Philip Glass

[Serial_Apologist]

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/631338/Philippe-de-Vitry

...for those such as me.

[muzzer]

PT played some either this morning or yesterday - hard to tell them apart in the circs ;)

Am not averse to PG entirely, but a little goes a very long way. I can't help thinking it is not coincidental that the modern composers who go over best with the rock crowd such as PG, Steve Reich [who is fantastic and the real talent in that generation] and Michael Nyman, do so because their music is characterised by a regular pulse, or 'beat'.....

[Richard Barrett]

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/...lippe-de-Vitry

Indeed, someone whose pivotal importance for the history of western music is massively greater than Glass's, which is why I wonder at anyone flattering Glass by punning on their names...

[ahinton]

Indeed, someone whose pivotal importance for the history of western music is massively greater than Glass's, which is why I wonder at anyone flattering Glass by punning on their names...

Agreed on the first part, though somehow I doubt that flattery was intended by the musicologist concerned...

[MrGongGong]

It was the last great thing he composed IMV
and now available as a stream

http://contemporaryperformance.com/2014/01/27/in-performance-stream-robert-wilsons-philip-glasss-and-lucinda-childs-einstein-on-the-beach/

[Bryn]

It was the last great thing he composed IMV
and now available as a stream

http://contemporaryperformance.com/2...-on-the-beach/

Many, many thanks for that. Now if I could find some way of capturing that stream ...

[MrGongGong]

Many, many thanks for that. Now if I could find some way of capturing that stream ...

Let me know if you do
i'm meeting some folks tomorrow who would know how to do it

[Richard Barrett]

now available as a stream

Thanks, I've just spent a couple of hours with that, the recorded sound is muffled but it's good to be able to see it after all this time just listening.

[Bryn]

Let me know if you do
i'm meeting some folks tomorrow who would know how to do it

My usual method does not work. However, there may be an alternative method that can be used with some YouTube items. I have to be up at 5am for work tomorrow, so am off to the land of nod. Will investigate further tomorrow evening, if I have the energy.

[HARRIET HAVARD]

Glass, and minimalism itself, proved to be a blind alley. One work of his that I would suggest has stood the test of time though, is his opera The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight, written in conjunction with the recently deceased Doris Lessing, and taken from her book. While obviously minimalist in its construction, it still has a depth and substance missing from most other works in the genre.

As far as the rest of the works by Glass are concerned though, I have to agree with what seems to be the general opinion here. They have very little- if any- merit.

[MrGongGong]

Glass, and minimalism itself, proved to be a blind alley.

I think you are looking in the wrong place.

[HARRIET HAVARD]

I think you are looking in the wrong place.

Unless your message has some deep obscure message that has escaped me, I can only conclude that it is you who looking in the wrong place.

[Bryn]

Glass, and minimalism itself, proved to be a blind alley. One work of his that I would suggest has stood the test of time though, is his opera The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight, written in conjunction with the recently deceased Doris Lessing, and taken from her book. ...

I only ever heard the Radio 3 broadcast of a production of that work. The experience was somewhat spoiled by an intrusive prompter who could be heard throughout the performance. That notwithstanding, I thought it about the weakest of his output I had heard to that date. Later compositions of his have, to my ears, continued the downward trend. His early 'minimalist' works remain his best, by a long stretch. There again, Nyman had not yet borrowed the term "minimalism" from the graphic arts at the time of works such as Music in Changing Parts.

[amateur51]

Glass, and minimalism itself, proved to be a blind alley. One work of his that I would suggest has stood the test of time though, is his opera The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight, written in conjunction with the recently deceased Doris Lessing, and taken from her book. While obviously minimalist in its construction, it still has a depth and substance missing from most other works in the genre.

As far as the rest of the works by Glass are concerned though, I have to agree with what seems to be the general opinion here. They have very little- if any- merit.

I attended a performance of The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight at ENO and my abiding memory is of the tears of laughter streaming down my face at the end at the banality of it all, I'm afraid.

[MrGongGong]

Unless your message has some deep obscure message that has escaped me, I can only conclude that it is you who looking in the wrong place.

Sorry it's you i'm afraid
you are expecting Glass's music to contain things that it obviously doesn't
you are expecting the history of music to be a journey in a single direction
and your statement is clearly NOT true (come and have a listen to some of the stuff that appears on the Rock, experimental thread for example)

I'm in agreement with Bryn about his work
some of his early work is exhilarating and wonderful
the Operas (apart from Einstein) don't do it for me because they fall back on the conventions that the earlier music managed to break so brilliantly