe his music in the minimalist vein as mesmerizing; others hear it as numbingly repetitive and devoid of variety in its simplicity. The latter view of his style is itself simplistic and fails to take into account the many subtleties and complexities found in his methods. Glass' mature style embraces more than just minimalism and thus must be viewed being more eclectic and far less dogmatic. There is greater emphasis on melody, less on controlling rhythmic patterns. His opera Einstein on the Beach (1975) was the first of an important triology of stage works, the other two being Satygraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1983). He is one of the most popular serious composers of the latter twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Glass showed musical talent early on, both on violin and flute. He graduated from the University of Chicago (he moved to Chicago in his teens) at the age of 19. He next enrolled at Juilliard, and had by then rejected serial techniques in composition in favor of more conventional styles, favoring the music of Ives, Copland, and Virgil Thomson. Over the next four years he studied with Reich, Persichetti, Milhaud, and Bergsma.

He later studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and it was during this two-year period that he met and worked with sitar player Ravi Shankar, who introduced him to Indian music. He was intrigued by its sound and possibilities and attracted to Asian and Middle Eastern cultures. Eventually, he even converted to Buddhism. Glass later spoke of how greatly his 1966 visit to Tibet influenced his thinking, both musically and spiritually.

After returning to New York in 1967, Glass struggled financially and had to work as a cab driver and plumber for a time. Eventually, he established the Glass Ensemble in the early '70s. This group consisted of seven players and used keyboards, woodwind instruments, and amplification of vocals. Though it also struggled at the outset, it eventually became immensely popular.

Glass' Einstein on the Beach was staged in 1976 and was his first large-scale triumph. By this time, too, his Ensemble was in greater demand, as were a good many of his other works. Since the 1980s, Glass' popularity has grown with the successes of his 1982 Company, for string quartet or string orchestra, the 1987 violin concerto, and the 1997 score, Kundun, written for the Martin Scorsese film. There have been other operas from Glass' pen, including The Fall of the House of Usher and Orphée. Among other works is the remarkable Monsters of Grace, for voices and instrumental ensemble, a mystical composition that uses light and other effects in performance.

Glass has received many awards, among which have been the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1995, from the French government. Glass continues to write music and must be regarded as among the most important composers of his time. ~ Robert Cummings, All Music Guide

Discography

Philip Glass: Les Enfants Terribles

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Philip Glass: North Star

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Philip Glass: Solo Piano

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Philip Glass: Two Pages; Contrary Motion; Music in Fifths; Music in Similar Motion

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Philip Glass: Music with Changing Parts

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Philip Glass: Music in Twelve Parts

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Philip Glass: Etudes for Piano, Vol. 1, No. 1-10

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Glass Cuts: Philip Glass Remixed

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Analog

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Actor:

Philip Glass

  • Born: Jan 31, 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland
  • Occupation: Actor, Writer
  • Active: '80s-2000s
  • Major Genres: Culture & Society, Drama
  • Career Highlights: Koyaanisqatsi, The Truman Show, Kundun
  • First Major Screen Credit: The Inquiring Nuns (1968)

Biography

Avant-garde composer Philip Glass is internationally respected for his innovative minimalist orchestral music that is strongly influenced by both East Indian and rock music, and includes compositions utilizing traditional orchestral instruments and electronic music. Glass is also known for his modern-day operas, including Einstein on the Beach (1976). The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he worked as a child in his father's record store and simultaneously studied at the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore. Already an exceptional pianist, he began attending the University of Chicago at age 15. Glass also was a wrestler of note. Glass next studied composition at Julliard and then went to Paris to study under Nadine Boulanger on a Fullbright scholarship. He also became closely associated with sitarist Ravi Shankar who was a major influence on Glass' work. Glass has composed music for feature films and major documentaries such as North Star in the late '70s. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

 
Music Encyclopedia: Philip Glass

(b Baltimore, 31 Jan 1937). American composer. He studied at the Juilliard School and with Boulanger in Paris (1964-6) and worked with the Indian musicians Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha. His minimalist works of 1965-8 (e.g. Two Pages) are ‘experimental and exploratory’ but later ones, for his own amplified ensemble, are more complicated (e.g. Music in Fifths). Since 1975 his works have nearly all been for the theatre. When Einstein on the Beach was given at the Met (1976) he became famous; further full-scale operas, Satyagraha (1980), Akhnaten (1984), The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1988) and The Voyage (1992), chamber operas and music theatre works followed. One of the most popular serious composers in the USA, he has also performed in rock and jazz.



 
Biography: Philip Glass

The American composer Philip Glass (born 1937) had a tremendous impact on all contemporary music. His brand of music, called minimalism, merged Eastern concepts of time with Western musical elements, altering the perception of music. He has been one of the most provocative, visible, and controversial composers of his generation.

Philip Glass was the leading composer/performer of the musical movement called minimalism, which emphasized musical process rather than complex musical structures. He simplified the traditional organizing factors of Western music - such as harmony, melody, modulation, and rhythm - and concentrated on creating complex layers of sound through a minimum of musical manipulation. His pieces utilized repetitive cycles of rhythm, similar to Hindu ragas, which change slowly over long periods of time and are said to produce a trance-like state in some listeners. In fact, Glass's works can be described as the grafting of Eastern concepts of space, time, and change on Western musical elements such as diatonic harmony. Divisive rhythm (that is, rhythm organized according to one unit of duration and its divisions) is replaced by the addition of rhythmic cycles that, when joined, move like wheels within wheels - everything precisely organized but constantly changing.

Philip Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 31, 1937. His youth was characterized by a number of remarkable successes. A precocious child, he advanced quickly as a scholar and student of the flute and entered the University of Chicago at the age of 14. After receiving a bachelor of arts in 1956, he entered the Juilliard School of Music in New York City in 1958 and pursued composition studies with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. By 1965 Glass had composed over 100 works, 40 of which had been published. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Broadcast Music Industry Award (1960), the Lado Prize (1961), two Benjamin Awards (1961, 1962), a Ford Foundation grant (1962), and a Young Composers' Award (1964).

Despite these achievements, Glass increasingly felt that his compositional style, based on the 12-tone and advanced rhythmic and harmonic forms popular at Juilliard, was no longer a meaningful outlet for his creativity. In hopes of revitalizing his music, the composer left for Paris in 1964 to study composition with Nadia Boulanger on a Fulbright Fellowship.

Reliance on Cyclic Rhythm

Lessons with this famous teacher had less of an impact on Glass than did his later exposure to non-Western music. He travelled extensively to India, Tibet, and Tunisia, and in 1965 he became a working assistant to the virtuoso sitar player, Ravi Shankar. Through notating Eastern music for a film and studying tabla music with the well known Indian percussionist, Alla Rakha, Glass gained an understanding of the modular-form style of Indian music. Shortly thereafter he completely rejected his earlier compositional style and began to rely solely on the Eastern principle of cyclic rhythm to organize his pieces. Harmony and modulation were added later, but these usually consisted only of a few static chords.

After returning from Europe in 1967 the composer organized the Philip Glass Ensemble, a seven-member group consisting of three electric keyboarders and three wind players with one sound engineer. They made their debut in New York on April 13, 1968, and embarked on the first of several European tours the following year. Notable works from this period include Pieces in the Shape of a Square (1968), Music in Fifths (1969), Music for Voices (1972), Music in Twelve Parts (1971-1974), and Music with Changing Parts (1970), which was the first album released by Glass' recording company, Chatham Records.

Glass' reputation as a serious composer suffered during this experimental period. Support from the academic community dropped off almost completely. However, a small cult following continued to grow. The appearance of the ensemble at the Royal College of Art in London in 1970 drew support from the visual arts. And in 1974 the first parts of Music in Twelve Parts were released on Virgin Records, a progressive rock label, thereby increasing his exposure to the popular music audience. Before long Glass counted such popular performers as David Bowie and Brian Eno among his fans, and the effects of his works could be seen in the rock music of Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. His ability to appeal to numerous musical factions caused him to be described as a "crossover" phenomenon - an artist with a small following who suddenly connects with a mass audience. Indeed, according to David Ewen, he is the only composer ever to have received standing ovations at three such varied musical venues as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera House, and the Bottom Line (a New York City rock club).

Einstein on the Beach

Glass' alliance with the visual arts prompted a collaboration with Robert Wilson, the painter, architect, and leader in the world of avant-garde theater. Einstein on the Beach, Glass' best known work, was enthusiastically received at its premier in Avignon, France, on July 25, 1976. More a series of "events" than an opera, this full-length stage work explores through dance and movement the same concepts of time and change that Glass investigated through music. Several characters appear as Einstein, one playing repetitive motives on a violin; a chorus intones repetitive series of numbers and clichés; dancers and actors perform repetitive actions such as moving back and forth across the stage in slow motion. Einstein on the Beach has less to do with meaning than concept. "Go to Einstein and enjoy the sights and sounds," advises Robert Wilson in one interview, "feel the feelings they evoke. Listen to the Pictures." The opera was successfully produced throughout Europe and in 1984 it played to sold-out houses in New York. Its artistic success, however controversial, rests with its ability to consistently engage audience attention, to alter mood and provoke thought, and to force the theater-goer to actively supply the organization, structure, and meaning of the opera.

Glass followed this work with other theater successes. Satyagraha, commissioned by the city of Rotterdam in 1980, is the ritual embodiment of pacifist spirituality. Based on the life of Gandhi, the opera unfolds as a series of tableaux tracing his early life. The libretto is derived solely from the Bhagavad Gita and is sung in Sanskrit. It is said to be one of Glass' most lyric works.

Glass' later compositions included The Photographer, a chamber opera based on the life of the early 20th-century inventor Eadweard Muybridge (Amsterdam, 1982). Akhnaton, Glass' third opera, was produced at the Stuttgart Opera in 1984. In addition, Glass scored for films: the music for Mark di Suvero, Sculptor, directed by François de Ménil, was issued by Virgin Records as North Star in 1977. And Koyaanisqatsi was successfully received at the New York Film Festival in 1982. Glass composed numerous works for the Mabou Mines theater productions and choreographers Lucinda Childs, Alvin Ailey, and Jerome Robbins have incorporated his pieces into their repertoires.

Glass also collaborated with Robert Wilson on another opera, The Civil Wars: (a tree is best measured when it is down) and worked on a piece based on the writings of Doris Lessing called The Making of the Representative of Planet 8. In 1985 Glass teamed with composer Robert Moran and director Andrei Serban to produce the opera The Juniper Tree based on a Brothers Grimm fairytale.

Glass continued his collaborative efforts into the 1990's. He composed three operas based on films by the deceased Jean Cocteau, French author and movie director. Orphee, composed by Glass in 1993, followed the sound-track of the film closely. In La Belle et la Bete (1994), Glass went one step further, stripping the film of its soundtrack and creating a live and carefully synchronized operatic accompaniment that took its place among his finest and most exciting works. In Les Enfants Terribles (1996) Glass teamed with choreographer Susan Marshall to tell the story through instrumental music and dance rather than singing.

In 1997 Glass composed and recorded a symphony based on the David Bowie album Heroes. One reviewer remarked in New Statesman (February 14, 1997) that Glass needed to be given credit for helping take a giant hammer to the wall that traditionally separated classical and rock music. In the same article Glass commented that, "Just as composers of the past have turned to music of their time to fashion new works, the work of Bowie became an inspiration for symphonies of my own."

Further Reading

Most of the information on Philip Glass is available in periodicals such as TIME (June 19, 1978), High Fidelity/Musical America (April 1979), and People (October 6, 1980). Two particularly good articles appear in Contact, no. 11 (1975) and no. 13 (1976). An excellent, detailed essay on Glass can be found in David Ewen's American Composers (1982). Robert Palmer's discussion of the composer's background and development in the record insert for Einstein on the Beach (Tomato Records, 1978) is noteworthy. Most of Glass' works can be obtained on Chatham, Virgin, Tomato, or CBS records.

For periodical articles about Philip Glass see: American Record Guide, September-October 1996; Time, December 9, 1996; and New Statesman, February 14, 1997.

For on-line resources about Philip Glass see: http://www.biography.com.

 

(born Jan. 31, 1937, Baltimore, Md., U.S.) U.S. composer. He studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago and then studied composition at the Juilliard School and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. His later studies with the Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in 1966 and the tabla player Alla Rakha produced a radical shift in his compositional style. He became the leading exponent of musical "minimalism," employing insistently repeated notes and chords, subtly shifting timbres, and blocklike harmonic progressions without contrapuntal voice leading. He achieved fame suddenly with the opera Einstein on the Beach (1975) and went on to write more than 20 operas, including Satyagraha (1980), Akhnaten (1984), and The Voyage (1992). His other works include many film scores, such as Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and The Thin Blue Line (1988), and the recordings Glassworks (1981) and Songs from Liquid Days (1986). He collaborated with a wide range of writers, artists, and musicians, including Robert Wilson, Allen Ginsberg, Doris Lessing, David Bowie, and Paul Simon. Glass's work appealed to fans of rock and popular music, and at the turn of the 21st century he was perhaps the world's most famous living composer.

For more information on Philip Glass, visit Britannica.com.

 
Dictionary of Dance: Philip Glass

Glass, Philip (b Baltimore, 31 Jan. 1937). US composer. His music has frequently been used by modern choreographers, most notably Robbins in Glass Pieces (New York City Ballet, 1983) and Lucinda Childs in Dance (New York, 1979), Mad Rush (Paris, 1981), and Field Dances (New York, 1984). Glass composed the score for Twyla Tharp's 1986 ballet In the Upper Room and for her 1996 ballet Heroes.

 
Fairy Tale Companion: Philip Glass

Glass, Philip (1937– ), American composer whose La Belle et la Bête: An Opera for Ensemble and Film (première, 1994) is an innovative operatic adaptation of Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast, 1946). Glass transforms Cocteau's film into a live production of music‐theatre by eliminating the film's soundtrack, synchronizing his new operatic score with the film, and presenting live singers before their characters on screen. As an interpretation of the fairy‐tale film, Glass's operatic score and media experiment stress the love story and the artist's inward journey towards creativity.

— Donald Haase

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Glass, Philip,
1937–, American composer, b. Baltimore. Considered one of the most innovative of contemporary composers, he was a significant figure in the development of minimalism in music. Glass attended the Juilliard School of Music (M.A., 1962) and studied (1964–66) with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. There he also met Indian musicians Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha, whose music was to influence his own compositions strongly. In 1968 he formed the Philip Glass Ensemble, a small group that employs electronically amplified instruments. During the 1970s he became known for music that blended standard notation and tonality with electronics. These lengthy and highly rhythmic compositions employ a number of phrases that are repeated and slowly modified during the music's course. The purest form of this style is represented in the four-hour-long Music in 12 Parts (1971–74).

More traditional harmonies entered the opera Einstein on the Beach (1976), which Glass wrote with Robert Wilson; this work introduced the composer and the minimalist style to a mass audience, paving the way for a wider acceptance of contemporary opera. A landmark in recent musical history, the meditative Einstein is without narrative plot and blends light, image, and sound as well as dance, words, and music into a hypnotic whole. During the ensuing years Glass's work has become more complex and varied. He is particularly well known for his operas, which also include Satyagraha (1980); Akhnaten (1984); The Fall of the House of Usher (1988); Hydrogen Jukebox (1990), a collaboration with Allen Ginsberg; The Voyage (1992); and La Belle et la Bête (1994), a work for ensemble composed for Jean Cocteau's film. Three additional operas had their American debuts in 2001—The Marriages between Zones 3, 4 and 5 (1997); the epic White Raven (1998), another collaboration with Robert Wilson; and the smaller-scale In the Penal Colony (2001), based on the Franz Kafka short story. Later operas include Galileo Galilei (2002) and Waiting for the Barbarians (2005), based on a novel by J. M. Coetzee. Glass has also written several symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and a variety of other orchestral and instrumental pieces. His work has been extremely influential in the development of a new generation of composers.

Bibliography

See his Music by Philip Glass (1987); R. Kostelanetz, ed., Writings on Glass (1997).

 
Wikipedia: Philip Glass

Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is a three-times Academy Award-nominated American composer. He is considered one of the most influential composers of the late-20th century[1][2][3][4][5] 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's music is frequently described as minimalist, though he has distanced himself from that description, calling himself, among other things, a composer of "music with repetitive structures." [6] Though his earliest music could arguably be called minimalist, his later style has evolved significantly enough that the label is probably inappropriate for many of his works.[7] [8]

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, Linda Ronstadt, 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 four children[citation needed]: two (Zachary (b. 1971) and Juliet (b. 1968)) with his first wife, the theater director JoAnne Akalaitis (m. 1965, div. 1980); and two (Marlowe and Cameron) with his current, fourth wife, Holly Critchlow [9]. Glass lives in New York and in Nova Scotia.

Life and Work

For a list of works, see List of compositions by Philip Glass

Beginnings, education and influences

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 Domaine Musical 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).

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 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.

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 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."[10] In the same year, Glass again collaborated with Robert Wilson on another opera, the CIVIL warS, which premiered at the Opera of Rome.

Theater 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 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.

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 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.

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), 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 [citation needed]. 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.

A second opera triptych: Orphée, La Belle et la Bête and Les Enfants Terribles

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).[11] One theme of the opera, the death of Eurydice, has some similarity to the composer's personal life: the opera was composed about a year after the unexpected death in 1991 of Glass's wife, artist Candy Jernigan: "(...) one can only suspect that Orpheus' grief must have resembled the composer's own."[11] The opera's "transparency of texture, a subtlety of instrumental color"[11] was praised, and The Guardian 's critic remarked "Glass has a real affinity for the French text and sets the words eloquently, underpinning them with delicately patterned instrumental textures."[12].

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.

Influences and connections

Philip Glass is acknowledged to be one of the most influential voices of the 20th Century.[citation needed] A great number of rock musicians (Bowie, Eno), composers of film (Elfman) and concert music, have credited him with influencing the sound of the 2nd half of the 20th Century.

Besides working in the Western classical tradition for the concert hall, opera, theater, and film, his music also has strong ties to rock, ambient music, electronic music, and world music. Early admirers included musicians Brian Eno and David Bowie, who acknowledged the influence of Glass's minimalist style.[13] 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.

Music for film

Music from Naqoyqatsi

From Naqoyqatsi by Philip Glass noicon

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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.

New directions: symphonies, chamber operas, and concerti

Glass's more lyrical and romantic styles came to a creative high with the Etudes for Piano and Les Enfants Terribles and furthermore in Godfrey Reggio's Naqoyqatsi (2002); in the chamber opera The Sound of a Voice (2003), as well as in the series of Concertos since 2000; and in three symphonies that are centered on the interplay of either vocalist or chorus and orchestra. Two symphonies written in a very similar style, Symphony No.5 "Choral" (1999) and Symphony No.7 "Toltec" (2004) in addition to his large cantata "The Passion of Ramakrishna", are based on religious or meditative themes, whereas Glass's operatic Symphony No.6 Plutonian Ode (2001), commissioned by the Brucknerhaus Linz and Carnegie Hall in honor of Glass's 65th birthday, started as a collaboration with the poet Allen Ginsberg (for reciter and piano—Ginsberg and Glass), based on his poem by the same title. In this piece Glass explored new, more complicated and rich textures in a blend of the composer's most inspired efforts in both his technical expertise as a trained composer and al