Alongside Steve Reich’s Violin Phase (1967), Philip Glass’ Strung Out (1968) ranks as early minimalism’s most important work for solo violin. However, unlike Violin Phase—which has received countless performances and several recordings during its sixty-year shelf life—Strung Out has largely flown under the radar. This twenty-minute work has remained something of an enigma, consigned to the periphery of Glass’ back catalogue. Even when I recently discussed it with violinists who frequently perform Glass, several have admitted to not knowing Strung Out.

This definitive new recording by gifted and versatile violinist Darragh Morgan will hopefully dispel any lingering doubts about the significance of this piece. It may not be Glass’ most important work, but it certainly holds a special place in the composer’s early development.

Whereas Violin Phase’s canonical status was secured early on through its inclusion on Reich’s 1968 Columbia Masterworks Live/Electric album, with Paul Zukofsky playing, eight years elapsed before Strung Out was finally released. Zukofsky was again leading the way, with the recording appearing on the violinist’s own CP² label, which also included music by Scelsi and Xenakis: an unlikely musical ménage à trois, one might say.

Strung Out continued to languish in relative obscurity, until Glass’ own label Orange Mountain Music issued an archival recording of the work’s first performance at the Filmmaker’s Cinematheque, New York, on 19 May 1968, featuring violinist Dorothy Pixley-Rothchild.

Despite their many attributes, neither the Pixley-Rothchild nor Zukofsky recordings do entire justice to Strung Out. Given the former’s context—a live account of a new work in a bold and innovative style that would surely have been challenging to both the musician playing it and audience listening—Pixley-Rothchild’s recording is extraordinary on several levels: not least the steely, unwavering conviction of her interpretation. However, the performance suffers from occasional lapses (for example, an added ‘C’ at 3:30, during the rhythmic second section which features repeating As and Bs, and a turn-like figure accidentally added during a series of falling hexachord D to F patterns towards the bottom of page 4 on the score). The audio quality (inevitably, this being 1968) is not great either.

Zukofsky’s more accurately executed and in general more relaxed performance clearly benefits from the advantages that come with a studio setting. Nevertheless, the sound quality is not aided by a rather woolly and compressed sound, resulting in a violin that projects an almost synthetic timbre. Zukofsky’s more cautious approach to tempo—closer to crotchet = 120 than Glass’s metronome indication of crotchet = 144—result in a performance that clocks in at over twenty-one minutes; this compared to Pixley-Rothchild’s eighteen. Zukofsky’s playing is nevertheless fluid, even graceful, when executing the steady flow of eighth notes which appear throughout the piece. His interpretation of the material is however very literal and almost expressionless. Perhaps Zukofsky took Glass’s tempo indication (‘mechanically’) a little too literally.

Strung Out itself is divided into two large repeating sections, each lasting around nine minutes, with the second section ending slightly differently to the first, on a rising C-D-E figure. One might call these two sections A¹ and A².

The piece starts with a distinctive 2+3 question-and-answer-type pattern, comprising a rising minor third E-G leap (i.e., the question) followed by a three-note E-D-C pattern (its answer), outlining a major third (see the image of the opening page of the score reproduced above). Stated in this way, the five-note figure articulates an intervallic gap of a perfect fourth between its two constituent parts, which the piece ingeniously proceeds to ‘fill in’ somewhat in the manner of Leonard B. Meyer’s Implication-Realisation model.

Glass reshapes and extends these patterns, increasing the piece’s pitch ambitus by gradually engaging additional pitches. By the time we get to the last two pages of the score (pages 7–8), this additive approach has generated a series of nine-note rising and falling patterns. Glass also imparts variety by constantly varying the grouping patterns in each modal module, so that the opening 2+3 unit becomes 2+2+2, 3+4, 4, 3+2, 2+3, 3, 2+2, and so on. These subtle transformations mean that it’s difficult to second-guess which pattern’s coming next.

While the opening is centred around C-Ionian, the piece’s direction soon shifts towards A-Aeolian. This modal shift to A (minor-ish) is further emphasized by what might be called a ‘hiccupping’ short-short-long rhythm (first stated on page 3 of the score). This hiccupping pattern comes as a surprise because it’s the first time a clear break or silence is heard in the piece’s continuous melodic thread.

Normal service is resumed with the reintroduction of flowing lines (on pages 4 and 5 of the score), but their general motion is now directed downwards, from Aeolian-A to Phrygian-F, eventually to Dorian-D, wherein a very similar pattern to the earlier rhythmic ‘hiccupping’ statement is heard. This acts as a cue for an upwards-moving trajectory towards tonic C (on pages 7-8), bringing along with it the complete pitch set that has been gradually introduced up to that point. Therefore, the return of the opening figure towards the end of A¹ serves to connect it to the beginning of A².

I explain this partly as context for Morgan’s performance, which manages to bring out all these elements—part and whole, micro and macro—in such a way as to make Strung Out cohere as an effective musical entity. This has only been partly achieved on previous recordings. Morgan takes the opening tempo at precisely crotchet = 144, and by adding a little weight to the lower E-G dyad at the beginning, he creates the impression of a two-part unfolding texture between soprano and alto lines, melody and countermelody. The violinist also imparts more shape to these expanding and contracting lines, which results in a sonic stream that inhales and exhales—ebbs and flows—with startling clarity and transparency.

During the two ‘hiccupping’ passages which appear in the middle portions of both sections, Morgan adds more snap and elasticity to the short rhythms. This is aided by carefully balanced and weighted bow movement. Furthermore, Morgan gradually increases the tempo towards the ends of both sections, giving the music an added sense of drive and momentum. The ending is thus perfectly placed and positioned.

When I interviewed saxophonist John Harle about performing minimalist repertoire several years ago for the Ashgate Research Companion to Minimalist and Postminimalist Music (Routledge, 2013), he rather unexpectedly referenced sixteenth-century Italian courtier and aesthete Baldessare Castiglione’s concept of Grazia (meaning ‘grace’ and ‘elegance’), wherein two key elements—decoro (musical technique and ability) and sprezzatura (a kind of improvisational flow)—appear in harmonious coexistence.

Attaining Grazia is really difficult, but Morgan’s performance achieves it. His performance also maintains the kind of ‘plateau of sound’ for which the violinist’s interpretations of minimalist repertoire is renowned. The balance between what Morgan has called ‘restraint and a vibrant, focused and clear quality of string tone’ is achieved throughout. It seems that, almost sixty years since its composition, Strung Out has finally received a definitive performance that measures up to the piece’s place in the minimalist pantheon.