Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Repost: The Genius of Philip Glass

This is a repost of something I wrote in January of 2005

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(Listen to some Philip Glass music while reading this blog entry! How cool is that?)

Nothing Less (washingtonpost.com):
“During [Philip Glass's] second year with [Nadia] Boulanger, he was engaged to transcribe a film score by [Ravi] Shankar into Western notation for some Parisian studio musicians. ‘What came to me as a revelation was the use of rhythm in developing an overall structure in music,’ Glass later wrote. ‘I would explain the difference between the use of Western and Indian music in the following way: In Western music we divide time — as if you were to take a length of time and slice it the way you slice a loaf of bread. In Indian music (and all the non-Western music with which I’m familiar), you take small units, or ‘beats,’ and string them together to make up larger time values.’”

What this made me think of is how a lot of the work of J.S. Bach unfolds. At first, Bach can seem mechanical–like that sliced bread Glass talks about–but, after repeated listening and allowing oneself to become immersed–it seems to me that Bach can be like this. Not division and sub-division and sub-sub-division but, rather, assembling a whole from tiny bits. I think only a very few Western composers have ever accomplished this. I love Mozart but…I don’t think Mozart was capable of it.

Actually, I’ve been thinking a lot about J.S. Bach lately. About his incredible genius. And I’ve got an idea that’s pretty much guaranteed to offend a whole bunch of you. Anyway…the germ of this idea came a few days ago while I was rehearsing some flute trio music with a couple of friends. Bach came up for some reason and I mentioned how much I loved his music. I said, “Bach must be God’s favorite son….uhhh….second-favorite son!” (Both my friends are Christians and I didn’t want to offend… Do you detect a recurring theme here?) But that got me thinking. Why shouldn’t Bach be God’s favorite son? It seems to me that a God of love–a God who is The Creative Force In The Universe–would best be represented among human beings as a person with a gift for creating works of timeless beauty. Yes? A person whose work pretty much everyone in the world could look at and say, “Yep. There’s great beauty there!” no matter who or where they were. Yes? Yes! A God of love–a God of Creation–wouldn’t be into this whole sin and sacrifice thing. Any God who was really all about Love and Creation would choose Bach over Jesus any day. (I think Jesus had some really great things to say but, come on, what kind of God would insist on killing his only kid? Especially to “atone” for “sins” that humans were supposedly born with in the first place. That’s just nuts.) Soooooo….. If God has been incarnate in any human, in seems to me that person must be Bach.

I’m not saying we should start a new religion where we worship Bach. That’d be stupid. Bach was a human being. And besides, what kind of Supreme Being even wants or needs worshippers? I’m just saying, doesn’t it make sense that if a Supreme Being were going to incarnate, it’d be in Bach?

Makes sense to me.

Okay. So, I was originally talking about Philip Glass–who, although a wonderful composer–is no J.S. Bach. The Washington Post article goes on to describe one of Glass’s more famous works: Einstein on the Beach.

The flutist Ransom Wilson, who would later conduct and record some of Glass’s music, has left a vivid impression of a New York performance of “Einstein on the Beach”: “As I listened to that five-hour performance, I experienced an amazing transformation. At first I was bored — very bored. The music seemed to have no direction, almost giving the impression of a gigantic phonograph with a stuck needle… Then, with no conscious awareness, I crossed a threshold and found that the music was touching me, carrying me with it. I began to perceive within it a whole world where change happens so slowly and carefully that each new harmony or rhythmic addition or subtraction seemed monumental.”

That’s a wonderful description of how a lot of Glass’s work is. It’s almost hypnotic. It…builds. And then, without you even realizing how it happened, you find yourself somewhere else entirely. When finally you return, everything seems…different. Better. It somehow makes sense in ways that you hadn’t expected.

Doesn’t that remind you a lot of Bach’s “Musical Offering”?

Yeah. It’s like that.

Or…it’s like the end of T.S. Eliot’s poem, Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

That’s what Philip Glass’s music is like. It takes you places and then, when you come back to the beginning, it’s all new and transformed somehow. (Or is it you that’s transformed?)

Whichever.

The fire and the rose are one.

Some of you may be more familiar with Glass’s commercial music. For example, he composed music for the movie “The Truman Show.” He’s also responsible for the score in the film Koyaanisqatsi (and in the later Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi.) You all remember Koyaanisqatsi, right? Hopi language? Translates to “Life Out Of Balance”? Very interesting film. Anyway…Philip Glass music is all over the place. Kinda makes you wonder what movies Bach would be writing for if he were alive today, eh?

So, that’s the genius of Philip Glass. Visit his very interesting web site by clicking here.