{"id":10081,"date":"2020-05-15T14:56:46","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T13:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/?p=10081"},"modified":"2020-05-15T15:05:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T14:05:53","slug":"music-of-our-time-premiere-recording-of-lost-philip-glass-manuscript-challenges-the-current-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/music-matters\/2020\/05\/15\/music-of-our-time-premiere-recording-of-lost-philip-glass-manuscript-challenges-the-current-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Music of our time: premiere recording of lost Philip Glass manuscript challenges the current crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

If, like me, the music of Philip Glass was a brash, strident and hypnotic part of your growing up, listening to the forthcoming premiere recording of the reconstructed Music In Eight Parts<\/em> throws open the door to your childhood, and immediately ushers in the familiar stark architecture of Glass\u2019 soundworld that Music in Changing Parts, Music in Twelve Parts,<\/em> the exuberant 1,000 Airplanes on the Roof<\/em> and other works created for this impressionable teenager.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sol Lewitt: ‘Open Cube in Black and White,’ image courtesy of Karkow Witgin Gallery, Boston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As soon as the recording began to play, I was back in my teenage years again, listening spellbound to Glass\u2019 music that was utterly unlike anything I\u2019d heard before, being a classical pianist and steeped in the traditional classical orchestral fodder. Glass\u2019 bold, and at that time refreshingly modern combination of saxophones, voices and electric keyboards, brought an invigorating chamber ensemble sound endlessly turning in and around itself, creating an apparent aural contradiction between a sense of stasis with a slow process of incremental change, all topped off with a restless textural surface, that you don\u2019t really notice if you\u2019re not paying close attention; for me, it was (and still is) endlessly fascinating. I recall a schoolfriend yelling \u2018This has all the appeal of listening to A DRIPPING TAP!\u2019 in exasperation at my nth<\/em> playing of Einstein on the Beach<\/em>. I could see how this might be, but only if you weren\u2019t listening properly.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Philip Glass in 1993. Image: Pasquale Salerno<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And that\u2019s what Glass\u2019 music does best; it dances away on the surface, but if you engage with the unfolding process and the commensurate different rhythmic patterns that evolve, it becomes something completely beguiling. Sometimes, the rhythmic patterns become incredibly nimble, the music dancing on its feet, as the material ducks and weaves through asymmetrical patterns. (Around eight minutes in, it suddenly blossoms and becomes, well, funky, too).<\/p>\n