Breaking Glass

Philip Glass was one of the first twentieth-century composers I learned of in my undergrad. His music struck me then, as it does now, as mesmerizing. His haunting melodies and interesting counterpoint make him a joy to listen to again and again.

Yes, tonality helps, I appreciate a little consonance, there I said it.

The first work I was ever exposed to by Glass was his Beauty and the Beast, an opera written after the fact of a movie by the same title. This work was interesting to say the least, and although I did not grasp it upon my first listenings, I grew to appreciate it more and more, as I endeavored to soak up more of his music in my time at NAU.

This week I learned about Glass' life in conjunction with his works, something I glossed over in my initial studies on the composer. Now his ideas have much more grounding and make more sense since learning he studied 12 tone theory, the ideas of Schoenberg and Webern, before delving into the worlds of Mozart and Bach, two composers whom Glass keeps close at hand.

Einstein on the Beach is a beautiful, brilliant work. The idea of a non-plot had never occurred to me in music. It makes sense upon review of things like Beethoven's Pastorale, which sets moods and settings rather than telling a story, but with Glass, he deliberately does things like using syllables and reciting poetry to avoid or elude dealing with a plot.

When we look at this idea in the context of Einstein himself, it becomes clear why Glass chose to do this.  Einstein is a name everyone knows, first of all. However, how many of us can point to his life with more detail than the anecdote about his red front door, or knowing that he was offered the post of President of Israel? All we commonly know of Einstein is his Theory of Relativity, his contributions to the worlds of Math and Science. Apart from this, we know nothing of his life. I think Glass is poking fun at our ignorance regarding a very important figure in the Mathematical world.

Glass' 'knee plays' play an important role in Einstein on the Beach, serving as frames for each of the opera's four acts. They really function more as Intermezzo's, musical interludes to put us in Glass' point of view before the beginning of each act, as well as at the close. The other interesting thing about Einstein on the Beach is the cast. Glass incorporates four roles into this opera, and it strangely seems to work. This framework makes me wonder if  more characters are necessary in operas in general. Although to be fair, it does incorporate quite a chorus.

Overall, this was an easy listen. Glass' music puts me in a trance, it allows time to slow and relax, even stretch as it passes through the minutes.

His Akhnaten is more conventional in scoring, containing a full cast and two choruses in the priests and the people. Akhnaten is the third biographical opera Glass wrote, after both Einstein and Satyagraha, about Ghandi. I still found myself stuck listening, engulfed in Glass' work, minute by minute just enjoying and processing the music. I can see why Glass is more well known than composers like Feldman and Wolffe.

Akhnaten is set in Egypt before the only pharoh that most Americans know, Tutankhamen. Glass tells a story in this opera, for a change, and gets us fully into the ancient Egyptian world. The motor figures in Akhnaten are similar to those we hear in Reich. They move from one idea to the next subtly, and sometimes without seam, but always with motive, drive, and purpose.