The Collaborators: Philip Glass

The work of Philip Glass is complicated. In one respect, he brought minimalist music to the mainstream, perfecting a style that has become so ingrained within our cultural mind frames that it has become commercial. It also seems, for these exact reasons, that he is often shunned by the intellectual community in favor of his minimalist partner-in-arms, Steve Reich. The work the Glass made in the 1970’s, before his stints working with David Bowie and Linda Ronstandt and foray into film scores, is often championed as his golden period, with most of his output post-1980 being dismissed. As Alex Ross explains it, “quantity is the problem: Glass writes faster than most of us can listen.”

Glass comes from a New York experimental background; where they wait for you to break out of their circle so they can pounce. After spending time in Paris, where he was turned on by performances by John Cage and Morton Feldman, as well as the writings of Samuel Beckett and the French New Wave films appearing in cine-clubs, he made a move to Northern India, where he began to gravitate towards Buddhism, whose ideas would filter through his work till the present day.

On his return to New York, he linked up with fellow students Steve Reich and Jon Gibson, initially forming an ensemble that was very much integrated in the art scene happening at the time. His first performance of new material occurred at the former Film-Makers Cinemathèque (now known as Anthology Film Archives), a meeting place for visual artists of all mediums at the time. It was also around this time that he worked as an assistant to his friend Richard Serra, as well as working with and befriending other local artists such as Chuck Close, Laurie Anderson and Sol LeWitt.

It was during his time that his music began to grow, out of the ashes of his minimalist background, forging ahead with a more dramatic focus. The culmination of these changes resulted in his master work, Music in Twelve Parts. This was, to many people, the end of his so-called minimalist period, and the beginning of his more narrative based works for the stage and screen.

This is also where, for our purposes here, he began what appears to be his most fruitful period of collaborations. First in his work with choreographer Lucinda Childes and Sol LeWitt, titled North Star and Dance; and more importantly, in his work with stage director Robert Wilson, with their avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach, the first part of a “portrait trilogy.” This work changed the face of opera, born out of a true collaborative spirit and introducing elements of the avant-gardes to the mainstream. The virtually plot-less Einstein revolved around repetition, metaphor, and symbol; a five hour opera with no intermission, where the audience was encouraged to leave and come back at any time, if so desred.

The collaborations do not end there. Glass made a career, much more than his peers, of creating work for the stage, as well as working closely with other artists, either by interpreting their work or developing something brand new. Since the 1980’s, his “dismissed” period, he has worked with popular musicians such as David Bowie, Brian Eno and Leonard Cohen; filmmakers such as Errol Morris and Godfrey Reggio; choreographers such as Twyla Tharp and Jerome Robbins; as well as using the literary texts of Allen Ginsberg, Jean Cocteau and Franz Kafka as the underlying bedrock of compositions.

Glass continues to work, as well as collaborate, today. Many think he is hitting a late-period renaissance; this is no reason to discount his early work, but only to rediscover it. To once again quote Alex Ross, he “is the determined antithesis of the Romantic artist, the one who writes in suffering secret for a posthumous public. This is perhaps the most significant message that Glass delivers to the young composers whom he assists behind the scenes: stop dreaming of Beethoven and get your music played.”

Leave a Reply