Glass, Philip (1937-…), is an American composer. His works combine elements of rock music, the music of Africa and India, and classical Western music. In the late 1960’s, Glass and a number of other American composers, including Steve Reich, La Monte Young, and Terry Riley, began to compose in a radically pared-down style most often called Minimalism. This style uses repeated short musical and harmonious patterns that are changed by slow and gradual variation. Typical of Glass’s work of this period is Music in 12 Parts (1974), which lasts four hours.
In 1968, Glass formed the Philip Glass Ensemble, consisting of amplified instruments, to perform his works. Glass himself often plays electronic keyboards.
Glass frequently collaborates with artists in dance, film, and drama. With playwright and director Robert Wilson, he created the opera Einstein on the Beach (1976), loosely based on the life of scientist Albert Einstein, and the nearly abstract The Civil Wars: A Tree Is Best Measured When It’s Down (1983). Glass provided music for the fifth and final act of The Civil Wars, a 12-hour work.
Glass worked with choreographers Lucinda Childs on Einstein on the Beach and Jerome Robbins on Glass Pieces (1983), and with illustrator Beni Montresor on the fantasy opera-ballet The Witches of Venice (1995). He collaborated with director Mary Zimmerman on Galileo Galilei (2001), an opera based on the life of the Italian astronomer Galileo. Glass’s opera Kepler (2009) is based on the life of another astronomer, Johannes Kepler of Germany. The Perfect American (2013) is an opera about the final days in the life of the American filmmaker Walt Disney. Glass collaborated on Circus Days and Nights (2021) with the Malmö Opera and Circus Cirkör, both of Sweden. The opera is based on a book by the American poet Robert Lax, who was part of a traveling circus in the late 1940’s.
Many Glass operas explore social and political themes in a global and often historical context. Satyagraha (1980) deals with the early life of the Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi and the theme of nonviolent change. Akhnaten (1983) deals with an Egyptian pharaoh and religious reformer of the 1300’s B.C. The opera The Voyage (1992) commemorates Christopher Columbus’s accidental discovery of the New World. A number of critics and opera companies interpreted Waiting for the Barbarians (2005) as a criticism of the Iraq War (2003-2011). However, Glass claimed that his intention was more universal, leaving the listener to “weigh the meaning of good and evil in their own lives.” Appomattox (2007) focuses on the last weeks of the American Civil War (1861-1865) and the period immediately after the war’s end.
Glass composed three operas based on motion pictures by the French writer and director Jean Cocteau. These operas are Orphée (1993), La Belle et la Bête (1994), and Les Enfants Terribles (1996). Glass also composed the scores for the Qatsi trilogy of experimental documentary films. The trilogy consists of Koyaanisqatsi (1982), Powaqqatsi (1987), and Naqoyqatsi (2002). In addition, he composed the scores for such films as Mishima (1984), The Truman Show (1998), The Hours (2002), and The Illusionist (2006). Glass composed Book of Longing (2007), a song cycle based on the poems of Canadian writer Leonard Cohen. Glass also has composed music for piano, as well as many concertos and symphonies.
Glass was born on Jan. 31, 1937, in Baltimore, Maryland. While living in Paris, France, during the mid-1960’s, he worked briefly with the Indian musician Ravi Shankar, who strongly influenced his music. Glass wrote an autobiography, Words Without Music (2015).
See also Akhenaten; Minimalism.
