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A p T E R 11 PH ILI PGLASS Born Baltimore, 1937 1 5 si W H I L E J o H N e A G E may be the first name in new music that most people know, the music of is more likely to be the first sound of it they actually hear. Glass's music can be found not only at the , where he reigns supreme as America's most success­ ful living composer, but at the ballet, on television, in symphony halls, films , jazz clubs, and even the occasional sports stadium. There are 1972. Photo Credit: Richard I.andry times in New York when it seems his music is everywhere; one Village Philip Glass, New York, Voice headline called 1992-1993 the "Season of Glass." When he was named "Musician of the Year" in 1985 by Musical America, joining Igor Britten (the only other composers so honored Glass an in-depth look at the rhythmic subtleties of Indian music, and Stravinsky and Benjamin 1 1 in the magazine's then twenty-five-year history), the citation began, he carne to see how rhythm could be used to shape his own musical "Few composers in this century have achieved the sweeping popularity ideas, developing, in the process, his particular brand of minimalism or influenced the musical sound of their times as much as Philip Glass." based on rhythms with overlapping cycles, something he once And that was a decade ago. Today, in the post-Cage world of experi· described as "like wheels turning inside of wheels." His earliest music menta! ~usic, no one has their music heard by more people. in this style was composed for an experimental theater company in Ph1hp Glass grew up in Baltimore, taking flute lessons as a child at Paris, soon to become Mabou Mines. l , knew he was going to be a musi· ln 1966, after six months s pent in India and North Africa, Glass 1 t~e Peabody ~onservatory. He says he 1 CJa~ by_ the time he was eight. At the age of fifteen, he went to the returned to New York. Forming his own ensemble in 1968, he began Univers,ty of Chicago in a special program for bright kids (Carl Sagan giving concerts; both formal ones in downtown art galleries, as well as was ª. ye~r a~ead; Susan Sontag was there the year before). Interested informal Sunday afternoon ones in his Bleeker Street loft. ~Y the ~ ly th b'. is time m modem music, Glass was first attracted to the Second seventies his ensemble was touring both Europe and Amenca, playmg V1ennese School-Schoe b B . ' · that n o o ne else was . h f n erg, erg, and Webern- but rejected 1t by only the music Glass wrote for them, musIC . d . A!f . th I . d k f om chis peno 1s ustc e time e e t Chicago. After five years studying at Juilliard and tw0 allowed to play. His most fully realize wor r . :__--- ' d 4 ·t reqU1res three concerts more as a Ford Foundat' . ss . 197 ' 1 . C Gl ion composer-m-residence in Pittsburgh Gla zn 12 Parts. Written between 1971 an r, ass wem to Fr ance to s tud · h N . ' . 1990 ·val at Lincoln ente d h . Y wtt adia Boulanger; he says he knew he to perform in its entirety. For tts revi. h en ory or anticipa• neede ore tec nique. h ard w1t out m 1 m ·ct cou !d b e e ' pui·e meclium in sai he hoped the work re, a ln 1965, while still in p · GI t10. f d t1·c strucru ~ s, ass worked with Ravi Shankar, helping n, as a presence, "freed o rama him prepare his mus· 6 musicians to play for his film sound " • · Chap,naqua At th ic or . estern studio • . . b ert Wilson to write Emstem on l' · e sarne time h 1 . th ate, tabla player Allah R kh ' ~ ª so stud1ed with Shankar's assoet· ln 1976, Glass collaborat~d wi ~o rtrai t" , the others being ª ª· This combination of e xperiences gave the Beach, the first of his tnlogy of po 318 DUCKWORTH, William. Talking Music... New York: Da Capo Press, 1999. l PHILIP GLAss pHILIP GLASS 320 321

Satyagraha, from 1980, and , from 1984. Einstein, which was GLASS: Yes, I knew. For people for whom that h . anct life becomes very easy because you ai k appens, m one way a joint commission from the governments of France and Holland, ways now what you're · playing the Ho use in New to do. In another way it becomes very . gomg toured Europe before h h 'd . comp1 icated. But you never as a minimalist, a style he s ays he felt hact go t h roug t at , entny or vocational crisis h. h York, made Glass famous h w 1c seems very com- around 1975 I 10...">.."' [ ended two years before. Whether true or not, the period mon t~ ot er peop e. Musicians always seem to know what the Y r- ~• ,,.,,, does mark a mai·or shift in Glass's musical output. From this point his are gomg to do, and who they are. ~ ~,\ . , to theater, film, and ~ance, resultmg over the :, ..·y{''à ~~ attention turns primarily DUCKW0 RTH: What influenced you toward music? in addition to more operas, m such film scores as ,. ,.i- C1' next decade , , "?i Mishima for Paul Schrader, for Godfrey Reggio, and The GLASS: _ _ It's ha~d to ~now. Mu_sicians have something Jike a calling, a Thin Blue Line for Erro! Morris. rehg1ous callmg. It s a vocation. I think it happens before we know Glass's ninth opera, , written with playwright David it's going to happen. At a certain point you realize that's the only Henry Hwang and based on Christopher Columbus, was commissioned thing you can take seriously. It occasionally happens when some­ by the Metropolitan Opera, where it was premiered in 1992. That sarne one begins Iate, but it's rare. That isn't to say that we're ali season in New York also saw the premiere of Glass's Low Symphony, Mendelssohns and Schuberts; damn few of us ever get to chat to be based on the music of his friends David Bowie and Brian Eno, a reviva! point. They seem to be the oddest creatures of ali; they seem longer to acquire of Einstein on the Beach, anda new theater work at the Joyce Theater. quite rare. It seems, though, that it takes much age. But It was, as the Voice said, the "Season of Glass." fluency in the language of music, so we begin at an early that?," I don't know. You get inca For ali the fame and the demands on his time, Philip Glass maintains when you say, "What makes us do pieces when you were four or five. a rather strict schedule. He trys to keep mornings free to compose, and very early memories-hearing the first piece they heard. It limits his contact with the press, the telephone, and interviewers like me Every musician I know can remember be their first piece, but they can remember hearing to one day a week, a far cry from the first time we met, both leaning may not really their first piece. against the back wall at a concert in the old Kitchen, just after Einstein a piece that they will cal! played the Met. Today, Phil tives in a brownstone on the edge of New DUCKW0RTH: What was your first piece? York's Lower East Side, sharing the street with the New York chapter of GLASS: MineS was a chubert crio, che E> piano trio. Everyone has one. the Hell's_Angels anda men's homeless center. It seemed like a Jong way right? from Baltimore; I wondered how it had ali begun. I'm sure you have one, DUCKW0RTH : Yes, Rirnsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade. DUCKW0RTII: Was your family musical? GLASS: It's funny how those pieces c an stick with you chough. e happen to have the sarne is funny in my case, b ecause w . ord store. I began working in the score Schubert GLASS: My father had a rec birthday In !ater years I r esented that, because I real1~ed thhat I when I was twelve, so I knew a lot about ali kinds of music from a · d e The radio stauons ave th concer . oin to be Schubert. I've very early age. But I didn't begin seriously playing until I was eight. would never get the bir ~Y, · · · · those birthday concerts, and 1t s always g . g Actually, I began playing wh I S1){, at a certam pomt mus1- . ' en was but got this o ther dude who already beat me to it. 1 c1ans b~come dedicated in what chey do, and that h appened when 1 pond to the memory of l 1 was eig~t.-I !ater found out that that was considered late. When I DUCKWORTII: How do you think peop e res l was at Ju1U~ard, I discovered that m y friends had ali begun when hearing that firs t piece? . . l they were S1){. ber where they were s1cung; GLASS: It's very emotional. They reme~ h It's a very clear memory, o k DUCKW0 RTH: S you were eight years o ld that you they can remember who they werec wit fi. ve six. . . you new when early- 1our, 1 , weie gom a g to be musician? although it can happen ve ry \

PH1L1p GLA 322 ""SS pHILIP GLASS Peab 323 Started taking flute. lessons a t the 0dy . When you , didn't l'k d more or Iess commmed yourself to rnus·•e . forties. Some of it I liked, some of it I DUCKWORTH.Conservatory, ha you 1 e. 1 was not encour- aged .to like o nly classical music. think I realiz d . ld b a little early to say that. .I d ol'nk ' t e it e r w as a s elf-educated man H . LASS· It wou e ect My fath 1 e or thirteen. But I was actmg I e a cornrnitt Per. . e carne mtheo b that bus·mes s G . unul· I was twe v more or 1ess b Y acci?ent. He lovect music anct 't reflect on it at that moment. lde&ai:1 to take son, ale houg h I didn records that d1dn't sell in the store H ho me them doing? h · e wou bnnghe didn't DUCKWORTH: What did you see yourself J' to t em, because when he woulct order ho me to 1stenf h h know Wagner rom Shostakovich. He brought 1 that I wouldn 't be a flutist. The literature torne t e record. s GLASS: Well, quickly saw that d1· ct n ,t seli b ecause he wamed to hear wh who can make a big career out a was wrong wnh was far too slim. There are people , h • a Shostakovich cello sonata that , I w oulct not have them. Isn t t at cunous? There was of it, but not many. Had I not been ambitious 78s. He wanted to know h 1 happy to someone recorded on w y peop e that it was a limited repertoire. I would have been ]d , b . h . h 'd noticed y 1t, so e wou1 d take 1t home and listen to it. And Vivaldi, the few Mozart pieces, and the handful wou n t u play the Telemann, and again to discover what was wrong with ~e I tried. At that time there liste~ to it again of modem works, which of course it. lt's very funny! His record col­ the late forties now. mus1c . . . and he ended up loving seemed so few of them . . . I'm talking about symphonies, because Iection was very odd. It had no Beethoven good flute player? literature wasn't what DUCKWORTH: Were you a those were the ones you sold. The standard odd stuff-American composers flute player. I was certainly we had at home. We had ali the GLASS: I think I might have been a good Gottschalk. He Foote. There was even an early recording of Since I began early, I had a good physical endow­ like good for my age. music, which didn't sei] well in the forties. Then dexterity, and so forth. I could pro­ had Debussy piano ment in terms of my lips, my nd there was just a flood of music. understood how we switched over to the LPs a duce a very good tone. And I had a teacher who I was fifteen. It was a good introduction to twentieth- to make a good flute sound. But I quit when DUCKWORTH: It sounds like you had century music. to stop playing if you were going to be a professional flutenoc the pla ytimeer. well served in the early fifties. ln those days, : GLASS: New music was DUCKWORTH tly morality about it; they felt that they you interested in modem music then, or mos record companies felt a kind of classical? Were ardly runs across that had to represem new music. Of course, one h g, by days. Record companies are run, strictly speakin By fifteen I was interested in modem music. idea these GLASS: really care about music. But in those days Wh h d accountants who don't DUCKWORTH· to it. They felt they were . ere a you ever heard any of it? there was definitely a missionary quality ecords of new music, GLASs: I hadn't' I ct ·ct ' obliged to play new music, and to produce r know what it was! I just knew that I n, sixteen- you could was interested.in ic'. n t even and if you were a young guy-fourteen, fiftee that I heard, though I don't DUCKWORTH: listen to it. That's the first lot of music 0n on me. It didn't mean any­ music? growing up, did you listen to popular think it made much of an impressi When you Were tudy it. thing to me personally until I really began to s Of course I did Th ' GLASs: identify one or two records, though, from what Was in the store And I listene.d DucKWORTH: Can you to moctern rnu s1•c , too· I 1·at s · al? st music. I worked that early period, as being influenti the store, so I he d · , ~nect to all kinds of 10 1 · ecause everyching from "Ghostride rs in the Sky" to · · company for me was Dia! records, b remember ope~ b h GLAss: The importam rung the fi st esley records. T ey bern and Berg. They were ali carne to the store • h ,r ox of Elvis Pr af they were the ones that recorded We mt e m · that ter- at we thought was advanced at noon. ln a funny wa I' orning anct they disappeared 78s. I was attracted to the music th the history of contem· h S h berg ' Webern ' and nB Diergal. porary Pop music siny, vle been monitoring . t e ttme. , which meant of course e oen I h late ern was recorded very ear 1Y o ce was tw e ve, so that makes it since t e The Symphony, Op. 21 of Web PHILIP GLAss 324 pHILIP GLASS 325 Lyric Suite of Berg ecords as was t h e . Apart from that you hact Were .r ' , . to oucJ

326 , ,ss· lt was a good period. I wrote over twenty . ,a fi ve years !ater, but that was as cio GLI' · f p1ec. es and as a 1 atter of fact, a 1ot o them gor publishe hand when I got my d1p ohn 1·n1portant part is that he was the fi se rn · J bl d · It was li h 1 ' . But t e . . 1rst but a se oo mus1c as I got to Y it was quite p aya e. And, you know some of 1't's t'll . . ' the gu . of the European tradtt1 on. Whatever · · 1 b ' s I m pnnt. ho wasn't part . 1 fi we Jt'S nothing speoa , ut to a you~g composer those are compo~er w . work now is not so important1; m t e _1fties, he was important things. For two years I wrote mus1c that may thtnk of hts temporaiy American symphonic tradition was played almost immedi­ . o write in a con k b 1 ately. After that I went to study with Nadia Boulanger. crymg t uld think of that wor now, ut tt. was inte.r 't know what I wo I h I do n . He represented a who e se ao o f rnusic that· o ucJ

. b n with first species counterpoint. Now at 50 1 her; it's being able to hear one voice independently of another, very beginning. efiga years old with a master 's degree, and the . I was cwenty- ive S . k being able to play one voice independently of another. A Boulanger chat ume h younger than me. o tt ta es a certain stude nt began the day by playing a Bach h dents were muc . b chorale- playing three ot er seu d to submit to that. You 1ust egan early in the parts and s ge I woul say, d • inging the fourth. You did that four times, so that you coura_ ' k d ali day. It was the only way to o It. She ser sang ali four parts mormng and wor e d f and played the other three. And that was never . h and what she expecte o you was so unrea- dane in a piano score. che standard s so hig ' . k II That was done in the open score with four ly way to get dose to tt was to wor a the time ciefs. So the day began with that. sonable, th at th e o n . . I h d b .. • t here I aJmost stopped wntmg. a een wntmg to t he pom w . . . Were you . · · so to aJmost stop was quite a maior thmg DUCKWORTH: a good student? tior ten years, . for me to do. And the second year I almost stopped because I s1mply had no GLASS: I wasn 't a particularly good student. But she bludgeoned you time. There was so much work to do. But at the end of that time I into ... The dullest of us acquired some technique, I think. That is, had acquired a very different grasp of music than I had before I if you did what she told you to do-if you actually did the exercises. carne. rf you proceeded intelligently and energetically in the direction that you were set on, you DUCKWORTII: Did you have daily contact with her? definitely acquired something. There were people that were marvelous at this and other people that weren't so GLASS: I saw her three times a week. I saw her once privately; I had a good. To be marvelous at it did not mean that you were going to be private lesson which was a small class that I went to with four or the best composer. ln fact, very few of the students were actually five other people; and then there was a larger class that she gave. composers. And she didn't a ctually look at your music. You could Besides that, I had another teacher, her assistam Mlle Dieudonne, show it to her, but she was more interested in your counterpoint. If with whom we did other kinds of musicianship having to do mainly you wanted to show her a piece, she would look at it, but her com­ with solfege. And as you probably know, solfege for these birds ments were much more careful. She had a great reverence for the meant reading in seven clefs. There was 1 nothing easy that they creative spirit, even with her students. She would take anyone's couldn't make more difficult without a little imagination! One stan­ work seriously, which was a great thing in a certain way. But you also dard exercise of Boulanger's was that from any note you had to learned very quickly that you would get more out of her by working smg ali the inversions of ali the cadences in every key: It takes about with her on technique. A Iesson spent on a piece was less valuable ten or twelve minutes to do, and you go through about thirty or than ones dane on harmony or counterpoint. forcy ~ormulae. So you become a technician in a certain way: Most Amhenca~s don 't have that. What you learn in most schools even a DUCKWORTH: Did you show her much ofyour music? se oo1 ltke J uilliard at th t • ' . · d f . ª time, are the rules of counterpomt GLASS: No. mstea o learnmg counterp . d d of lear • h omt, an the rules of harmony instea not kn::r ~mony. But that's like reading a book on driving and DUCKWORTH: Nane at ali? sarne thingngTcecohw to ge~ into a car. Technique and rules are not the GLASS: Not after the first day: r discovered I had more to leam from · nique 1s a kill d on analysis of past . s , an rules are a formulation based her. I had had composition teachers before; I wasn'_t inte~ested _in skill. music. She taught technique as an acquirable opinions. Also, during che Iast year that I was sc,udymg ':"1th her, I began writing the music D UCKWORTH· Wh that I'm writing now: I m convm~ed _chat . at do you th10. k . h she would have thought it was crazy: I was ternfied taught you? is t e most importam thing she of showmg tt c_o her. r was doing repetitive pieces that were basically about_rh ythmIC GLASS: Ultimately, ali h . . construction. It had almost no harmony or cou?terpomt at ali, he .· ' er trammg I b li d aung. The great eh· ' e eve, was directed towar s Which is what I had been studying with her. It wasn t long after that dence of hearing. No:~;:;:c she was involved with was indepen- that r carne back to play in Paris. My personal nightmare was that I nd ' pe ence wasn 't a politi cal slogan for would come out to do a concert and there would be Mlle Boulanger l PHILIP GLAss 330 pHILIP GLASS 331 always afraid she woutct . She never was, but I was · 10 the first row. s alliance between harmony anct melody Th , h show up. I was told that she knew ~ y •~usic. homeone asked her · at s t e b asic alliance· liven things up Let' ' .d that she had heard Einstein on t e Beach. But she rhythm comes along to and s he sai , for the moment. That's a whole other s~b1·ecst pasds overhStravinsky would never make comments about a composer s work. . d . . an one t at I didn't unde1stan well at that time m my life Had I I · h h • · I • · , m1g t ave looked DUCKW0RTH: Do you know why not? at 1t d1ffe rent y; I m1ght have come to that realization through a dif- ad such a reverence ferent route. But the non-Western music I kn . GLASS: 1 think she was reluctant. As I said, she h k , · h ew was Rav1 for the creative urgings and instincts that I think she was not Sh an ar s mus1c:-t e music of northern India, and later the music the melody and inclined to put a damper on it. Though as a young composer 1 of southe rn Ind1a. There, the tension is between y. I think knew heras a teacher, I was not, on my side, inclined to show it to the rhythm, not between the melody and the harmon that the tala her. Also, you have to remember that in 1965 this work was in a that's a fairly accurate analogy to make. Toe moment st the melodi~ very fragile state. I had not developed a body of work to support it, or the r hythmic structure, comes up and meets again 's the or the body of ideas that I knew it would evemually fit into. I was structure at the sum-when the beats come together-that clic rhyth­ very much in the dark and very much working alone. I was very re~olution in Indian music. The complications that that cy develop­ sensitive to criticisms in those first few years. There were few peo­ m1c s tructure can create, anq the effects to the melodie music. And ple that I could show it to. lt was years before I really understood ment, open up a whole different way of thinking about what I was doing. that's basically what I heard. I knew nothing like that in my own personal experience, or in any Western music that I knew. DUCKWORTH : I know you had contact with Ravi Shankar while you ment ago. were in Paris. Was he your first encounter with non-Western music? DUCKW0RTH : Well, you did mention Stravinsky a mo the music of northern India you GLASS: Yes, he was. That was also in 1965-66. And I think you have GLASS : Let me put it this way: with lysis to under­ to place that in perspective. Ravi Shankar was not the big star that could hear it immediately; it didn't require an ana took more of an intel­ he became soon after the Beatles discovered him • they went to stand it. To unlock the secrets of Stravinsky e at that point in my life. locii~ _in l968-ó9. ln the early days, you could hear inctian music­ lectual effort than I was prepared to mak not in the big trnciiuonal music from other countries-in Paris but DUCKWORTH: Did you immediately start w orking w ith rhythmic r~ halls._ Ravi was the closest thing to a bi~ star but even he ~o1; c,e strµcture? n t ave ?18 audiences. The big audiences carne with his discov- ery by Amencan and Eng)· h . . . GLASS: Oh, yes. I began in 1965, when I was still in Paris. laying . . is pop mus1C1ans. Not that it changed h1s P . 1n my opm1on h e was d like? before He . . . ' as won erful a player afterwards as DUCKWORTH: What were those very early pieces nt1c1zed by m h' · was c ple, but I've listened to 1s 1 ' concens over th any peo GLAss: They were very much like the pieces that you hear now, in a onsumate artist the whole time. e years, aoct he's been a c certain way. DUCKWORTH: D'd you describe one of them? . 1 you im mediatel DUCKWORTH: Can mus1c and your own work? Y see connectio ns between h is GLAss: One of the very first pieces was for a Beckett pl~y. It was ~ piece GLASs: Yes. The thin I 1 for two saxophones. A guy named Jack Kripl, who still plays wtth me uc- • ture coulct become g earned from Ravi is that the rhythmic scr was in Paris on a Fulbright scholarship, and I hired him. I d. . an overaJI mu . 1 today, Ition that's simpl sica structure. ln our Western tra· recorded him playing both parts. The first part alternated betw~e~ . Yn ot the case N . ' . has m ª sense, serializect m . · ow, 1t s true t hat serial mus1c ' two notes in a specific 7/8 rhythmic pattern. The second part was m ,1 structuraJ use of rh th us1c structures. But I would hardly call that a different pattern with a different two notes. The result ~ s two over­ bre anct pitch anct ; th m. There, rhythm is used in the way that tirn· hythmic cycles that kept creating new rhythm1c pa~~ei~s as ( ! lapping r ~ er aspects are used. ln the West, we have an You listened to it. Of course, after a while they carne together ,igam. lf

-h-~h rnt~¼ ~s fl(Í +lo fà r ~ 0 - 1,1~,, ~ ,- Q¼ 1 \ PHILIP GLAss 332 ptHLIP GLASS 333 . fi d one was in seven, eve1y thirty-five times you ca one was 10 o u cKWORTH: ... significam? Something you telt . bve ~ ·ng So r began to disç_over ali of those ch;n~- tmh e was importam? back to the egmrn · ~ . -. . . . ~ ~ ""'ªt . sic of this k.ind mterestmg. l d1scove1ed there w GLASS: Yes. I knew it was; that was a great hei k . make cyc 11c mu . . b' ere wp . 1 new tt as 1. mpor- two kinds of cydic music: the kind whe1e you com m e cycles of an tant, at 1eas t to me. And I saw right away that ·e . 1 was potenuall. v an th and the kind where one overall cycle can contain ali f alternate way o f workmg. At that point the dom· even 1eng , . ct· o - . - . . . . . , mant mu~i::._o. r· t h e the other cycles. That's the way it happens m ln ta. ttme was_senal muste What happens in __ --- . L1vmg. m Paris I could hardly not b e aware- o f Africa is different. There you can take three or four cycles anct the that. And I was not at ali mterested in continuing in that tract·c· may ·ct d . ld t ion. 1 never, for ali practical purposes, come o ut together. ln the end, i cons1 e re 1t a very o way of looking at things. I was aware of the became interested in Indian music, because those were the guys I was fact that the people who had created the school were of the age of working with. But I didn't really understand it until 1967 when 1 my grand~ath~r. It never occurred to me that they could be my con­ began studying with Allah Rakha. However, that didn't prevent me temporanes; 1t seemed obvious to me that they weren't! But it from writing quite a lot of pieces between 1965 and 1967, when I was wasn't obvious to anyone else. At the time that's what people did. more or less stumbling along trying to figure this out for myself ~very European idea though, isn't it? Ancestor worship. You get mo re of this in Europe DUCKW0RTH: Do you remember how you structured those than in America. We don't go in much for very first ances reductive, repetitive works? tor worship over here. D UCKWORTH: We don't ha GLASS: I did those pieces in parts. There would be a sound recurring ve many of them to worship before lves. because of the overlapping rhythmic patterns. Then there would GLASS: We don't, really. But Ives is such a humdinger. There was so be a pause, and I would start a new one. Then a pause, and then a much in his music that it seemed to offer so many possibilities. Toe ~ew one. _I built the pieces out of these smaller sections. They were closest thing to an American composer to me was John Cage, j hke a senes of non sequiturs. And yet, what they had in common because l knew his work. 1?ut the thing that troubled me with Cage was_ that the overall structural thinking was the sarne. lt formed the was that there seemed no way to follow hirn. That hardly prevented bas1s of this music for me lt ...... • was an 1magmat1ve begmnmg, constd. · severa! generations, thousands of people, from following him. But enng I hardly knew what I was doing. it seemed to me that there was no way for me to follow him. On DUCKWORTH : the other hand, he presented an aesthetic that was interesting, and How did your music at this point relate to Boulanger's 1 teaching? a way of thinking about music that was extremely helpful. His ideas had to do with other ideas that wer GLASS: It seemed at that e ali connected to creative an in was studying s· moment that none of it was useful. Here I a general way-Duchamp, and Jasper Johns, and Rauschenberg. ' IX-pare counterpo· d point at ali Th fi mt, an I wasn't writing counter- and Merce Cunningharn-which led me eventually to work in the . e trst appearance ld b theater work with Boulang d . wou e that I had taken my . My work in the theater had much m ore to do with C age er an s1mply th . b . and Cunnin with what I Jearned fi h rown lt aside. I did not egtn gham than with any of the musicians I knew. . rom er· I bega I b m the end that was th b ' . n comp etely differe ntly. May e DUCKWORTH : th How were those e arly Pa1is works received? Did you tried to a pply what he keSc mg that could have happe ned. Had I s e new tom . get support fo r your music? as a somewhat acade . Y mus1c, I would have ended up GLASs: I was lucky ·l totally different that . mie composer. What I did was something in that I was working with a thea_ter company. lt b k ' in my expe · was the Mabou Mines, the group t hat I wor ..êf__to New York I ct· nence, had no model. When I carne ked wtth for the next ing h- - - , iscovered th k twenty years. So the music had a context. I wrote p1eces for !l ...!.J!t way, which wãs-a r - _ere were other composers wor · them. One was that piece for the Beckett play. Anoth J DUCKWORTH· D'd g eat reltefTmust say. ------er ,vas_a concert . t you think that o . piece for two of the actresses, one of whom 1 had marrie~ by rbat 1 GLASS: Totally orig· l' y u were domg some thing . . . time . A third was a chamber orchestra piece, and a fourth piece was 1 tna rYes . ! a string q uartet. There may have been a few ºthers. ,I', l ~oS t9W: revo\ +-t. de ()""'4..

PHILIP GLAss te.r~~ de. compoSi{o r~ pHILIP GLASS Co-vi-\,,~ o ~vi-,Jo c:i.cJdth.

: At a certain point the ens GLASS and various s became econom· ali emble, the operas, out there thing ere a re a number of reasons. For one thing, I'm /w:~onable, though I was forty-one GLASS: Th 1 before I made a living a/~. I tend to pick projects that get heard a 1 by ne major grant I playing it ali the time. Also, got from the Rockefeller Founcta ~llyo helped ns of people saw. I'm a great rd Klein was the lot; Koyaanisqatsi is a film that millio ead there. He gave th h tion when Howa make it h ee t ree-year g h y own music. And don't forget the music: I w1·1 r rants to t ree artists: Bob advocate of m son, Sam Shepard a d ould rather write an opera than a string \y' . That pushed m e into the world of available in a lot of ways. I w the self-supporting c~mn me . ln the end, it hap- g on the edge of quan et, because I'm interested in the theater that when Howard gave poserh I was just teeterin I actual- money ore people will hear the opera, though, in fact, nt way than me t e grant. As usual I used the pens that m m a differe I , tets. I've written three string quartets in my bf· h' most people have. I used it to start ly like to write s tring quar pu is mg company. wou d -scale pieces, which is · · 1 used half the the last few years. But I'm attracted to large copyright ake . money to copy music to H, anct to m that's one of the reasons why it's popular. I was g co~ avaiJabJe on tapes. I figured that ,if I fortunate because cou~d get the publishin ut this and I said very simply, "If 1 en I wouldn 't have to talking to someone recently abo ~or again. And it turnect outtanby working, th ~_ncl , / O true I f: for two hundred people o~ c_wo thous mg and you e d e you can make a liv- You can w~te _a piece of a an o the music th · n act, ? I thmk 1t can be 1ust as goocl. · I combination Why not wnce tt for two thousand store othof different skills. Don't ; t you want; it takes a }:.' ,or e t I be . d of your popularity i. ~ I was ki in a recor K\xroRTH: How do you feel about the extent u solct it•"i;~· The fi rst thin an workin Duc yo th was that any worries about it? - ' q_ er.~o_rcts, pe~about music today? Do you have 0 - . e atd for it. UCKWüRTtt: Th ere are clifferent kinds. We . e new Gro ' . GLAss: None at ali. But you must realize th I• Y ca's " ve s Dzctiona eople; 1 ou Amen 0 calls c about this. J can play for two thousand p for most Popular se . ry 1 American Music have to be realisti 1 account do you ery time Paul Simon plays a Your Popularity? nous composer." How don't play fo r twenty thousand. Ev r LIP G LA SS PHILIP GLAss pH I 341 340 .. l play in idiot, and the artist who was pursuing hi·s own V1s1on That concert, he does the stadiums. l don't play at stadiums; . person can be a valuable person. l think the function of .. ·. n- The people you could really compare me to, in terms . COIICJSm IS a se concert halls. have only to read the good e ·r· · . Marsalis or the Canadian Brass. We're ous functton. You n 1c1sm to realize of popularity, are, say, Wynton Shaw to Iearn about · · h' silly. On the other hanct, rhat. l read George Bernard. . smgmg; 1s not talking Bruce Springsteen; that's just composer can , that the remarks about v~~al wntmg are something that any we're so unused to thinking even in terms of thousands just take to he_art. So tt s not a questton of being above criticism. It's gets over a thousand we say, "Oh my God, it 's com­ moment someone like anythmg else, there are good composers and not so good 's true. It's far greater than what would fit into popular!" And it posers; there are peopl_e who can make an omelette, and people But I'm a whole decimal point away from hun Carnegie Recital Hall. who can 't. Some critics have helped me; very few have actually oint in this busÍ!_1.ess is ali the differ­ him, mass culture, and a decimal p me. A critic can help a composer or an artist by supponing playJo r m_Qre than two or e'nce there is. ln my opinion, l will never they rarely destroy a career. However, but three thousand people. That size audience isn 't there. ensemble DUCKWORTH: So you don't pay attention to reviews at ali? three thousand people is a good audience. ln fact, my old saying: "The good that regularly in major cities. GLASS: I don't read them at ali. You know the can do you ones are never good enough, and the bad ones just make DUCKWORTH : What about your opera audiences? angry " There you're talk- GLASS : With the theater works, it's quite different. every day now, or are you too busy? J seat DUCKWORTH: Do you com pose ing about ten or twelve performances in a two-thousand from . I ess r learned them h . lt plays by different rules. I think it's I have very goo d ha b tts. gu house. But theater is different GLASS· Yes at six and work until noon, except t e talking about is a . ' 1 the studio. I silly to talk about mass audiences when ali we're Boulanger. I usual Yget up 1 end at 200,000. , h d The afternoons sp one day a couple thousand people. My most popular record has sold days when I m on t e roa · le r have contract with such on tal~g tod~e~~d go out. I'll goto If l were really a pop artist, l would havelosf my spend every Tuesday afterno I i the cíasslcilcharts. But don't I listen to music on_ t e ra k Maybe not that much, t ÍêW ·sales. I can be numberooe on week for that. very d1ffer­ work if I can, once or rwice ª wee · forget that's the class1cal charts; the numbers are very, hear new unõerstmrd ent. People who worry ãbout mypopularity trulydõn'f actually: - wl:i~ work at the piano or away from it? what mass cúlture is. So l think-we-have-to think-abe>t1t ·s that you can't populari· DUCKWORTH: Do you mean when we say culture. l am not uncomfortable with hing about operas i both ways. The t . the operas as full orcheScra me. l know that it makes some writers uncom· GLASS · I work I wnte I e do ty; it doesn't bother · . ay r have someon . e e s of Einstein on lay them on the piano anyw · d •ons d rhe piano fortable. But I enjoy selling out twelve performances P . • 00 re ucu · 1 O scores and then I wnte pia If some peop e · heBeach. f1o ns myse . S ince I was never do the re du c do it either way. the that· I te· you ca 0 k directly 00 Do you think your music is misunderstood? ' orche5tra ' . e . me to wor DUCKWORTH: score and then . . 't's eas1er io1 the a p1an1st, 1 No. I think it is by a handful of people but in general, not 01iginally GLASS: about wtiting operas? performances unders;and the music. Will orchestration. . ,.. ) people who go to my hardest thing . the way it? Who cares? I don 't write for chose h . hear rhe score 'º. but • .....__ Dona! Henahan understand years DUCK\VORTH: What's t e . . Of . me to do is to . ces in real nn1e, l . l d1scovered an mteresting thing a couple d peop e anyway The hardest thing for I like to play ~e p~~ through it in eight reviews did not affect my ticke~ Jes an - GLASs: ago. I discovered that the ally pas s_es. scene and Ili res ·o order to feel ~he that the time re o 1 1 hnd !!!Y record s~les~ minute 11·g ht . I 50 a fourteen· t the time · , it live ª j I can take I an' t ge to p1 ai of the critic is coday? c r rate l have 1' DUC KWORTH: What do yo u think the function minutes. You knoW, ' 1 h Prope be time unfolding at t e The critic does have a function in our society. He can tl: GLASS: llock was middJeman between the public that thinks Jackson Po

·-- PHILIP GLAss 342

ali the pans. that 1 enjoy playing it. But then again, I rarely can play So I'II play some of the important parts, but there are many pans 1 can't play DUCKWORTI:I: Are you comfortable being known as a minimalist? . The GLASS: Well, I haven't written any in twe~e y~rs difficulty is êhàt the word doesn't describe the music that people are going to hear. I don't think "minimalism" adequately describes it. I think it describes a very reductive, quasirepetitive style Qf.J.he late sixties. But by 1975 or '76, everyone had begun to do some­ thing a little bit different. Actually, the last holdouts are the Eu~o­ peans. There are still minimalists in Europe, but not in America. So I think the term doesn't describe the music well. And if it doesn't prepare you at ali for what you're going to hear, it's not a useful description.

DUCKWORTI:1: Is there a term you like better? so much any- .. _J GLASS: Not particularly Fonunately, it's not needed t ' more. Usually people will say it's my music, or they will say, "Did you hear Koyaanisqatsi?" Toe style is easily described in terms of the music itself. It is concert music. I don't use bass drums or gui­ tars. And it's in the tradition of notated music. It's basically cham­ ber musi~ that's amplified. I think that the diversity of contempo­ I just did a solo ARTISTS music stands on its own in a certain way. ER ORMANff rary concert-something I rarely do. No one in the audience seemed to think it needed any particular description.

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