I recently heard a snippet from a Phillip Glass composition and really liked it, but didn’t hear what it was. Fact is, I’m a newbie in the Glass camp.
Encarta says Glass’ work is influenced by the meanderings of sitarist Ravi Shankar, which concerns me, cause I’m no Ravi fanboy. I’m also wondering just how “repetitive” Glass’ compositions really are, after seeing “repetitive” in an Encarta biography on Glass.
I’m looking for something that will blow me away. Would you suggest a soundtrack, a symphony, or what?
Well, I really like his film score for **Candyman**, though it’s not as well-known as his (also good) scores for Koyaanisqatsi, Kundun or The Thin Blue Line.
I also like this album by the Kronos Quartet of some Glass string quartets.
Please note for this thread: If you don’t like Glass, we get it. Fine. These recommendations aren’t going to change your mind if you already find him repetitive/insufferable/boring, etc.
Yes, it is repetitive, but in a good way. You might also find “Songs From Liquid Days” Accessable a series of collaborations with Paul Simon, David Byrne, Linda Rondstadt, The Roches and others
I’d recomend Akhnaten as it forms a more traditional structure than some other works by Glass. It also has one of the strangest male voices as the lead character.
I’d recommend his orchestral works based on Bowie’s {OK, Bowie and Eno’s} Low and Heroes albums: I think they were originally concieved as ballet scores, and they work beautifully, especially since half of each of the original albums were moody electonic instrumentals. Definitely not as “challenging” as some of his other works, but a long way from The LSO Play The Hits Of Rod Stewart; they’ve been quite radically rearranged. Low is slightly the better of the two, but V2 Schneider scored for an orchestra kicks arse. And my three year old son sings along.
His music is also featured on the soundtrack for The Truman Show. I wasn’t familiar with Glass before this movie but the soundtrack definitely blew me away.
Two accessible picks: Glassworks (very basic, essential distillation of the basic Glass sound) and the Mishima soundtrack (even though the film itself isn’t).
There are a small handful of Glass recordings that, IMHO, stand out from his catalogue at large, which really is one recording after another of the same material recycled and re-arranged.
Einstein on the Beach - a huge minimal “opera”, with a certain frantic energy not found in most of his other stuff. This is one of my favorites. It’s about 4 hours long IIRC, and is probably one of the most difficult to get into. It takes some time and patience but if you let it in, after about 20 minutes or so it becomes strangely addicting (at least for me. YMMV) I like to listen to it in the car on long trips really loud.
Koyaanisqatsi - this is probably my favorite piece by Glass, and along with the movie, is one of my favorite pieces of art in general. It’s very accessible, and I think very beautiful. See the movie first.
(Incidentally, the music for The Truman Show was taken from Powaqatsi the sequal to this.
Passages - in collaboration with Ravi Shankar. I wouldn’t say Glass is influenced by Shankar (as mentioned in the OP). Shankar is the best known figure of Indian Classical music, an extremely improvisational form of music. As a young composer Glass saw him perform and approached him with great interest. Years later they did this collaboration together. It works beautifully, especially considering how different their own respective musics are.
Aguas da Amazonia - this might be the one I’d recommend most to someone not too familar with this type of music. Performed by a very interesting virtuosic ensemble of exotic percussion instruments and flutes, named Uakti, Glass composes a piece for each of 9 rivers of the Amazon. Close your eyes and feel yourself rafting peacefully on your back through the Amazon. You can hear a sample here.
Actually you can hear samples from the other albums here but I’m not going to go back and link each one.
Hey, if you don’t like Glass, fair enough, but start your own thread about why you think he’s over-rated: the OP asked for Glass recommendations, not hipper-than-thou sneering.
I would take issue with this characterization. Glass is 2nd, only to Reich in importance for the genre (with honorable mention to Terry Riley who’s really credited with the first composition in this genre “IN C”). It is true that Glass is generally much more pop-oriented than Reich. Reich is leagues more interesting, but that doesn’t make Glass not the “real thing”. I think Glass is a brilliant composer. I think Reich is a genius.
Music for 18 is one of his masterpieces, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a first intro to him. It’s a lot to take in and takes a lot of patience. I’d recommend “Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ”, or “Electric Counterpoint” (hey it’s 15 electric guitars, who wouldn’t love that?) first.
I totally freakin’ groove on Ahknaten. I checked it out from the school library during an exploratory phase, and completely fell head over heels in love with it, but it was expensive and hard to find. Imagine my excitement when it was rereleased in a very inexpensive edition! It’s the complete two-disc recording, same as the original set, but it lacks the liner notes, which is unfortunate, because I think the story makes it much more accessible, and I really enjoyed poring obsessively over the historical backstory, the descriptions of the staging, and the lyrics. Happily the liner notes are available from Glass’s website.
Funny this should come up, because I happen to have Songs From Liquid Days in my CD player right now, and I was just talking about it with a friend earlier today. It’s good, but very repetative (intentionally), and some of the verbal lyrics border on being corny.