Glass Rules
With at least 135 recordings (by my quick count) now in circulation, one would think there wasn’t much Philip Glass music that hasn’t already been submitted for the judgment of history. One would be wrong.
Orange Mountain Music has just released the second of a planned series of 10 CDs winnowed from the vast archives that Glass has assembled over the past 40 years. The recordings—most of them captured during live performances–span the entire range of Glass’ work and include music for film, theater, dance, and concert hall in a wide variety of scores including chamber music, solo instruments and orchestral works.
The first CD in the series, From the Philip Glass Archive –Theater Music Vol. 1, was released a few months back and contains two atypical Glass pieces in that there are few repeating arpeggios, not much of a driving pulse, and a lot of intimate touches. The first is a suite from Glass’ 2003 opera, The Sound of a Voice, the setting of two stories of Japan from a libretto by David Henry Hwang. Scored for violin, cello, flute, and pipa, the suite combines Eastern and Western in a light, engaging manner despite a few nasty coughs from sickly audience members. (Stay home, people!)
The second suite is drawn from music created for Jane Bowles’ 1953 play, In the Summer House, which was directed by Glass’ first wife Joanne Akalaitis. Scored for violin and cello, the piece is divided into 18 short movements, each more ravishing than the one before it. There is something to be said for being young and in love.
From the Philip Glass Archive – Vol. 2: Orchestral Music dips into Glass’ “world music” bag for Days and Nights in Rocinha, a 23-minute musical tribute to the Brazilian neighborhood that is home to the world-famous “samba school” and a place that Glass’ frequented often in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The piece was premiered in 1998 as a Dance for Dennis Russell Davies and Orchestra by the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. It’s an engaging piece that demonstrates once again that Glass coasting is better than most composers trying their damnedest.
The second work on the disc is titled Persephone and is a challenging 5-movement, 27 minute tour-de-force for orchestra and voices, created for a Robert Wilson theatrical installation from 1994. Astute listeners will note that the dramatic high point of the piece—the fourth movement “Cocktail Party”–is borrowed from Glass’ Piano Etude No. 6 but, hey, if you can’t steal from yourself… The piece is performed admirably by The Relache Ensemble.
So today’s musical question is this: What is the best strategy for managing your compositional “brand?” Put it all out there and let history sort it out (like Glass, Martinu and many others) or publish and record only those things you think future generations will hear favorably (like, say, Varese).
I share your enthusiasm for Dance 4, but am not sure it’s all that unknown. A Madrigal Opera has probably been heard less often (I’ve heard it only once, in a performance by the S.E.M. Ensemble in the 80’s in NYC). And while some of us have the recordings, I suspect many folks haven’t heard Another Look at Harmony, Part IV, or How Now and several other early works. I have several different recordings of Strung Out, but even that one isn’t well known.
…and Modern Love Waltz, according to Glass’s website. For what it’s worth, Dance No.4/Fourth Series part ? is one of my favourite pieces and the Great Unknown Glass Work.
No kidding—I still have the original LP of Dance 1 and 3. But the organ works (2,4) I believe were originally conceived as part of Fourth Series. Parts of Fourth Series were also used in a few other works, such as Mad Rush.
Dance # 2 and 4 are part of a piece by Glass called Dance (5 mvmts total), which was a collaboration with Lucinda Childs and Sol LeWitt. I think the piece came shortly after Einstein on the Beach.
http://www.amazon.com/Dance-1-5-Richard-Peck/dp/B0000026OX/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-8909320-1058831?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1187114170&sr=8-1
I think you should record as much as possible. It is true that there may be a sorting out by others that takes place. The fact that listeners may not agree with a composer about the ranking of her works has been demonstrated time and time again.
I thought Glass’ organ solos Dance Nos 2 and 4 were part of Fourth Series? If so, I’d like to hear the rest of it. Stefan Schleiermacher has also recorded 1+1 on MD+G.
That is my understanding as well, and I’d also like to hear the complete work.
I am glad to see Glass putting out as much as he has archived, and sold at a reasonable price – unlike the way Stockhausen has his items marketed (almost $30 per disc, which will make for some very, very expensive multi-unit sets).
String Quartet No.1: It is almost “Feldman-like”, with the repetitions, dissonance, and superimposed unequal phrases.
You can’t anticipate posterity, so if you really do care about your legacy it’s foolish to hide anything away. I don’t care much for Glass’ later music and I wish someone could have winnowed out the chaff from the deluge of new works released during the 90s, but I doubt Glass and I would agree on what those interesting works might be.
So yeah, put it all out there, and then try to build a narrative for how people should hear it, like Cage did.
I thought Glass’ organ solos Dance Nos 2 and 4 were part of Fourth Series? If so, I’d like to hear the rest of it. Stefan Schleiermacher has also recorded 1+1 on MD+G.
Frank, I’m not sure we’ll ever hear much or any of it. My understanding is that he pretty much trashed all of it when Nadia Boulanger reeducated him in the 60’s.
I’ve yet to hear any serial music by Glass. Someone please turn me on to it!
The one early work of his I know other than that somewhat transitional and quite fascinating First String Quartet already referenced above is a Brass Sextet which is more along the lines of mid-period Copland and William Schuman. While this early work–which Glass now disavows but does not control the publishing rights to (hence the commercially-available recording)–is in no way a harbinger of the music he would later write, some of the chord progressions and voice leadings are very typical of work we now all can immediately recognize as his. Ultimately compositional identity transcends compositional process.
Thanks—just downloaded it now. I thought someone had recorded 1+1…
Listening to the samples of the String Qt., it’s not a bad work from the sounds of it, and not even as dissonant as I had been led to think given its status as one of the works Glass wrote while racking up prizes for serial music.
1+1 has been recorded by Joseph Gramley (http://www.josephgramley.com/globalperccd.php)
Found it online. I should ask—is it any good?
Cool—I’ll have to see if I can find it. Way back in the late 70’s, I went looking for the score in the Library for Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, but it was checked out at that time.
David- The string quartet from 1966 has been commercially released: on a Collins disc by the Duke String Quartet (this also has Barber’s quartet in toto and Dvorak’s American).
Put it all out there and let history sort it out…or publish and record only those things you think future generations will hear favorably?
Put it all out there. Every bit.
well, being that recording industries still feel drawn to conform to earlier “superstar” models of composers, we should only expect even more…of course its a shame there aren’t more discs given to other composers, compilations, new themes, something new…i suppose theres not much of a point for a post like this!
Actually, there’s still a fair amount of his music that hasn’t been recorded: A Madrigal Opera, 1+1 (AFAIK, this has not been recorded), his early string quartet from ’66, In Again Out Again, Head On, Music for the Red Horse Animation, Music in Eight Parts (I saw this mentioned somewhere but don’t know more than that), Another Look at Harmony Part III (Part IV has been recorded), Fourth Series and a few others.
I was very glad that Alter Ego released some of his early music (still his best stuff, in my opinion) earlier this year, including How Now and 600 Lines.