Philip Glass - Composer HARDtalk

Philip Glass, welcome to HARDtalk. You are here in London to put on a

revival of the epic piece, Einstein on the Beach. Do you feel yourself

to be the same artist now as you were then? No Mac. I have liveried

memories -- no. I have bid vivid We are not an opera company.

Pomegranate Arts by helping us put it together. -- are helping us.

That peace is more than five hours long. Does it feel like you are

where you are out, musically? -- that piece. No. But it is not the

same as when we first did it. The images are the same and the little

clips you have seen a more or less what you will see here. -- are more.

Philip Glass, as we continue to see the images there, talked to me

about the music and sound. We have the incantation of numbers. Why? I

was writing highly structured, repetitive music. When I was

teaching it to the singers... Some of them were dancers - we combined

a dance and vocal company. A lot of young people do dance and singing

together. Those were the kids we were working with. In order to get

them to memorise it, I worked out a number scheme that you heard a

little bit of. It is like a pattern of numbers. If you learn the

pattern and you say it correctly the peace will come out right. I

have watched an awful lot more than that one clip and what we see in

Einstein on the Beach is fascinating choreography and images

and music which sticks in your head but it is not about anything. There

is no story or narrative. That is a good point. When Bob and I began

this piece, we were meeting for about a year and we knew each

other's work. He was doing big, all night theatre pieces and I was

doing extended music pieces. We began talking about this. We

decided to do a piece that... He had done pieces on Sigmund Freud

and Stalin too. For this one you chose Einstein but he does not

What you have said, I think, about it, while it is not supposed to be

full of obvious meaning, it is an exploration of space and time and

the thoughts Einstein was having about our planet and its place in

the Universe. The idea of our subject, for Bob, he wanted

something that everybody would know who the person was. He said, "If we

do a story about Einstein, everyone knows who he is so we do not have

to tell a story." We do a piece in which Einstein appears and the

images of trains and spaceships and elevators are Things That Einstein

used to use to explain his theory of relativity to people like you

and me. Bob took this imagery and made the visual imagery of those.

Besides doing those things, Bob through when something that was

very interesting - to make big dance pieces choreographed by

Lucinda Childs, also one of the major actors in the peace. He had a

We would ask the actors what they would think it was about and they

Do you remember the expression,"Science is on trial"?

Around 1976, critics looking at your music, your pieces, you use

the word opera, critics were looking at it and being extremely

negative. One critic called it" sonic torture". There is a lot of

humouring it too. -- humour in it. To me it is like a Buster Keaton

duo. There is a speech that one of the judges makes at the trial about

women's liberation which is hilariously funny. It is not five

hours of heavy, serious theatre. There are funny things that happen,

there is music and dance. The audience completes the story by

telling it themselves. The other remarkable thing to realise about

your life at this particular time, in the 70s, when you were making a

name as the minimalist composer, is that you were not even a full-time

artist, you were driving a New York taxicab. I did that from four

o'clock until 11 o'clock and then I worked on my music from midnight

until six o'clock. In those days, New York was a different place. I

could work three or four days at the most and earn enough money to

support my family. It was a much less expensive place to live in

those days. I would spend three or four days working and writing at

night and have the other three or four days. It runs counter to so

much of the way in which high art, if we can put it like that, works

these days. Many artists survive on subsidies and grants these days. In

New York, the chances are that the waiter and the driver of the cab is

a poet or a writer or actor. Many people have day jobs. Is it better

for creativity for it to be that way? It is hard to say. On the one

hand, the well subsidised cultures, the work tends not to be that

interesting. I am not sure why that is. The people that have to work

harder at it, as we say in America, the things that don't kill you make

you stronger. The survival, the commitment, the focus and stamina

it takes to live a double life, and many people do that, you develop a

commitment to the work which goes beyond. You do not take a day off.

Is that true now? I used sitting in a studio for eight hours a day,

writing? I do not have the day jobs anymore. You quit the taxi. I am

performing too. I have another life. I began performing about that time

too. Let's get back to the 70s and 80s and the development of your

career. I call to a polarising figure. Many people could not

figure out what you were. -- I called you. I have used the phrase,

minimalist. He collaborated with people like David Bowley and Bryony

know. -- David Bowie and Brian Eno. I work with all kinds of people.

Did you ever try and do find yourself to yourself? That was not

the point. -- define yourself. I work with people from different

parts of the world, from Africa, China, Australia. I was interested

in these encounters, encounters with people who did not have the

same background. I went to the University of Chicago, I went to

the Julie Owens School of Music, I was in music school for virtually

20 years. -- Juilliard. Let's get to the heart of that question that

you posed and I mentioned at the beginning of this interview. What

his music? Many people would say music is an aural way of expressing

the promotion, feeling, spirituality. Many people then

listen to your music and find it very cold, mathematical and lacking

in emotion. -- expressing the emotion. I heard that criticism a

lot earlier. The music has changed somewhat. You brought up another

interesting question about working with all of these different people

and what it means to me. What I became convinced of was that the

only difference between musicians and artists was the kind of talent

they have, and it wasn't a question of gender, age, cultural background.

The reason I worked with those people was because they were so

talented. Composers traditionally took melodies from popular music

and put it into symphonies, so I The second question about what

music is, that is an interesting question. I have been playing since

I was six years old. I picked up the piano well as 15. My brother

was taking piano lessons and I At 15, I was asking the question,

where does music come from? I thought, if I began to write music

I could find out. I spend the next decades writing music and I never

found out. Then I realised I was answering the wrong question. The

question was, what was music? My next answer was, this has been a

lifetime of thinking, music is the most eloquent language that human

beings use to communicate with each other. People could say was

painting or poetry, may be a social scientist will say to his customers.

It is interesting you call it an eloquent language. There are very

well-informed critics and other composers, one who has written

recently, she wrote in a magazine, looking at your opus, saying,

people like Bach, they had so many ideas. They developed many ideas in

their music. The problem with Philip Glass is that he has one

idea and he beats you senseless with it. When you hear that kind of

thing what is your response? should listen to the music. There

are 24 operas. There are 30 ballets. You understand the point? There is

all this work but a lot of it sounds the same? But you have to

listen and pay attention. This is not the problem of the composer.

Plenty of people were here at the Barbican. It will be sold out every

night. Plenty of people do not agree with that. It is a purse --

perfectly intelligent opinion. It has get back to the question. It is

an interesting question. I became satisfied with the language answer.

He did not get to the mystery. Of music especially. Later, not very

long ago, I was giving a talk to people. Someone said, Mr Glass,

what his music? For I said, I did not know what I would say, music is

a place. It is as real as Chicago or Indianapolis. It is an absolute

place. Once you know whether places you can go there. That is my kind

answer. It is not my last one, I have gone through three. I like

that answer. It gives me a sense of what you are about. Coming back to

this point, which people have alighted upon, the volume at which

which you have become a pragmatist who will write music on commission,

whether it is for a film, or even for a TV commercial, that has led

to some people who love classical music to say you are a sell-out?

love this discussion. I find nothing wrong with that. I went to

my father's record store when I was a kid. At 12, I worked in the store,

then I bought records from the store. One of the first things I

saw, one of my earliest memories, someone came to the counter and

gave my father $5 he gave them a record. A very simple transaction.

I thought my father was a good guy. They did not see anything wrong

with that. You think there are some snobs in Pascal music to have a

problem with commercialism? I've did not use that word. What I have

cherished more than anything else is independence. I have not worked

at a school ever. I have all the degrees and I could have. And never

was asked to. I wanted to be have to live on with my music. It was

until 41, I had a day-job. At that point he began to make a living

writing music. That has been 35 years. Something you said, was the

disjunction between some of the opera and Symphony works you have

written and the ads for big corporates you have done. You said,

in response, a chef, a gourmet chef once in while may enjoy cooking a

Berger. If you cook too many burgers, do you begin to lose some

of the need skills you need? A good point. I'm still doing the Gourmet

Cookery. This year I wrote a ninth and 10th Symphony. I'd done a few

commercials, I would say, my vocation is writing classical music.

I do not mind writing commercials. There is a point to that as well.

Winner fellow comes to work in my studio, I say what are you doing?

They may say I want to write art music. How will denote, -- harmony

and composition? You have to go back and learn that. You cannot do

classical music without knowing what you're doing. Commercial music

cannot take too much of your time. You need a solid technique. That is

good advice. Hit me ask you about radicalism? You said you were

involved and changed, -- evolved and changed. In the 60s, you were

seen as a radical composer, you took music in a different

direction? You questioned the status quo. A few years ago, one of

your pieces was on at the Metropolitan. A few of the

protesters were outside the metropolitan and you went to talk

to them. Did you talk to them as a representative of the musical

establishment, order to identify with their message about the 1%

against the 99%. I had met them the week before. They had joined --

asked me to join him at the practice. I said, I will. I did a

Mike check with them. I came out, it was the last performance of a

film about the non-violent movement Dundee had started. This was a non-

violent movement. They did not know it, they are based on that history.

Of Mahatma Gandhi. I had a text I wanted to lose. It was the end of

the opera, where people are talking about action and none action. He

says, remember, I come into the world to force the ball back and

put virtual on her seat again. you are worth, from a fantastically

successful career, tens of millions of dollars, if you have become

famous, can you be a radical? never said I was. The person I

wrote the opera about was a from historical material. I never

thought I was a radical. That was how I was characterised. I came

into a world with a musical world was dedicated to very abstract

music. It is 12 Time Music, music that people do not like to hear. --

12 tone music. I wanted to go back to a tonal basis and at a rhythmic

structure to it. I want to plant more Crich -- one more quick

thought. You once said the hardest thing for a musician is not for

them to find their own voice but to get rid of it. And find a new way

to do things. Have you done that? have done that with my

collaborations. They have been a way for me to put myself and a

place I have not been before. In order to work from a person from