Mesmerizing Your Ears with Philip Glass

 

image source: www.medici.tv

Since I have not written in this blog for over twelve years, I thought I'd drop this simple note: listen to some Philip Glass. Now, if you just stopped reading and went do just that, my job here is done... In the event you have not, well, I hope you do so by the end of the post.

I first heard about Philip Glass while I was in college. He is known as one of the main creators of the minimalist style. However, as other composers in the past who have been associated with a particular style, Glass prefers to categorize his music as having "repetitive structures" rather than using the reductive (pardon the pun) "minimalist" label. I became familiar with three of his pieces: "Glassworks," which I understand became a ballet, and his first two symphonies. By around 2010, I was constantly listening to these three compositions repeatedly. For many years after this, I tried to check out more of his music, but I always got sidetracked by something else. I listened to snippets from "Satyagraha" here and there, but I wasn't quite paying attention to the music and that work simply did not grow on me. I soon hope to give it another chance.

Then, my utter fascination with this composer started around 2018, when I listened to "Akhnaten." This particular composition, with its beautiful orchestration and vocals, made me decide to pursue more listening. After going to the Metropolitan Opera to see a staging of this work, I was convinced. I needed to listen to a lot more Philip Glass.

A lot of joy and a bit of disappointment came from this pursuit:

Firstly, I did listen to his Symphonies #3 to #10 in 2022, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed.  One of my favorite became #7, the "Toltec" Symphony. Since I felt my minimalist craving was not fully satisfied, I decided to, so to speak, go back to basics and listen to "Einstein on the Beach." His three biopic operas, in chronological order, are these:

1. Einstein on the Beach, 1976.

2. Satyagraha, 1980.

3. Akhnaten, 1984.

And this is where a bit of disappointment came. What all of these operas have in common is that, for each work, the composer chose as the subject matter a historical character who drastically changed his generation. Musically speaking, however, the first work is not only extremely long and therefore more tiresome to get through (it took me several days), but also less musical. There were a few passages of "Einstein" which were appealing, but in my opinion there is not much lyricism in the music. Now, do not think for a second that in Glass's operas you will find the kind of lyricism we have in Puccini, Verdi or any other opera composer - not at all. The styles are completely different. Yet the last two operas in the triptych are musically richer, more colorful, and the ideas develop in a way that you can feel and almost taste them. In "Einstein," however, the music often becomes stale.

If you are still with me, just do this: go on YouTube, look up one of Glass's symphonies, and enjoy. If you like what you hear, then go to "Akhnaten"  and keep exploring from there. And as you are listening to this music, keep an open mind and remember to allow time to slow down. Whenever I want to really listen, especially with headphones to block other sounds and close my eyes in a relaxed position, I tend to pick music by Philip Glass.