Philip Glass: Music with Changing Parts

[00:00:01][music] [music] Hey everybody, welcome back to the pressing matters. I'm Scott. Thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for your support. Before I get to this reissue, I just want to set the scene. I was into Philip Glass in the early8s.

[00:00:23]I was fresh into college. It was in Boston. There was a new music scene happening. There was a gallery scene and contemporary art scene that I was just immersed into. I was very fortunate to see the Philip Glass Ensemble live uh at that time. Also the Steve Reich ensemble. I also saw um Lori Anderson in both a gallery setting and in a theater setting which was very interesting.

[00:00:54]um Glenn Brona as well. Uh even Robert Frip uh in his Frierronics tour.

[00:01:01]I was interested in new sounds, new music, and this was a perfect fit for me. Uh the first record that I got from Philip Glass was probably a challenging one because it's a four record opera, but Einstein on the Beach is one of his most famous and ambitious works, his first opera. He went on to do a couple others after this and I think a lot of people first heard about Philip Glass through Einstein on the Beach.

[00:01:30]This one, Glass Works, is much more accessible for a casual listener. It's beautiful. It's beautifully recorded and easier to digest at one record. Um, it still has the sound um of the earlier work, but in a little more polished way, I would say. Um, very, very pretty record. Uh, highly recommended.

[00:01:58]All of this, the soundtrack work, the later chamber work. Um, if you go to look at his uh accomplishments, it's huge. Uh, a a large volume of work over the course of uh 60 years or so. Uh, it's really incredible. I seeing it all in print, I was like, "Wow, there's so much of this music I haven't heard."

[00:02:23]Well, this record predates everything.

[00:02:27]This is where Philip Glass starts. and it almost didn't happen as far as a physical release. Today I'm going to talk about the Superior Vioaduct reissue of this rare record.

[00:02:39]Music with Changing Parts had been composed, I believe, in 1970.

[00:02:44]Uh, Philip Glass was shopping around his music to the major labels. Nobody was interested. There were other people doing this type of music um that of course Philip was probably inspired by.

[00:02:58]Terry Riley, Steve Reich. Um, they had some groundbreaking compositions that came a little bit earlier, but this was Philip Glass's first recording. So, he self- financed this recording and was able to put it out on a label that was made by him and gallery owner uh, Klaus Cortez.

[00:03:22]Uh, it was called Chattam Square Records. I remember when I was in Boston, the Harvard Coupe had, you know, an adventurous, open-minded kind of uh stock of records, and I remember seeing a few Chattam Square records there. He released two of his own titles on that label, and uh there were other artists that did um records on the label, too.

[00:03:49]Finding uh original copies of that is pretty hard. They're they're quite rare.

[00:03:55]Uh not terribly expensive, but you know, this re this record has had very few reissues over the years.

[00:04:05]There is a CD reissue um that uh is on Electra Nun such. So I think when when glass made a deal with Electron and such they were able to release this recording in continuous format obviously which might be a nice way to hear it but there's something about this that I love and that is it's the original way people first saw it and people first heard it. It's a two record set.

[00:04:37]Um Superior Vioaduct has produced this reissue.

[00:04:42]I looked through their catalog. It's very, very interesting. They're not an audio file label. Um, so we're not expecting audio file sound quality here.

[00:04:52]This is different. It's more like a document. Well recorded, but um not something that you're going to play for, you know, a Sonic show piece. Still, uh, it's fascinating. And they reproduced the Let me take this out.

[00:05:10]They reproduced the the gayfold perfectly. That's exactly what it looked like when it came out. Uh the only difference here is the labels are custom. So the labels use this image uh as a custom label. The original Chattam Square records label was different. I'll show you it in a closeup.

[00:05:32]What to expect when listening to this early work. Well, the roots of what you hear on glass works and Einstein on the Beach and Coyasquatzi and things like that is here. It's in a raw raw form, but it's here. The ensemble uh was recorded on a 16 track mobile recorder at um Martinsson Hall uh which is at the public theater in New York um downtown New York and that's where Philip Glass was performing his work galleries um small venues in the downtown art scene. that was where he was known and this whole project came out of that whole scene which gives it a sense of history. I really like that about this reissue.

[00:06:24]Um, listening to it is very very interesting.

[00:06:31]I'm already used to listening to Philip Glass. I know what to expect. But even I was like um when I first put it on I sat there and this is the thing. If you're waiting for something to happen, it doesn't happen like normal classical music or or something else. It's very subtle. So, there's a repeat repeating theme on I think organ or electric keyboards and it goes on for a while before you notice a change. So, if you're sitting there waiting for something to happen, you might get a little impatient. So, I found the best way is to take a step back and look at the whole thing together.

[00:07:12]Um, as it unfolds over four sides, you do notice everything starting to change and take on a life of its own.

[00:07:20][clears throat] There are uh I think two keyboards at least. There's wind, there's uh uh voice. So, they're they're woven in in threads. So you'll hear the repeating theme uh and then like a little change in the theme and then there's another layer of voice coming in and it's creating a pattern a pattern of pulse uh that starts to create a I often use this analogy a fabric almost like a tapestry.

[00:07:57]So when you're standing close to a tapestry, you see the threads and you don't see much variation in the threads.

[00:08:03]But when you step back, that's when you start to see the pattern, the texture, and the whole presentation. And that's exactly what I found with this. Um, I stepped away from the sweet spot many times during this um, playback of this record. And that's where I started to see uh without waiting for something see it unfold or hear it unfold over the course of the record which is about 80 minutes I think perhaps a little bit less possibly but what a wonderful wonderful reissue really beautiful the pressings were excellent and overall I'm so glad to have this I remember seeing this one time in my life that's how rare it was. Um, and to see it reissued with this care is really something. I just wanted to bring your attention to it. If you're at all interested in the minimalist movement in Philip Glass and his early career, this is where Philip Glass starts. Let me know what you think about Philip Glass. And until next time, I'm Scott for The Pressing Matters.

[00:09:12]Thank you so much for watching and have a great day.

[00:09:18]>> [music]