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Writings on Glass: Essays, Interviews, Criticism

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A book on Glass' avant-garde minimalist compositional style surprised me as he nears his 70th birthday as a significant 20th century composer. Discovering Glass (b.1937) with "The Photographer (83)" CD some 15 years ago, Glass' self-titled website with a biography section does not do justice, especially during his formative years. Biographies show how one's developmental years translate into accomplishments as an adult and parent.

The book is divided into 4 parts, Part I Metamorphosis, Part II Instrumental Music, Part III Music for Theatre and Film, and Part IV Endgame. The book is a compendium of published articles. Part III is the largest section consuming about 1/2 the book, with most articles authored in the mid 80s to early 90s. In this section is a 4 pg article by Robert C Morgan (famed art critic) on "The Photographer," 84 revised 96. There are about 30 articles in the book with an average length of 10 pages. Three of the articles have musical score (analysis by Wes York, "Akhnaten"), a diagram (String Quartet No1), and lyrics (Hydrogen Jukebox) to describe Glass' creative process.

Part IV Endgame has a 1 pg bibliography, 11 pg listing of works by year for 3 decades, 7 pg discography, and 7 pg index. The book's printed ISBN is not current and the book is not listed on the publisher's website. The dust jacket has been rebadged ISBN 0-8256-7246-5, as the publisher's trade books was divested to musicsales dot com, London.

My favorite part of this book is a 25-page interview by Ms Ev Grimes, PhD about Glass' musical education in Section I, p12-36, which has been further edited by the composer and the author. Ev Grimes is a nationally acclaimed producer of documentaries on musicians and cultural topics and she was a NPR radio commentator back in the 70s. The interview / documentary was commissioned by the Yale School of Music (Oral History American Music project). I found Glass's candid comments about his family, early flute teacher, inner city Baltimore high school, U Chicago and NYC's Juilliard quite interesting (covering 1940s-50s). The author claims that this is probably the most comprehensive interview of Glass growing up that exists and is a book exclusive.

In p15-31, Philip, middle son of a Lithuanian immigrant Jew and skilled mechanic, dropped out of a southern Baltimore, Maryland high school, challenged by examination entrance requirements into U of Chicago at age 15 (1952-6) majoring in math and philosophy earned an AB. In the south Chicago neighborhood, extemporaneous Jazz music clubs exposed him to non-classical music. Applying to Juilliard at 19, he expanded his compositional skills. A well-rounded individual, he worked during summers as a crane operator for Bethlehem Steel near Baltimore to help pay tuition. Juilliard's tiny composition department at the time in 1957-62, was focused on experimental modern American music such as Copeland and Hindemith. So Glass got a lot of individual freedom to compose and expressed his talent with 75 pieces. As the composer, he did not have to play them. It was encouraged to recruit fellow students for its performance, including Steve Reich also a minimalist, who he met in Juilliard's friendly cafeteria.

Juilliard's environment emphasized performance, as opposed to getting a teaching credential, a musical trade school if you will. This naturally led to music score for NYC film projects. Writing music on staff became as natural as eating with a fork. Earning a MA in 1962 (4 years) at 25 years of age, he co-won the BMI Award for Young Composers.

After graduation Glass, under a Ford foundation grant, went to high schools as a composer-in-residence, assigned to Pittsburgh. For two years, starting in 1961, he trained up-and-coming students imitating Julliard's performance methodology. He saved his stipend to further his musical career in Europe and beyond.

Although skilled in classical composition, he went to Paris to study under the renown Ms Nadia Boulanger as a Fulbright scholar during 1963-5. Boulanger made him study counterpoint and harmony by analyzing Bach (WTC), Mozart and Beethoven to the nth degree often by voice. By the time he completed his "post-doc," Glass was 28 and sick of the classical school.

As described in a Tricycle article p316-27, Glass' initiation to his signature minimalistic style occurred while in Paris receiving an assignment to translate Indian music scored in an Asian numbered system to a Western musical score for the sitar legend Ravi Shankar in the film, "Chappaqua." This exposed him to Eastern music with different keys, melodies and rhythms. Essentially smitten, Glass and his wife hitchhiked across Egypt and the Middle East to India spending a year sabbatical learning world music and a religious conversion to Buddhism and vegetarianism [see Yahoo for this bio extension]. He returned to NYC in 1967 at 30 and a started reducing a minimalistic style to practice, struggled initially two-timing as a cabbie, plumber, day laborer to make ends meet and finally at 40, as they say in Hollywood, the rest is history.

The book has essays on Glass's most famous initial work, "Einstein on the Beach" a 4+-hour opera (76), third opera on Egyptian pharaoh mythology, "Akahathen" (84), and a tribute to Mohandas Gandhi efforts on civil rights in the "Satyagraha" (80), second opera.

The article does not cover Glass' adult personal life (see Wikipedia and NNDB) which include 4 marriages, most significant with his first wife of 15 years to JoAnne Akalaitis, theater director of Mabou Mines Theatre which they cofounded, m. 1965, div. 1980, son Zachary (b 1969) who followed him in music contributing to a few productions, but not with distinction as a songwriter, and daughter Juliet (PhD Art History John Hopkins, b 1971). It appears that his son, now 36, was not enamored by excellence probably due to his workaholic parent's neglect. Glass is currently married to trophy wife Holly Critchlow (restaurant manager, m. 2001), and lives in East Village (Bowery), NYC and a primitive cabin in a Nova Scotia village in Canada.

That's about it - this is an okay collection of okay essays. Some are quite good, most are quite average, a few are not so good at all. The layout is also not very helpful - they are not chronologically arranged, but instead are put in some other, non-linear fashion. I am a *huge* fan of Glass, and am generally excited by anything about him - even just seeing his name printed somewhere or hearing his music on a commercial - but I was only whelmed by this book, and wouldn't necessarily recommend it to people. Seems as though the compiler could have found much better articles to include - surely in the years covered there were much more vibrant and intelligent writers writing about Glass.

If you are a diehard fan, or if you need some research material collected in one spot, go for this book. Otherwise, well, take your chances.

Although this sort of collection is sorely needed, the format is not well thought through. Had a chronological approach been taken when assembling the various essays, an easier read could be had by all.