"Music in Twelve Parts" by Philip Glass - a demanding and wild ride

Of all the composers covered in this seminar, Philip Glass probably is the most famous. If one had listened to only one of them before, it would have probably been Glass. He is famous for his minimalistic compositions, but also for his extensive work on movie scores, from the enigmatic documentary Koyaanisqatsi up to Dracula, the Candyman horror movie series, and Martin Scorsese’s Kundun. My first conscious encounter with Glass’s music happened on a concert by Pearl Jam, who have been using his hauting piano piece “Metamorphosis Two” as an opening piece since the 1990s.

Glass composed “Music in Twelve Parts” from 1971 to 1974. What was originally planned as a single work for twelve instruments soon became a musical cycle that summarized the compositional ideas Glass had had up to that point, and later also served as an inspiration for his opera Einstein on the Beach.

Most of Glass’s music has been played by artists and orchestras all over the world, but “Twelve Parts” has only been played by the Philip Glass Ensemble. It is a musical journey of massive complexity that lasts for over four hours, constantly expanding and contracting again. All parts are very challenging for the performing artists, as many lines are doubled by several instruments, so missing a point of re-entry can be fatal. I watched a whole performance and felt exhausted halfway through just from watching the ensemble. Pauses happen every three parts, with a dinner break in the middle, so parts 10, 11, and 12 form a long, continuous finale.

Where Steve Reich uses repetition and modulation to engage the listener, Glass only uses repetition to draw attention, then gradually changes and manipulates the loop so that the listener can never be sure of when or what might happen next. At the core of part 10 is a very fast and trebly loop that even changes shape in one’s mind, as minimal changes somehow destroy the perception of where it ends end begins, therefore skipping half a step and leaving the listener looking for a new entry point, when a downbeat suddenly becomes an upbeat and nothing makes sense anymore. Just like Reich’s staccatos, it reminded me of the intro of The Who’s “Baby O’Riley,” except that it never seems to end. The image that came up in my mind while listening was that of a giant machine slowly solving a complex mathematical riddle, such as Alan Turing’s bombes at Bletchley Park that decrypted the Enigma messages the Germans sent each other. In the end, even though it is an incredible achievement in complexity and ability by the ensemble, it is one of the pieces I wished was over sooner, as my mind was not able to stay focused during the whole performance. Of all the musical excerpts we listened to in class, I found this to be the most demanding.