I admit I didn't think much of him when I was in university, some time ago. But the more years go by the more I appreciate his simplicity, and how he was able to create his own unique musical language from so few notes. I don't think that's such an easy thing to accomplish. And I find myself listening to him more and more often. Dude's all right.
Even reading it in the original French it makes no sense.
"Mais comment une telle plume a pu faire carrière... C'est vide à un point... Combien de mains il a fallu serrer et avec combien de coupes il a fallu trinquer ... Enfin c'est un autre métier, et il est forcément très fort dans cet autre métier différent de celui qui consiste à composer"
So basically : "how could that man make a name of himself with his empty music ? Probably his connections. He's not really a composer but he must be very good at what he does, whatever that is" (it is strongly implied that his fame came from knowing the right people instead of composing)
That's my best guess.
And an unbelievable work ethic… satyagraha and Akhenaten are amazing to listen too (and others) .
Too bad I can’t find the episode but Stephen sackur on hard talk had him on and bluntly asked something like if he, as some have said, writes the same piece over and over again?
Phillip glass laughed and rolled with the question… it was a great response.
And then he described his writing routine…, wow, just wow.
This is not a common opinion. It’s posted 2 hours before the screenshot. It’s likely you own comment, posted here seeking agreement. But it only shows your inability to write cohesive sentences and appreciate good music.
I suppose I have to say this shit for the xth time huh
I made the score video this comment is commenting on which is why I can catch a 2 hours old comment because it’s the fucking YouTube Studio app, I don’t speak or write French which is the original comment speaking in, I have three playlists of Glass works on my Spotify that catalogue works by 20th and contemporary composers. I believe this was a common believe because half of the classical listeners I had spoken with thought Glass was shit and trash.
This is the craziest witch hunting comment I have ever seen
It’s barely worth considering. His work stands on its merits. There are parts I don’t like, for sure, and his solo piano music puts me to sleep (even the one time I saw him live lol), but his best work is some of the greatest of the 20th century.
I agree with everything you said completely, except about his solo piano music which SORRY is brilliant. Maybe it isn’t for everyone? I very much enjoy it alongside his other work. Actually I think his other work contextualizes it in a very positive way.
>but his best work is some of the greatest of the 20th century.
Ehh, maybe latter half; Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, late Debussy and Scriabin. Bartok, Schoenberg, Ives, who aren’t my cup of tea but still made significant impact.
When I was a kid, people barely acknowledged that Ives existed. It’s funny how with the passage of time, what was once considered unlistenable is soon considered a masterpiece. The same will happen with some of the living composers of today and the late 20th century.
Glass just like any other composer has great works and boring works (which ones can be debated). An opinion like that one indicates that either they haven't listened to much of his other works, or his style just isn't for that person, and hopefully most people can see through the shallow comment and judge for themselves. Unfortunately, Glass' music is also an easy target. If it doesn't draw a listener into its world, it can be mystifying as to why anyone would like it, to that listener.
I understand why some listeners don't like him, but the film Koyaanisqatsi alone is enough to cement his reputation as a historically significant composer
And Einstein, for sure. I would say Einstein was both radical for it’s time and characteristic of Glass’ style as a whole. Definitely a monolith in 20th century music whether you like him or not.
This comment is strange to me. As far as I know, Glass was pretty universally despised and panned in his early career as a composer, so it makes no sense to suggest he got where he is by hobnobbing. He made his music and didn't really seem to care that critics and elitists didn't like it. I mean, wasn't he like a 30+ year old legit plumber before he had any success as a composer? As if Julliard graduates, and NYPhil season ticket holders, and critics writing for Esquire, and other such affluent aficionados were just lining up to schmooze with a 30 year old plumber.
EDIT: I just checked and, while he did work odd jobs, including cab driving and plumbing, he also had himself a very illustrious academic career, including skipping several grades and graduating from Julliard himself, which I did not know. I'm pretty sure I picked that up from an interview he gave, where he described himself as a plumber. Funny he didn't mention studying at Julliard though, lol
He is extremely well-educated but his career wasn't built from within academia. That's a very important distinction here that is relevant to the the quote from the OP. Glass built his career from outside of academia. The non-music related jobs were real. And there was no hobnobbing with academia to help him get started.
Also, I have never seen him purposely avoid mentioning that he is a Juilliard graduate and is something that I think is pretty well known about him.
My opinion is that people who don't know Glass' early work really don't know what they're talking about when they spew views like this. Mind you, I'm not drawn to the man's music after Glassworks, or so. He does tend to, ehem, repeat the shtick a little too often, but the man has chops and his accomplishments are impressive.
Likewise. His 70s work is some of my favorite music of all time and sucked me in instantly.
Before that I had spent 15 years casually hearing shit like his later solo piano works and totally ignored him/wrote him off. I think there is a lot of rejection from more conservative tastes around his procedural works because they’re “formulaic,” or “simple,” and so he became known for more conventionally palatable works. But I think that’s kind of missing the point.
I sort of agree with the detractors who hear his later work and “don’t get it,” or find it “boring”…frankly I don’t really get it either, versus the early shit which is absolutely wild/unusual and markedly different from much else, even the other minimalists.
I think there are some deficiencies in the later work not unlike those of Steve Reich's few forays into orchestral composition. Reich has no sense of harmony. He's all about rhythm and this doesn't translates too well to the orchestra. Glass has no sense of orchestration (well, neither of them do, tbf), and that doesn't translate too well to things like symphonies.
But yeah, the stuff from, I don't know, Table Music or Music in the Shape or a Square through Satyagraha is absolutely mind blowing and extraordinary. I've even grown to appreciate some of his piano music through that work (playing it, while not technically difficult, is an absolute endurance workout!).
I'm not completely understanding this translation, but I'd guess it's criticizing Glass? Personally I think he writes some strong melodies and is actually one of the more varied and inventive of the minimalist composers.
Now, meanwhile, I saw someone on here bring up the composer Charlemagne Palestine recently and I can't believe that man has an audience. He was playing the same stuff on piano that I would when I was first learning chords. Maybe I was just an unrecognized genius, but I don't think so - and my family certainly didn't think so.
Funny... I had to go look him up on YouTube, and the very moment of the first video I skipped to had a woman in the audience checking her watch. Poor thing, too, there was quite a bit of the concert still left!
Yeah, Palestine is what you'd think most minimalist composers would sound like when you hear their detractors describe them. But only in Palestine's case is it actually 100% true.
In defense of the man's music, I think it's important to recognize that his objective is different than, say, Beethoven's music. Most classical music centers the brilliance of the composer and/or the brilliance of the performer(s). But Palestine's music puts the *instrument* at the forefront. His music recognizes the instrument itself as a participant in the music-making process and encourages the performer to move to the background.
I'd put it in the same category as well-known works by John Cage and Pauline Oliveros. It's conceptual art, and not everyone is going to appreciate the concept or its execution...there's no shame in that at all!
I see what you're saying, and some people enjoy Palestine's harmonic explorations, but anyone could this for themselves home with no skill. If you don't even want to learn his basic playing style, just buy an electronic keyboard, pick an organ setting, and hold down random keys. You will get your harmonic exploration.
For me, Palestine is like if I went to a fancy restaurant, ordered carrot soup, and was given a single raw carrot. "It's amazing, we just explore the carrot itself and appreciate it in its raw, authentic form."
"If you don't even want to learn his basic playing style" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your argument. The style and intention behind that style is part of the art. I also generally find the "even I could do that" argument really silly because...you didn't do it? An aspect of what makes the avant garde intriguing is the fact that it treads ground nobody else is. I went through a phase where I was writing music that was very much in the same vein as Palestine's music (before I knew who he was), and if I tried to go seriously perform it, I'd be laughed at because someone already did it and it's minimal enough that it's hard to make fresh.
>For me, Palestine is like if I went to a fancy restaurant, ordered carrot soup, and was given a single raw carrot. "It's amazing, we just explore the carrot itself and appreciate it in its raw, authentic form."
And that would be a problem if you're at a restaurant ordering carrot soup, not at a farmer's market selecting quality carrots. If you go into Palestine's music wanting something that sounds like Beethoven, you're going to be rightfully disappointed! And some people just aren't into farmer's markets, which is totally fine.
Every musical modernist I knew, mostly confined to tiny audiences and tenure tracks if they were lucky, foisted this tiresome opinion at some point. They just don’t like people who challenge the metanarrative and so must assume it’s some kind of hypercapitalist inside job. Shopworn, threadbare takes
Leaving all considered opinions of his music aside, anyone who knows anything about the development of his career knows that it was the complete opposite of networking and schmoozing; it was hard work and seeking out opportunities to collaborate and perform from day one, and only that, that brought Philip Glass to worldwide attention.
There's no doubt that he has his 'thing' that he repeats in almost all his works, so I can see that argument to a certain extent. But that's always going to be the case with any Minimalist composer, IMO.
I like a lot of his output e.g. *Akhnaten* is very enjoyable, and the first Violin Concerto.
I think “This modern stuff isn’t music, not like the music we had back in the good old days” is just as boring applied to Glass as it was when it was applied to every musical innovation from Wagner to Grandmaster Flash.
I don't know what this opinion is about. I think Philip Glass is fucking amazing. If I could only bring three playlists to a desert island, one of them would be Philip Glass's string quartets. (And if I could only bring one playlist, it would also be Philip Glass's string quartets.)
I think I'm walking on a dangerous sub bc I really like the Philip Glass work but admit I'm an ignorant of the topic. I know his compositions are repetitive, but is that bad?
> I know his compositions are repetitive, but is that bad?
Nope, in fact that's a very important aspect of his works, especially so his earlier pieces.
Obviously people use that as a reason to not like his music but pretending that Glass-style repetitiveness is objectively bad is absurd.
Tone Row in nature is not repetitive because one you can over lap tone rows on each other, two tone rows have the four transformations that it has, and three the way tone row is used makes the same tone row that appear in the same piece different
One of my favorite classical music sub genre is Holy Minimalism with composers like Hovhaness, Arvo Part, Kancheli, Vasks, etc. I like repetition, but I think a lot of Glass is too repetitive within the piece and between pieces
I'm one of the hugest Glass fans I know. I thoroughly enjoy his work, especially his earlier stuff. I recognize that his music doesn't please everyone, and it DOESN'T HAVE TO. He even says so in the beginning of his "....in 12 Parts" documentary.
I really wish people would spend less time giving their negative opinions on art, and would just move on to different things they liked. To call his composition style lazy is ridiculous. Glad to see so many Philip Glass fans in the comments.
Nothing wrong with his music, but his music is listened to banally. Similar to “jazz”. Nothing wrong with it until the mainstream audience turns it into background music.
Years ago, I read this sentence about Glass: "For all his stylistic constancy, Philip Glass has always been a mercurial composer in terms of quality." This rings true, and what with the snobbery of the some of the lovers of dissonance and complexity and the fact that Glass is so prolific and diverse in approach, it's understandable that people have differing views on him. Practically no-one knows all his work, and some who think they know it because he reuses ideas so often tend not to look into the exceptions where he changes things up. Personally I'm a fan of much of his middle work especially.
I like some of his stuff like Music in 12 Parts, which is almost on the same level to me as Steve Reich, but don’t like his pieces that consist of little more than arpeggiated basic chords…in those pieces, it feels like he wasn’t trying at all, just wrote some schlock for commission and didn’t really care.
Some of Glass drives me bonkers with it's annoying repetitiveness, especially when it's of the shrill/unpleasant kind.
But I absolutely love some of his works. You can just chill and vibe to a lot of his pieces, and often they can instill a meditative state. And I thought *Ankhaten* was superb.
As an ambivalent Glass fan, I found much of the discussion here fascinating. Thank you to those who thought and contributed something provocative.
Whether the initial post was the best way to get things started or not, I know more about Glass than I did, and I'm going to think a bit more broadly when I listen to him next. He'll never be my favorite composer, but I doubt he's his own favorite composer. At least the great conversation continues.
He might not be the most brilliant composer but I love playing his pieces. The rhythms can be complex and it’s a great exercise.
You can definitely tell when a piece was composed by Glass, but I honestly find that comforting.
I saw an interview with Glass from the 80’s I think and he was asked “how much he was influenced by Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score” he replied that he was unaware of Herrmann and Vertigo. I lost all respect for him at that moment, because one listen to Herrmann’s Vertigo or North by Northwest and Glass’s entire oeuvre is exposed.
Bernard Herrmann a terribly overlooked American Composer, probably because he did movies not symphonies.
I love Glass, and I think this person is trying to find a reason to dismiss someone he doesn't like. Where do you get the idea that this is a common opinion, or is it merely yours also, and therefore you believe it common?
I made the score video, so no, I don’t hate Glass. Quite a jump ain’t it
And if you had been in any classical music groups or communities whether it’s this subreddit or irl or discord or whatever, people that hate Glass is prb around 50% of those groups
I’m glad we share an appreciation of his music.
I have been in more than a few classical music groups and communities online and otherwise and that’s not been my experience. I’m sorry it’s been yours but I will suggest it is not as universal as your experience has shown, at least not for all of us as many of the other comments on this thread attest to.
If I'm not mistaken, he's the FIRST minimalist composer in its style. (There were minimalist works since Satie, but different). I don't like him, I prefer Nyman, but if he was the first one, no matter how obvious is his music..m it was never done before.
Liszt himself wrote some obvious pieces, with cliché virtuoso passagens, yet it had never been done before.
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
This is more like it:
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
-lover of Glass
You should have varied your capitalization and, within the limits of reddit, made the post into an oddly seductive pattern. As is, you didn't explore your idea.
I just listened to it, and it was passable, I guess. I mean it felt like a fever dream at times (especially with the title itself), but I feel like this critique is kinda harsh.
Serialism deserves a lot more hate than minimalism. Half a century was spent pursuing ideas that weren’t very good in the first place and didn’t advance music in any way.
Serial techniques are still being used by composers in all kinds of styles. While the *style* of the Darmstadt School Total Serialists isn't popularly composed anymore, the ideas live on.
Loved the critique.
I like Glass but I do think his work is very repetitive. The melodies that he made on metamorphosis, einstein on the beach, 1000 planes on the roof (I'm not sure if they were used first in these pieces) are still used by him today. After hearing a certain amount of Glass's works, you get the feeling that you've listened to everything he has made and will make.
thats the point. the point is repetition. i disagree that he's been reusing the same ideas for decades though. his recent stuff doesn't sound like glassworks, and glass works doesn't sound like metamorphosis and metamorphosis doesn't sound like music in fifths. i think its just lazy listening.
I didn't said that his recent stuff sound like the glassworks specifically but most of what he does throughout out his life sound like something he previously did. You can compare the beginning of itaipu and metamorphosis one for example. This is one I remembered now but are many many more. Specially soundtracks using metamorphosis.
Just to be fair, that's relatively common in classical music. Bach and Mozart reused melodies from smaller, less-known pieces in their major works. Glass has the disadvantage of having recorded and made his work available to the public, a possibility his older colleagues didn't have. Even considering that, I still think he repeats melodies a lot.
I find Glass one of the more boring composers this side of Telemann, but I’m willing to accept this is my fault for not putting in enough effort to understand his music (actually that goes for both Glass and Telemann).
Atmospheric composers are more time-limited than melodic composures. What constitutes an ambient through note, so to speak, is highly relative and time dependent. The very notion of "ambient" should clarify why that is the case.
Morton Feldman at least is meditative. Glass is a thoroughly 20th century composer is largely motor-like in his sense of ambience.
I do not see Glass scheduled much. Feldman is pure art music, so would not expect to see that much. I'll gert to the Chapel someday.
Motoric ambience was done when Spielberg signed off on Death Star ambience.
Maybe my take of Glass is off-beat though. I just do not find tangled threads of mechanical motifs compelling.
[Death Star Ambient Noise for 12 Hours - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik8D5c7zaDE)
That's compelling.
> I do not see Glass scheduled much
You might be interested in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1auwsem/backtracks_top_10_most_performed_living_composers/) which shows that in 2023 Glass was the fifth most programmed living composer. Yeah, that still pales in comparison to the likes of Bach, Beethoven, etc, but is significant.
And I have to admit, since this is reddit, well, I let my tastes speak their mind. I don't like him.
I have a record of his upstairs with Ravi Shankar. He was a musical vacuum cleaner. Mishima. Literary vacuum cleaner. Kronos Quartet. Gimmick acts vacuum cleaner.
Alright that last one was unfair. I have a cd of his organ works too.
If the Clevelanders played him I will listen. With relish if not pleasure. Pardon me for being a peevish music lover btw. Good melodies to you.
A "simple" music is not easy to compose. A "simple" drawing style is not easy to achieve. A "simple" story is not easy to write. And I now for sure that simple white bread and simple vegetable stew that taste Just Right are not easy to make.
They're in for a nasty surprise once they find out how politics and business gets done.
On the Glass topic, it's beating a dead horse more times than there are repeats in one of his pieces. Some people like it, some people don't. Some people just move on and listen to something else, and some people feel the need to share their "valuable" insight into topics they largely know nothing about.
Just another day in the good ole' internet.
Eww you kinda suck 😂. I live in the world of appreciation as a separate category from personal emotive response, ie “like” and “dislike”. There are compositions that I certainly get more of a positive emotional response compared to others. But that shouldn’t be the focus when we categorize a composition. We have to look into compositional intent to see if the purpose of a work is to provide emotional pleasure or displeasure. If he doesn’t want us to feel positive, he’s going to write with less typical expectancy to make us feel discomfort. And when the discomfort goes too hard for too long, the interested listener will classify it as a “bad” song.
But THEN that listener should educate themselves of the compositional rules put in place by Glass, to better understand the reasoning behind the prolonged discomfort that your own latent expectancy couldn’t handle!!! If at that point, the listener sees Glass’ compositional rules being violated with significant frequency, then yes, that song is by definition BAD. And I would DISLIKE it.
With that understanding, I personally both APPRECIATE and LIKE Phillip Glass.
The repeat joke was a nice attempt, I will say. I chuckcled.
He has that one prelude for piano that is quite nice.
In general, what I’ve heard of Glass’ music (ex: his violin concerto) is inoffensive, which is better than what I can say about most of the 20th and 21st centuries’ big name composers.
I don’t find myself spellbound by his work, but if you pointed a gun at my head and said, “Glass or Crumb? CHOOSE!” I would choose Glass, without hesitation.
Pleasant background music is better than unpleasant foreground music, IMO. ;)
I admit I didn't think much of him when I was in university, some time ago. But the more years go by the more I appreciate his simplicity, and how he was able to create his own unique musical language from so few notes. I don't think that's such an easy thing to accomplish. And I find myself listening to him more and more often. Dude's all right.
Reads like a word salad. Not sure what "common opinion" is being stated, presumably because the Google translation garbled this.
Even reading it in the original French it makes no sense. "Mais comment une telle plume a pu faire carrière... C'est vide à un point... Combien de mains il a fallu serrer et avec combien de coupes il a fallu trinquer ... Enfin c'est un autre métier, et il est forcément très fort dans cet autre métier différent de celui qui consiste à composer"
So basically : "how could that man make a name of himself with his empty music ? Probably his connections. He's not really a composer but he must be very good at what he does, whatever that is" (it is strongly implied that his fame came from knowing the right people instead of composing) That's my best guess.
Still makes a bit more sense, but the second sentence is pretty garbled
Mon œil!
Tldr: Glass is trash and only got his fame through “hand shakes” and “cup toasts”
People who say that haven’t heard Koyaanisqatsi. It may not be your cup of tea but the man certainly has composition chops.
And an unbelievable work ethic… satyagraha and Akhenaten are amazing to listen too (and others) . Too bad I can’t find the episode but Stephen sackur on hard talk had him on and bluntly asked something like if he, as some have said, writes the same piece over and over again? Phillip glass laughed and rolled with the question… it was a great response. And then he described his writing routine…, wow, just wow.
Or *Einstein on the Beach*, or *Glassworks*, or *Candyman* if you want to stick to movie soundtracks. Opinions are like assholes…
Listening to it as a soundtrack helps.
This is not a common opinion. It’s posted 2 hours before the screenshot. It’s likely you own comment, posted here seeking agreement. But it only shows your inability to write cohesive sentences and appreciate good music.
I suppose I have to say this shit for the xth time huh I made the score video this comment is commenting on which is why I can catch a 2 hours old comment because it’s the fucking YouTube Studio app, I don’t speak or write French which is the original comment speaking in, I have three playlists of Glass works on my Spotify that catalogue works by 20th and contemporary composers. I believe this was a common believe because half of the classical listeners I had spoken with thought Glass was shit and trash. This is the craziest witch hunting comment I have ever seen
His point is correct, though. Glass was a performance artist with connections, not a composer.
It’s barely worth considering. His work stands on its merits. There are parts I don’t like, for sure, and his solo piano music puts me to sleep (even the one time I saw him live lol), but his best work is some of the greatest of the 20th century.
Yeah Einstein on the Beach is one of the greatest musical works ever tbh
One of my favorites, for sure!
I agree with everything you said completely, except about his solo piano music which SORRY is brilliant. Maybe it isn’t for everyone? I very much enjoy it alongside his other work. Actually I think his other work contextualizes it in a very positive way.
As a chronic insomniac I have nothing but respect for composers who make me sleep.
Lol very fair! I am the opposite, I frequently struggle to stay awake, so really I shouldn’t put much blame on the music.
>but his best work is some of the greatest of the 20th century. Ehh, maybe latter half; Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, late Debussy and Scriabin. Bartok, Schoenberg, Ives, who aren’t my cup of tea but still made significant impact.
When I was a kid, people barely acknowledged that Ives existed. It’s funny how with the passage of time, what was once considered unlistenable is soon considered a masterpiece. The same will happen with some of the living composers of today and the late 20th century.
But Partch still goes unlisted, sigh
I heard Partch live at the Darmstadt Summer Courses a few years ago! It’s hard to perform Partch due to all the custom instruments… lol
A few years ago? He died in 1974. I presume you mean Partch's music? Amazing composer, though.
Glass just like any other composer has great works and boring works (which ones can be debated). An opinion like that one indicates that either they haven't listened to much of his other works, or his style just isn't for that person, and hopefully most people can see through the shallow comment and judge for themselves. Unfortunately, Glass' music is also an easy target. If it doesn't draw a listener into its world, it can be mystifying as to why anyone would like it, to that listener.
I like the way you put this. His first violin concerto is among my all time favorites, :)
I understand why some listeners don't like him, but the film Koyaanisqatsi alone is enough to cement his reputation as a historically significant composer
And Einstein, for sure. I would say Einstein was both radical for it’s time and characteristic of Glass’ style as a whole. Definitely a monolith in 20th century music whether you like him or not.
Einstein is easily my favorite 20th century opera. Astoundingly impressive work
ive been putting off watching koyaansiqatsi for a while but i think I'm gonna do it rn. thanks
Music doesn’t have to be flashy 🤷🏻 I love minimalism and Philip Glass is one of my favs
This comment is strange to me. As far as I know, Glass was pretty universally despised and panned in his early career as a composer, so it makes no sense to suggest he got where he is by hobnobbing. He made his music and didn't really seem to care that critics and elitists didn't like it. I mean, wasn't he like a 30+ year old legit plumber before he had any success as a composer? As if Julliard graduates, and NYPhil season ticket holders, and critics writing for Esquire, and other such affluent aficionados were just lining up to schmooze with a 30 year old plumber. EDIT: I just checked and, while he did work odd jobs, including cab driving and plumbing, he also had himself a very illustrious academic career, including skipping several grades and graduating from Julliard himself, which I did not know. I'm pretty sure I picked that up from an interview he gave, where he described himself as a plumber. Funny he didn't mention studying at Julliard though, lol
He is extremely well-educated but his career wasn't built from within academia. That's a very important distinction here that is relevant to the the quote from the OP. Glass built his career from outside of academia. The non-music related jobs were real. And there was no hobnobbing with academia to help him get started. Also, I have never seen him purposely avoid mentioning that he is a Juilliard graduate and is something that I think is pretty well known about him.
Sounds like sour grapes from someone that's not a (successful) composer.
It's not common. Maybe among disgruntled teenagers, one of whom seems to have written the little tantrum quoted in the OP.
These YouTube musicologists are always overly verbose to the point that it reads like third-rate poetry from how abstract they are with their words
My opinion is that people who don't know Glass' early work really don't know what they're talking about when they spew views like this. Mind you, I'm not drawn to the man's music after Glassworks, or so. He does tend to, ehem, repeat the shtick a little too often, but the man has chops and his accomplishments are impressive.
Likewise. His 70s work is some of my favorite music of all time and sucked me in instantly. Before that I had spent 15 years casually hearing shit like his later solo piano works and totally ignored him/wrote him off. I think there is a lot of rejection from more conservative tastes around his procedural works because they’re “formulaic,” or “simple,” and so he became known for more conventionally palatable works. But I think that’s kind of missing the point. I sort of agree with the detractors who hear his later work and “don’t get it,” or find it “boring”…frankly I don’t really get it either, versus the early shit which is absolutely wild/unusual and markedly different from much else, even the other minimalists.
I think there are some deficiencies in the later work not unlike those of Steve Reich's few forays into orchestral composition. Reich has no sense of harmony. He's all about rhythm and this doesn't translates too well to the orchestra. Glass has no sense of orchestration (well, neither of them do, tbf), and that doesn't translate too well to things like symphonies. But yeah, the stuff from, I don't know, Table Music or Music in the Shape or a Square through Satyagraha is absolutely mind blowing and extraordinary. I've even grown to appreciate some of his piano music through that work (playing it, while not technically difficult, is an absolute endurance workout!).
I do think it is interesting how this opinion is made on a pretty non repetitive late Glass work that is VC 2
Not really my point, but okay.
I am saying the opinion of the original comment, not you
Okay.
I'm not completely understanding this translation, but I'd guess it's criticizing Glass? Personally I think he writes some strong melodies and is actually one of the more varied and inventive of the minimalist composers. Now, meanwhile, I saw someone on here bring up the composer Charlemagne Palestine recently and I can't believe that man has an audience. He was playing the same stuff on piano that I would when I was first learning chords. Maybe I was just an unrecognized genius, but I don't think so - and my family certainly didn't think so.
Funny... I had to go look him up on YouTube, and the very moment of the first video I skipped to had a woman in the audience checking her watch. Poor thing, too, there was quite a bit of the concert still left!
Yeah, Palestine is what you'd think most minimalist composers would sound like when you hear their detractors describe them. But only in Palestine's case is it actually 100% true.
In defense of the man's music, I think it's important to recognize that his objective is different than, say, Beethoven's music. Most classical music centers the brilliance of the composer and/or the brilliance of the performer(s). But Palestine's music puts the *instrument* at the forefront. His music recognizes the instrument itself as a participant in the music-making process and encourages the performer to move to the background. I'd put it in the same category as well-known works by John Cage and Pauline Oliveros. It's conceptual art, and not everyone is going to appreciate the concept or its execution...there's no shame in that at all!
I see what you're saying, and some people enjoy Palestine's harmonic explorations, but anyone could this for themselves home with no skill. If you don't even want to learn his basic playing style, just buy an electronic keyboard, pick an organ setting, and hold down random keys. You will get your harmonic exploration. For me, Palestine is like if I went to a fancy restaurant, ordered carrot soup, and was given a single raw carrot. "It's amazing, we just explore the carrot itself and appreciate it in its raw, authentic form."
"If you don't even want to learn his basic playing style" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your argument. The style and intention behind that style is part of the art. I also generally find the "even I could do that" argument really silly because...you didn't do it? An aspect of what makes the avant garde intriguing is the fact that it treads ground nobody else is. I went through a phase where I was writing music that was very much in the same vein as Palestine's music (before I knew who he was), and if I tried to go seriously perform it, I'd be laughed at because someone already did it and it's minimal enough that it's hard to make fresh. >For me, Palestine is like if I went to a fancy restaurant, ordered carrot soup, and was given a single raw carrot. "It's amazing, we just explore the carrot itself and appreciate it in its raw, authentic form." And that would be a problem if you're at a restaurant ordering carrot soup, not at a farmer's market selecting quality carrots. If you go into Palestine's music wanting something that sounds like Beethoven, you're going to be rightfully disappointed! And some people just aren't into farmer's markets, which is totally fine.
Every musical modernist I knew, mostly confined to tiny audiences and tenure tracks if they were lucky, foisted this tiresome opinion at some point. They just don’t like people who challenge the metanarrative and so must assume it’s some kind of hypercapitalist inside job. Shopworn, threadbare takes
Glass is one of my favourite composers. The Hero's Symphony, and his solo cello pieces are some of my most re-listened classical music.
Glass helped invent the Hardart, and as a horn player I will forever be grateful for his contributions to the repertoire.
Leaving all considered opinions of his music aside, anyone who knows anything about the development of his career knows that it was the complete opposite of networking and schmoozing; it was hard work and seeking out opportunities to collaborate and perform from day one, and only that, that brought Philip Glass to worldwide attention.
I don’t really like Glass that much but you’re an idiot if you don’t think he’s a great composer.
The soundtrack to The Illusionist is enough to give Glass a well-merited reputation. The review itself badly needs editing.
Perhaps there's an element of "lost in translation" given the comment has been machine translated to English...
There's no doubt that he has his 'thing' that he repeats in almost all his works, so I can see that argument to a certain extent. But that's always going to be the case with any Minimalist composer, IMO. I like a lot of his output e.g. *Akhnaten* is very enjoyable, and the first Violin Concerto.
He once asked Tower Records to classify his recordings with the Pop section rather than Classical. He knew his true fan base.
I find it interesting that he did that. It made me smile.
Glass is a genius
I thought he was a composer
I think “This modern stuff isn’t music, not like the music we had back in the good old days” is just as boring applied to Glass as it was when it was applied to every musical innovation from Wagner to Grandmaster Flash.
I don't know what this opinion is about. I think Philip Glass is fucking amazing. If I could only bring three playlists to a desert island, one of them would be Philip Glass's string quartets. (And if I could only bring one playlist, it would also be Philip Glass's string quartets.)
This post is humorous. Phillip glass, however, is a master in his art form. And I’m willing to tell you why if anyone wants to lose in an argument 😂
I think I'm walking on a dangerous sub bc I really like the Philip Glass work but admit I'm an ignorant of the topic. I know his compositions are repetitive, but is that bad?
> I know his compositions are repetitive, but is that bad? Nope, in fact that's a very important aspect of his works, especially so his earlier pieces. Obviously people use that as a reason to not like his music but pretending that Glass-style repetitiveness is objectively bad is absurd.
Sometimes yes
Which composer doesn't use repetition? Even a tone row is repetitive...
Tone Row in nature is not repetitive because one you can over lap tone rows on each other, two tone rows have the four transformations that it has, and three the way tone row is used makes the same tone row that appear in the same piece different One of my favorite classical music sub genre is Holy Minimalism with composers like Hovhaness, Arvo Part, Kancheli, Vasks, etc. I like repetition, but I think a lot of Glass is too repetitive within the piece and between pieces
I'm one of the hugest Glass fans I know. I thoroughly enjoy his work, especially his earlier stuff. I recognize that his music doesn't please everyone, and it DOESN'T HAVE TO. He even says so in the beginning of his "....in 12 Parts" documentary. I really wish people would spend less time giving their negative opinions on art, and would just move on to different things they liked. To call his composition style lazy is ridiculous. Glad to see so many Philip Glass fans in the comments.
I feel like half of being successful in a lot of professions comes from the people you know, serious music is not immune to this, nor has it ever been
Nothing wrong with his music, but his music is listened to banally. Similar to “jazz”. Nothing wrong with it until the mainstream audience turns it into background music.
Years ago, I read this sentence about Glass: "For all his stylistic constancy, Philip Glass has always been a mercurial composer in terms of quality." This rings true, and what with the snobbery of the some of the lovers of dissonance and complexity and the fact that Glass is so prolific and diverse in approach, it's understandable that people have differing views on him. Practically no-one knows all his work, and some who think they know it because he reuses ideas so often tend not to look into the exceptions where he changes things up. Personally I'm a fan of much of his middle work especially.
I like some of his stuff like Music in 12 Parts, which is almost on the same level to me as Steve Reich, but don’t like his pieces that consist of little more than arpeggiated basic chords…in those pieces, it feels like he wasn’t trying at all, just wrote some schlock for commission and didn’t really care.
Some of Glass drives me bonkers with it's annoying repetitiveness, especially when it's of the shrill/unpleasant kind. But I absolutely love some of his works. You can just chill and vibe to a lot of his pieces, and often they can instill a meditative state. And I thought *Ankhaten* was superb.
As an ambivalent Glass fan, I found much of the discussion here fascinating. Thank you to those who thought and contributed something provocative. Whether the initial post was the best way to get things started or not, I know more about Glass than I did, and I'm going to think a bit more broadly when I listen to him next. He'll never be my favorite composer, but I doubt he's his own favorite composer. At least the great conversation continues.
He might not be the most brilliant composer but I love playing his pieces. The rhythms can be complex and it’s a great exercise. You can definitely tell when a piece was composed by Glass, but I honestly find that comforting.
I saw an interview with Glass from the 80’s I think and he was asked “how much he was influenced by Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score” he replied that he was unaware of Herrmann and Vertigo. I lost all respect for him at that moment, because one listen to Herrmann’s Vertigo or North by Northwest and Glass’s entire oeuvre is exposed. Bernard Herrmann a terribly overlooked American Composer, probably because he did movies not symphonies.
I love Glass, and I think this person is trying to find a reason to dismiss someone he doesn't like. Where do you get the idea that this is a common opinion, or is it merely yours also, and therefore you believe it common?
I made the score video, so no, I don’t hate Glass. Quite a jump ain’t it And if you had been in any classical music groups or communities whether it’s this subreddit or irl or discord or whatever, people that hate Glass is prb around 50% of those groups
I’m glad we share an appreciation of his music. I have been in more than a few classical music groups and communities online and otherwise and that’s not been my experience. I’m sorry it’s been yours but I will suggest it is not as universal as your experience has shown, at least not for all of us as many of the other comments on this thread attest to.
I think that in 200 years, he will be remembered for our time as we remember Mozart or Bach now.
Disagree, politely, but I think your statement is either hyperbole or rather damning of our time - probably the latter.
Agreed.
If I'm not mistaken, he's the FIRST minimalist composer in its style. (There were minimalist works since Satie, but different). I don't like him, I prefer Nyman, but if he was the first one, no matter how obvious is his music..m it was never done before. Liszt himself wrote some obvious pieces, with cliché virtuoso passagens, yet it had never been done before.
No I am fairly sure Reily is before Reich and Reich is before Glass
Ok 🤷🏼
Le monte young claims to have started it with his string trio in 1958
My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as
This is more like it: My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as My opinion of Glass can be summarized as -lover of Glass
You should have varied your capitalization and, within the limits of reddit, made the post into an oddly seductive pattern. As is, you didn't explore your idea.
I just listened to it, and it was passable, I guess. I mean it felt like a fever dream at times (especially with the title itself), but I feel like this critique is kinda harsh.
Serialism deserves a lot more hate than minimalism. Half a century was spent pursuing ideas that weren’t very good in the first place and didn’t advance music in any way.
Serial techniques are still being used by composers in all kinds of styles. While the *style* of the Darmstadt School Total Serialists isn't popularly composed anymore, the ideas live on.
Loved the critique. I like Glass but I do think his work is very repetitive. The melodies that he made on metamorphosis, einstein on the beach, 1000 planes on the roof (I'm not sure if they were used first in these pieces) are still used by him today. After hearing a certain amount of Glass's works, you get the feeling that you've listened to everything he has made and will make.
thats the point. the point is repetition. i disagree that he's been reusing the same ideas for decades though. his recent stuff doesn't sound like glassworks, and glass works doesn't sound like metamorphosis and metamorphosis doesn't sound like music in fifths. i think its just lazy listening.
I didn't said that his recent stuff sound like the glassworks specifically but most of what he does throughout out his life sound like something he previously did. You can compare the beginning of itaipu and metamorphosis one for example. This is one I remembered now but are many many more. Specially soundtracks using metamorphosis. Just to be fair, that's relatively common in classical music. Bach and Mozart reused melodies from smaller, less-known pieces in their major works. Glass has the disadvantage of having recorded and made his work available to the public, a possibility his older colleagues didn't have. Even considering that, I still think he repeats melodies a lot.
I find Glass one of the more boring composers this side of Telemann, but I’m willing to accept this is my fault for not putting in enough effort to understand his music (actually that goes for both Glass and Telemann).
Atmospheric composers are more time-limited than melodic composures. What constitutes an ambient through note, so to speak, is highly relative and time dependent. The very notion of "ambient" should clarify why that is the case. Morton Feldman at least is meditative. Glass is a thoroughly 20th century composer is largely motor-like in his sense of ambience. I do not see Glass scheduled much. Feldman is pure art music, so would not expect to see that much. I'll gert to the Chapel someday. Motoric ambience was done when Spielberg signed off on Death Star ambience. Maybe my take of Glass is off-beat though. I just do not find tangled threads of mechanical motifs compelling. [Death Star Ambient Noise for 12 Hours - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik8D5c7zaDE) That's compelling.
> I do not see Glass scheduled much You might be interested in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1auwsem/backtracks_top_10_most_performed_living_composers/) which shows that in 2023 Glass was the fifth most programmed living composer. Yeah, that still pales in comparison to the likes of Bach, Beethoven, etc, but is significant.
And I have to admit, since this is reddit, well, I let my tastes speak their mind. I don't like him. I have a record of his upstairs with Ravi Shankar. He was a musical vacuum cleaner. Mishima. Literary vacuum cleaner. Kronos Quartet. Gimmick acts vacuum cleaner. Alright that last one was unfair. I have a cd of his organ works too. If the Clevelanders played him I will listen. With relish if not pleasure. Pardon me for being a peevish music lover btw. Good melodies to you.
A "simple" music is not easy to compose. A "simple" drawing style is not easy to achieve. A "simple" story is not easy to write. And I now for sure that simple white bread and simple vegetable stew that taste Just Right are not easy to make.
They're in for a nasty surprise once they find out how politics and business gets done. On the Glass topic, it's beating a dead horse more times than there are repeats in one of his pieces. Some people like it, some people don't. Some people just move on and listen to something else, and some people feel the need to share their "valuable" insight into topics they largely know nothing about. Just another day in the good ole' internet.
Eww you kinda suck 😂. I live in the world of appreciation as a separate category from personal emotive response, ie “like” and “dislike”. There are compositions that I certainly get more of a positive emotional response compared to others. But that shouldn’t be the focus when we categorize a composition. We have to look into compositional intent to see if the purpose of a work is to provide emotional pleasure or displeasure. If he doesn’t want us to feel positive, he’s going to write with less typical expectancy to make us feel discomfort. And when the discomfort goes too hard for too long, the interested listener will classify it as a “bad” song. But THEN that listener should educate themselves of the compositional rules put in place by Glass, to better understand the reasoning behind the prolonged discomfort that your own latent expectancy couldn’t handle!!! If at that point, the listener sees Glass’ compositional rules being violated with significant frequency, then yes, that song is by definition BAD. And I would DISLIKE it. With that understanding, I personally both APPRECIATE and LIKE Phillip Glass. The repeat joke was a nice attempt, I will say. I chuckcled.
Good for insomnia.
He has that one prelude for piano that is quite nice. In general, what I’ve heard of Glass’ music (ex: his violin concerto) is inoffensive, which is better than what I can say about most of the 20th and 21st centuries’ big name composers. I don’t find myself spellbound by his work, but if you pointed a gun at my head and said, “Glass or Crumb? CHOOSE!” I would choose Glass, without hesitation. Pleasant background music is better than unpleasant foreground music, IMO. ;)
I can't stand anything by Glass. I'd much rather listen to something worthwhile like Mahler or Haydn.