Philip Glass – Music in 12 parts

 Philipp Glass is a American composer and pianist who was born in 1937. His work is often associated with the term minimalism.

The beginning of Part 10 of the Music in twelve parts series, does sound like straight from a happy period movie which takes place in the 1800s. Do I know why I think it belongs there? No, but that was the direct first association I made with it. When researching him, I realized he also wrote a lot of film scores, so I might not be far off with my thoughts.

The piece seems happy, light, like a sunny day in spring, however, becomes repetitive very fast. While the main melody stays about the same repetitive sequence through the whole song, other elements are added constantly so the main part fades more and more into the background of the cacophony. At one point it is almost unrecognizable, but as the story of the piece continues, the main loop comes back again louder and clearer and leaves the whole project with a more coherent ending. A full circle from beginning to end.

The different lines of counterpoint harmony do create some chaos in the flow of the song in the middle, changing the feel from happy and bright, more to a chaotic and unorganized scene. The addition of more electronic instruments together with that chaos made me see in a busy interconnection in a large city, where many different vehicles try to go all different directions during rush hour. Somewhat organized by traffic lights, but still chaotic and stressful. A human-made scene that goes together well with the unnatural sounds found in the song.

In contrast to many other pieces, this part of the twelve parts of music does not seem to resolve itself at the end. Many others faded out slowly or produce more of a conclusion in the end, whether that is via song texts or the way the music flows. Here, however, the song doesn’t really change after a certain point, so the end is more abruptly with a super fast fade out, which leaves me hanging with the urge to listen to more of his pieces, just to understand what happens to the rest of the song. It’s a really unsatisfying ending, at least for me personally.