Of course this fits him in between #8 ‘South Carolina Football’ and #10 (the incomparable) ‘Leave It to Beaver’

Perhaps they could re-release ‘Leave it Beaver’ with a Phillip Glass soundtrack:
Eddie Haskel Eddie Haskel Eddie Haskel
You like nice You like nice
Mrs. Cleaver Mrs. Cleaver
Cleaver Cleaver Cleaver Eddie Eddie Eddie Nice Nice Nice

Josquin, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms, Ives, Stravinsky …

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Also see Simon Schama The Power of Art.

I don’t know about “most.” Feldman, Cage, Nancarrow, Partch, Ligeti, Ives and many others did indeed “innovate” in their later years. In terms of writing mostly great (but perhaps not innovative) music in their later years, there are any of a number of composers who fit that bill, including Vaughn-Williams, Bloch, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky (some would put him in the late innovator class; I wouldn’t, even though I love his late music), Delius, Ruggles, Messiaen, Copland, Bartok, etc.

And even if we judge him just on those early, innovative works I still think he comes across as one of America’s greatest living composers.

That’s your opinion. Mine as well, which is why his post-Satyagraha music is such a disappointment to me!

Don’t most artists fall into that description? There are very few who can keep innovating throughout a career.
And even if we judge him just on those early, innovative works I still think he comes across as one of America’s greatest living composers.

Referring now strictly to his operas:

Though its been a good 20 years since I last listened to ‘Einstein on the Beach’ and over 15 years since I recycled my LPs of Einstein by giving them to the Moscow Conservatory, I would guess that my proportional favorable musical response rate to ‘Einstein on the Beach’ was about 2%.

With ‘Satyagraha’, my favorable musical response rate was perhaps 12%; and with Akhnaten, perhaps 12.7% (in part because it was better orchestrated and better recorded; if not as inspiring, in my view).

I have not heard ‘Making of the Representative for the Planet 8′; but have long wanted to. (I did see, but will ignore here, such lesser, in my view, Glass efforts as The Leopard and 1000 Airplanes on the Roof.)

My favorable proportional musical response to ‘The Voyage’, based upon two Met radio broadcasts and two listens to the new Linz production recording is perhaps 13.6%. [On all four listens, I have been tripped-up by atrocious English-language text-setting early on; something that I had less of a problem with in Einstein and Satyagraha].

‘Waiting for the Barbarians’ was wildly received by the Erfurt audiences and press, and my hope is that when I in fact hear the recording, or watch the DVD, my proportional favorable musical response will be, at least, in the 17 – 20% range.

Similarly, I hope that my favorable musical response to “Appomattax” and the future NYCO operas will be, at least, in the 17 – 20% range.

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David, who are your most admired American operatic creative artists? Philip Glass is certainly one of mine; and one based, in large part, upon his operatic achievement beyond ‘Einstein’ and ‘Satyagraha’.