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Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

theguardian.com

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Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#101

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

natechols wrote: post #89
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bwahahahah. You think EotB is "on the extreme end". You've never heard "Music in Similar Motion", I assume?

I'll add that to my playlist, but I'd argue that the difference between 12 minutes and 5 hours counts for a lot! (Although I guess maybe opera audiences are primed for sitting in place for that long? I just don't have the attention span for anything longer than Figaro.)

Scratch that then. Try out "Music in 12 Parts", which is about 4 hours long :)

Glass' early minimalism makes EotB seem almost conventional by comparison, at least to me.

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#102

Post by Slow_Hand »

mgr86 wrote: post #18
emptyfile wrote: post #2

>Yes, after Einstein on the Beach I went back to driving a New York cab. I didn’t mind that. It was interesting work. I didn’t have an agent. I ran all the business side of it and the box office myself. I enjoyed it. Interesting, I had no idea.

I first herd Einstein on the Beach after a particularly manic period in undergrad. My advisor wasn't familiar with it, and I may have spooked her a bit try to explain it. I think to this day its great background music for programming work, but to me more because it can illicit that sense of young focus and drive that I find increasingly fleeting. Perhaps not unlike how music can "wake up" dementia patients. It elicit…

I'm a massive fan of Einstein On the Beach. It continues to be one of my favorite pieces of music, since first hearing it 12 years ago. There's a vitality and a sense of energy to it that keeps me coming back. It's also large enough in scope that I've been able to spend a long time chewing it over and digesting all of it's movements.

I think a unique quality of it is the contrast between it's simplistic harmonic content and it's constantly modulating structure. The simplicity of the tonality (one key center, very slow chord changes, non-florid counterpoint) allows the listener to focus on the modulating phrase lengths and the texture of the stacked rhythms.

This is an interesting inversion of something like, say, a classic bebop tune, which might be melodically and rhythmically complex or divergent, but keep it's structure predictable with 4 bar, 8 bar, or 32 bar chunks of time.

I think the effect in it's fast movements is like being in the middle of a massive rush of water. It's uniform in texture, but it has an intensity and sense of turbulence that is overwhelming as it passes you.

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#103

Post by nefitty »

JoeDaDude wrote: post #97
tmountain wrote: post #19

I saw Glass at a performing arts center in my hometown. The PAC has a lot of season ticket holders, and Glass' music triggered an older attendee to march to the front of the auditorium and yell, "this isn't music". He was quickly ushered out by his wife, but Glass was noticeably smirking, and the whole thing really added to the avant garde vibe of the performance. Amazing concert BTW. One of my favorite artists.

Steve Reich mentioned a similar anecdote in which an audience member came up to the stage and banged on it with his shoe demanding that the playing be stopped.

Similar things have happened to me when me and my previous punk band used to play at unsuspecting bars hahaha. I love Glass and Reich even more now!

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#104

Post by majormajor »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #60
wirrbel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats you discovered discovered minimal music. Clearly looking at his age he is already an elder. Nevertheless he definitely qualifies as avant- Garde. You can compose listenable pieces and be avant- garde

Minimalism was "avant-garde" when it was explored as a response to Serialism. Its history is comprised of works that would be considered unlistenable to most audiences. Calling any modern regurgitation of Glass's very-listenable minimalism "avant-garde" is misleading and shuts out the contemporary listener to an entire world of avant-garde music - much of it, very listenable.

> Calling any modern regurgitation of Glass's very-listenable minimalism "avant-garde" is misleading and shuts out the contemporary listener to an entire world of avant-garde music - much of it, very listenable.

I think that's reinforced by the anecdote from the original poster, though.

There's still a significant fraction of the audience who dismisses his work out of hand. Yes, they're shut out of even more stuff, but they aren't even open to him, yet.

I could see my mother being the upset person in the first story...

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#105

Post by john61 »

tmountain wrote: post #19

I saw Glass at a performing arts center in my hometown. The PAC has a lot of season ticket holders, and Glass' music triggered an older attendee to march to the front of the auditorium and yell, "this isn't music". He was quickly ushered out by his wife, but Glass was noticeably smirking, and the whole thing really added to the avant garde vibe of the performance. Amazing concert BTW. One of my favorite artists.

There was a Skandalkonzert conducted by Schönberg in the Viennese Musikverein which lead to a slap and a lawsuit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandalkonzert

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#106

Post by alasdair_ »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #60
wirrbel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congrats you discovered discovered minimal music. Clearly looking at his age he is already an elder. Nevertheless he definitely qualifies as avant- Garde. You can compose listenable pieces and be avant- garde

Minimalism was "avant-garde" when it was explored as a response to Serialism. Its history is comprised of works that would be considered unlistenable to most audiences. Calling any modern regurgitation of Glass's very-listenable minimalism "avant-garde" is misleading and shuts out the contemporary listener to an entire world of avant-garde music - much of it, very listenable.

>Calling any modern regurgitation of Glass's very-listenable minimalism "avant-garde" is misleading and shuts out the contemporary listener to an entire world of avant-garde music - much of it, very listenable.

I'm not convinced that someone simply using the word "avant-garde" shuts anyone out of anything.

For example, if I type "Taylor Swift is avant-garde" did this suddenly shut out listeners from an entire world of pop music?

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#107

Post by jancsika »

> Have the old divisions between musical styles – a source of surprisingly bitter contention in the last decades of the 20th century – now healed? Do people now accept your chosen path of tonal harmony, melody, repetitive structures?

> No no no no no. Those divisions never healed. Those people just died!

Ain't that the truth!

The cool thing about (most of) the assholes being dead is that they didn't need to be correct in their various ideologies for their work to be meaningful, even for composers who work outside of a particular aesthetic.

So today you can have composers still engaging with and drawing upon the work of the assholes without having to deal with any of the negative side effects of interacting with them (verbal abuse, professional ostracization, etc.).

Edit: clarification

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#108

Post by crooked-v »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #34

I discovered Philip Glass' music through the movie Koyaanisqatsi, which I heartily recommend. If you haven't seen it, go into it without expectations of what a movie is supposed to be like; it's weird.

For me it was The Truman Show, which uses several of his pieces from other works along with some specifically made for the film.

Re: Philip Glass: My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies (2017)

#110

Post by Cd00d »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #45
barbecue_sauce wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philip Glass is constantly described as avant-garde. You may take issue with that label, but I hardly see how it can be surprising.

It's a ridiculous label to apply to Philip Glass. He would likely reject it himself. The word "avant-garde" comes up not once in Philip Glass's Wikipedia article [0]. The only uses of the word "experimental" are in reference to his early interest in experimental theater. Philip Glass is easily the most popular, mainstream living music composer. His music is extremely "listenable," and inoffensive to the casual listen…

>is easily the most popular, mainstream living music composer

But, this isn't an article about Danny Elfman....

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