Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

I Work Hard for My Money

Not many composers have a success problem and Philip Glass is one of them. He is arguably the most famous American concert music composer, familiar enough to the better-informed elements of the populace to be satirized on South Park and recognized on the street--when he is not confused with Lou Reed. He is fantastically prolific, much in demand as a film composer and there are about a million CDs with his name on the label. He is the go-to guy for big "world music" collaborations.

All of this success has clearly had a negative impact on his reputation as a "serious" composer and caused a large segment of the plugged-in music community to underrate his importance as a pioneering voice in American music. Poll the top music critics for their favorites and Glass doesn't even make the top 20. He was conspiculously under-represented in the recent LA PHIL's minimalist jukebox festival.

As someone who has walked the ever-shifting border between what I did for for money and what I did for love, I believe this is unfair and smells of sour grapes. Sure, Glass has written a lot and some of it is self-cannibalizing. Not all of it is original or new. Writing music for films is a special craft that requires creating moods for someone else's vision. By nature, it is not personal but collaborative. Glass didn't wake up one morning and say I think I'll write some music about the Dali Lama and someone will use it in a film called Kundun.

But, to those who say "all Glass sounds alike," I would say: you're not listening. Because he can do so through his own publishing and recording empire Glass puts it all out there and leaves the judgement calls to listeners--some of whom (like many American "serious" music critics) have already made up their minds. Careful readers will wonder why I am defending Glass for commerical whoring when I recently savaged Daniel Bernard Roumain in these pages for aspiring to do the same thing. My answer is that Glass has paid his dues, taken his lumps, and continued to turn out some music that deserves to be taken seriously.

I refer the members of the jury to the just released Symphony No. 8 (Orange Mountain Music) with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Bruckner Orchester Linz, which commissioned it. This is a big sprawling three-movement symphony that is filled with fresh ideas and un-Glass-like touches. With its big brass fanfares and stuttering rhythms, the first movement reminds me a lot of the Overture to Rimsky-Korsakov's The Tsar's Bride, the greatest Western theme never used (as far as I know) as a theme for a Western. Movements 2 is perhaps the most impassioned music that Glass has yet composed, filled with long stretches of quiet dissonance and haunting beauty. Movement 3 opens optimistically with a warm melody from the English horn but quickly turns dark and foreboding before ending quietly and enigmatically. Not with a bang but a whimper, as Mr. Eliott put it. Glass may be the composer you love to hate, but this is a serious work worthy of serious attention.

posted by Jerry Bowles 4/14/2006