Philip Glass : Composer Extraordinaire

It is sometimes hard to express the joy of music on a blog like this, in mere words. Music is an experience that is alive every moment it is played. But if it is not played, does it still exist?
Questions of such theoretic nature would not be uncommon for Philip Glass to try to answer.

Philip Glass, who has scored many movies and has created his own musical style and voice in works such as EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH and AHKNATEN, is a composer who seems to enjoy the finding of the answer, as well as the performing of that musical answer itself. Often his music is called 'minimal music' but Glass himself prefers to call it 'music with repetitive structures'. I guess this sounds less negative.

 My first encounter with the composer was in 1982, when his KOYAANISQUATSI was released. What I did not know at the time, was that this composer had done a lot of work already before composing this masterpiece of modernistic music. KOYAANISQUATSI is one of four legendary cooperations with the visualistic director Godfrey Reggio. Reggio paints a visual picture of a certain theme, to which Philip Glass writes his unusual music.

In 1988 Reggio and Glass brought us POWAQQUATSI, which was an even more dynamic as well as ecclectic musical piece. Where KOYAANISQUATSI talked of how the American life had gone all out of balance (which was also what the title meant: Life out of Balance), POWAQQUATSI showed us a life in progress and development in the countries of the third world. Musical themes were also directed in those areas and may have been less impressive than those of it's predecessor but the music of POWAQQUATSI is forceful, driving and hypnotic in nature.

Reggio returned in 2002 with Glass for a third part in the trilogy with NAQUOYQUATSI, which depicted a world at war, in turmoil, in conflict. Glass also cooperated with Reggio on Anima Mundi which was a very interesting look at nature and animals in the wild, while also at the same time giving these animals a musical voice.

 

Being the film fan that I am, I am of course mostly interested in the music Philip Glass has composed for the cinema. Yet, I am also very much aware that there are very interesting muscial pieces from the master's hand in operatic form, like Satyagraha, Akhnaten and Einstein on the Beach. Yet, while I can enjoy a cd of his music from any one of these wonderful titles, I simply can not help but be extra amped by the effect that Philip Glass's music has on film.

Perfect examples of this can be found in MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS and the two CANDYMAN films he has scored, where his music permeates the film(s) and gives it(/them) their own unmistakable aura and identity. Also in films such as KUNDUN does Glass manage to add considerably to the atmosphere and identity of the film.

Over the years, his music has developed to a level of sophistication that seems to baffle its audience and so it is very nice to see that also Philip Glass is a normal person, like you and me. This is visible in the documentary GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS, made in 2007 by Scott Hicks.

A nice documentary to watch, even it turns out that a man like Philip Glass may not be as easy to live with. Philip Glass, you see, is a man who lives for and thru his music and as it turns out during this documentary, sadly, his young wife could not cope with that.

Philip Glass