Philip Glass Research Paper

Philip Glass is one of the most influential composers of the late 20th and early 21st century. On January 31st 1937 the esteemed Philip Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His mother’s name was Ida Glass (née Gouline) and his father’s name was Benjamin Charles Glass. From a young age Glass had a passion of music, his father owned a radio repair shop/ record store and would bring home the records that they did not sell, thus exposing Glass to many different genres of music. He heard everything from extremely popular Elvis Presley to the lesser known Gottschalk. It is said that the artists that made the biggest impression were Schoenberg and his two students Webern, and Berg who were all classical musicians. Philip Glass is primarily known

The best known work from these years is his “Music in Twelve Parts,” this is a six-hour composition. It is a perfect example of minimalism because of the slow transformation and the repetitive structure of the composition. He wrote it so that he could combined all of the information that he had acquired since 1965 in studies of rhythmic structure. Another piece in which Glass encompassed minimalism was his composition “Music in Fifths” that was released in 2004.

Minimalism is a style of music that began in the 1960’s after world war II. Minimalism is supposed to break boundaries in music by taking the basic idea of creating a musical composition by taking only pitch and rhythm. It is taking the basic elements of music and then recreating classical western music into a new style called minimalism. Minimalism in music is part of a bigger movement that is full of minimal artwork. With an emphasizing the simple melodic line, harmonic progression, repetitive, and rhythmic patterns one creates a composition in the minimalist

Each movement can be performed separately. “Opening” is the first of 6 movements. Philip Glass once said that, “Glassworks was intended to introduce my music to a more general audience than had been familiar with it up to then.”. Glassworks was written in 1981 and recorded in 1982 by Sony Classical Records. It was published by Dunvagen Music Publisher. It is considered to be a post-modern or minimalist composition that should be performed by a chamber group. I enjoy this movement because has a lulling feeling to it, the repetition also helps to create a comforting feeling in my mind. Another reason I personally enjoy this piece is because of simple piano sounds. It makes it easy to listen