# Einstein on the Beach



## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

On July 25, 1976, 43 years ago today, Philip Glass' landmark opera Einstein on the Beach premiered at the Festival d'Avignon.

https://philipglass.com/composition...MBDVx7-HQwO9ivYiEjRAKZTvNC8muWpGVIiXLEMfKkHnk

:tiphat:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I first read this as Einstein on Bach then got less excited when I read the title properly. Is the Opera any good, I've never seen it or heard of it. I haven't checked out much glass in general.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

Einstein on the BeachDirector and designer Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass, with choreographer Lucinda Childs, created the opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976. It has been hailed as one of the most revolutionary and visionary works of the late 20th century in the fields of music and theatre:* "One of the truly pivotal artworks of our time," "a masterpiece," "an achievement for which the descriptor 'supreme' does not seem the least excessive," "among the most significant theatrical achievements of the entire post-World War II period."*

Einstein 2Einstein on the Beach, which lasts five hours, breaks with most of the conventions of traditional opera and defies easy description. There is no narrative plot; Wilson has said that audience members are free to leave and enter the theatre at will, and whenever they come in, they won't be lost since there is no story to follow. There is no traditional orchestra; the Philip Glass Ensemble, a group of electric keyboards, winds, and percussion provides the music. There are no operatic soloists in the traditional sense; a chorus sings a text made up entirely of numerals and solfège syllables. The only "character" is a violinist dressed as Einstein, whose solos punctuate the proceedings. A company of dancers and actors provide the scenic action, and actors deliver spoken monologues. The opera takes place on Wilson's spectacular set, which is sometimes representational and sometimes abstract.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Yes I was at the UK premier of this opera, it’s very slick. Very white note.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

eljr said:


> Einstein on the BeachDirector and designer Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass, with choreographer Lucinda Childs, created the opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976. It has been hailed as one of the most revolutionary and visionary works of the late 20th century in the fields of music and theatre:* "One of the truly pivotal artworks of our time," "a masterpiece," "an achievement for which the descriptor 'supreme' does not seem the least excessive," "among the most significant theatrical achievements of the entire post-World War II period."*
> 
> Einstein 2Einstein on the Beach, which lasts five hours, breaks with most of the conventions of traditional opera and defies easy description. There is no narrative plot; Wilson has said that audience members are free to leave and enter the theatre at will, and whenever they come in, they won't be lost since there is no story to follow. There is no traditional orchestra; the Philip Glass Ensemble, a group of electric keyboards, winds, and percussion provides the music. There are no operatic soloists in the traditional sense; a chorus sings a text made up entirely of numerals and solfège syllables. The only "character" is a violinist dressed as Einstein, whose solos punctuate the proceedings. A company of dancers and actors provide the scenic action, and actors deliver spoken monologues. The opera takes place on Wilson's spectacular set, which is sometimes representational and sometimes abstract.


Sounds like Glass is trying too hard to be unique, but I could be wrong.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It’s not so unique, you know there are shades of Stockhausen’s Stimmung in there, for example, and Lamont Young.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It would be nice to expand this into a general discussion of minimalism. There’s a course on minimalism in London starting in September, it’s slightly inconvenient for me but I’m considering going, partly because I find the music particularly strange and unattractive, boring. I must be missing something.

Re Glass the way his music is so polished and harmonious really repels me. It seems so unbelievably vacuous. Here and elsewhere.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

I upset our resident Wagner expert Woodduck a bit when I called Einstein a Parsifal for the 20th century. But I think the differences between the two really do reflect some of the fundamental differences between 19th and 20th century western culture.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Robert Wilson made it bearable.

There was another one after it which I also saw, about Gandhi, I can’t remember the name.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Not a work I take can take seriously. The music is very amateurish. Here is a preview.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

the term "old and in the way' comes to mind after reading teh replies here....


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> I upset our resident Wagner expert Woodduck a bit when I called Einstein a Parsifal for the 20th century. But I think the differences between the two really do reflect some of the fundamental differences between 19th and 20th century western culture.


I couldn't have been too upset, since I don't remember you saying that. Now I'm just wondering what the **** you meant.


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## brunumb (Dec 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Robert Wilson made it bearable.
> 
> There was another one after it which I also saw, about Gandhi, I can't remember the name.


I think you are referring to *Satyagraha*


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

I gave up after a few minutes. Perhaps I shouldn't have.


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## sharkeysnight (Oct 19, 2017)

One of the great 20th century artworks, a tremendous masterpiece and a high point in stagecraft. Wilson and Glass worked very closely in making this, to the extent that it's hard for me to imagine them being separated - as much as I love the music by itself, the way it pairs with Wilson's visuals is an astonishing effect. In one respect it's menacing - Wilson reduces typical and even mundane activity to exaggerated clowning with the purpose of both inflating and destroying meaning - but it's also deeply empathetic by virtue of not only the performances (watch them sweat during the field dances) but the sheer length. Yes, we are all insignificant and even archetypal, but, as the bus driver says, "Everything must have an ending except my love for you". It might be one of the most moving conclusions in anything ever made, and a beautiful expression of what makes not being dead so appealing.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Slightly off topic, but in 2013 the Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps won the Drum Corps International (DCI) world championship title playing "Einstein on the Beach" as the main part of their performance. Its pretty wild.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I couldn't have been too upset, since I don't remember you saying that. Now I'm just wondering what the **** you meant.


Who knows? I vaguely remember the general topic was long operas. What a 19th-century audience was willing to sit for hours watching as opposed to what a late 20th or now 21st century audience is willing to sit for hours watching. What interests me is that even in this age of instant gratification, people are still happily sitting for hours in front of various performances, or even just randomly channel surfing. But what engages or induces us to do that has changed enormously. I think Glass is skilled at creating various degrees of abstract or concrete characterizations of our modern environment. The parallel between Einstein on the Beach and Wagner is that they both keep you in your seat for a long time.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

I love Einstein on the Beach. I can't get enough of it. When I finally saw it performed live, after knowing the work by recording for over thirty years, it was a revelation as well as a homecoming. I was electrified and breathless.

Is the music built simply? Yes.

Is the narrative thin? Yes.

Does that mean the music is not wondrous, the dramaturgy not mysterious, the mise-en-scene not riveting? The lighting not haunting? No.

Solfege has rarely sounded so wonderfully in modern music as it did in the Night Train scene. The saxophone in the Building scene is other worldly. The ensemble section at the end of the Trial 2 scene is a dazzling sunburst (at 24:03).

The autistic poet Christopher Knowles as a fifteen year old boy provided many of the texts for the opera and I find them incredibly endearing, especially when contrasted with the mathemical super rational genius of Einstein himself.

What I now realize is that I didn't really know what a special work EOTB was until I saw it performed live. The work plays with your sense of time, but what I didn't expect was that after 4 and a half hours of performance I was sad to see it end. It was simply too short.

Indeed, the piece has already begun by the time the audience has arrived, as witnessed by the youtube of the work's performance at the Theatre du Chatelet. You can't be on time to an Einstein performance.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Who knows? I vaguely remember the general topic was long operas. What a 19th-century audience was willing to sit for hours watching as opposed to what a late 20th or now 21st century audience is willing to sit for hours watching. What interests me is that even in this age of instant gratification, people are still happily sitting for hours in front of various performances, or even just randomly channel surfing. But what engages or induces us to do that has changed enormously. I think Glass is skilled at creating various degrees of abstract or concrete characterizations of our modern environment. The parallel between Einstein on the Beach and Wagner is that they both keep you in your seat for a long time.


Well, thanks for clearing that up. A laugh in the evening is always a pleasant way to end a day.

As far as sitting for hours is concerned, it isn't at all incompatible with a desire for instant gratification. Sitting and exerting little or no cognitive effort in submission to a hypnotic stream of images is immediately and enormously gratifying. How long such an activity can be sustained will certainly vary with the individual, but humans have always responded to drones.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

it is a piece that could be used to drive the homeless people away from train stations. No one sane could listen to this mindless repetition for more than 10 minutes


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

I'm struggling to imagine how music (I'm listening to 'Night Train' linked above) could get any worse.

Just my humble opinion of course.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PeterFromLA said:


> Is the music built simply? Yes.
> 
> Is the narrative thin? Yes.
> 
> ...





Jacck said:


> No one sane could listen to this mindless repetition for more than 10 minutes


Yes well this is the crux of the matter. Does the content justify the length?

He decided to write a long opera. Why did he feel that it needed so much time to say what he needed to say?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PeterFromLA said:


> I love Einstein on the Beach. I can't get enough of it. When I finally saw it performed live, after knowing the work by recording for over thirty years, it was a revelation as well as a homecoming. I was electrified and breathless.
> 
> Is the music built simply? Yes.
> 
> ...


Thank you.

a\p;las\jczals\czasdklnh


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Well, thanks for clearing that up. A laugh in the evening is always a pleasant way to end a day.
> 
> As far as sitting for hours is concerned, it isn't at all incompatible with a desire for instant gratification. Sitting and exerting little or no cognitive effort in submission to a hypnotic stream of images is immediately and enormously gratifying. How long such an activity can be sustained will certainly vary with the individual, but humans have always responded to drones.


And yet, I doubt show audiences exerted much more 'cognitive effort' in the 19th century than they do now.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Olias said:


> Slightly off topic, but in 2013 the Carolina Crown Drum and Bugle Corps won the Drum Corps International (DCI) world championship title playing "Einstein on the Beach" as the main part of their performance. Its pretty wild.


Oh, shucks, that's awesome!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Here is the score to this. I suspect any composer who puts this out with no credentials would get rejected right away.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/316056941/Glass-Philip-Einstein-on-the-Beach


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> And yet, I doubt show audiences exerted much more 'cognitive effort' in the 19th century than they do now.


I don't see your point.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Here is the score to this. I suspect any composer who puts this out with no credentials would get rejected right away.
> 
> https://www.scribd.com/doc/316056941/Glass-Philip-Einstein-on-the-Beach


That's a good sign. The establishment always reject the avant garde.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> That's a good sign. The establishment always reject the avant garde.


most of avant-garde is crap. And this is not only in music, but also in science. At the forefront of research there are many competing theories and only time will show which one will utlimately be correct and enter the conservative canon of established scientific knowledge. It is probably analogous in music. There is the avantgarde, some of it good, most of it bad, and only time will tell which will eventually become part of the canon.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

> most of avant-garde is crap.


Most of everything is crap, if you want to get down to it. But why worry about posterity? We won't be around to know how things turn out, and in any case, its not our ears that will do the judging. Given how often older generations are disdainful of younger generations, I doubt much comfort can be found in the thought that it is our descendants' ears that will do the judging.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

PeterFromLA said:


> Most of everything is crap, if you want to get down to it. But why worry about posterity? We won't be around to know how things turn out, and in any case, its not our ears that will do the judging. Given how often older generations are disdainful of younger generations, I doubt much comfort can be found in the thought that is our descendants' ears that will do the judging.


let professional musicians who have the time for it to sort out the good from the bad. From the perspective of an ordinary consumer, it is more time and cost effective to listen to the conservative canon, because the weeds were already rooted out. If you listen to the avantgarde, you will have to listen to a lot of weeds in order to find the occasional gold nugget.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

And the professionals do seem to have decided that Einstein on the Beach is an interesting opera, given that it’s been performed, recorded, reviewed etc. That’s one of the reasons why I’m so curious to get to know it better. I’m gambling that the more you time and energy you invest in this piece, the more rewards you get back.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> And the professionals do seem to have decided that Einstein on the Beach is an interesting opera, given that it's been performed, recorded, reviewed etc. That's one of the reasons why I'm so curious to get to know it better. I'm gambling that the more you time and energy you invest in this piece, the more rewards you get back.


it might be. For me personally, minimalism is the least interesting genre of CM by far. There are difficult avantgarde pieces, which I invested the time into, and I was rewarded - for example Carter, Boulez, or even Scriabin and Bartok. But although I did not really like their music on first listening, I was intrigued by it, which was the main reason, why I invested time into getting into it. But I am not intrigued by minimalism. The endless repetiton just gets on my nerves and I feel there is no depth in the music that can be discovered through repeated listening. I have never listenened to Einstein on the Beach in its entirety and I think that it is beyond my endurance. It could be better to see it live though.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I know what you mean.

I felt the same about early music once, that can also seem repetitive - imitative counterpoint, sequences. 

It’s not so much the repetition in Glass which I find a bit repellent, it’s the consonance of it all, and the polish. But maybe I’m missing his edgy dissonant side. Reich is less of a problem in that way - though he seems to have a slightly sanctimonious religious Jewish side to his music which I can’t stand. 

Re Glass, I once saw a opera/ballet based on Galileo’s life. The music is simple, slick and consonant, to the point of being saccharine. But there was a moment when they all started dancing and throwing and catching objects to demonstrate the laws of motion, and I can assure you that the combination of music and movement was just so gorgeous it will stay with me for the rest of my life. 

I suspect that with Glass it helps very much to see the thing in the theatre, or even on a video recording.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

I'm the last one who has the right to comment such music, but allow me to make a comment.

Philip is a VERY GOOD composer. I like his piano works. (many of them, at least) The Einstein is a work (for me it isn't an opera) you will love it, or you will hate it. I have ONLY listen parts of this work and I have never watched it performing. There are some interesting moments in the music. In the YT videos of our friend *Mandryka* (thanks a lot) I had the opportunity, for the first time to see this work performing on the stage. What I have seen it wasn't suitable for me. It likes a pantomime, or a kind of very modern theater with some music etc. No idea. Important is that I have learned something new.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> I know what you mean.
> 
> I felt the same about early music once, that can also seem repetitive - imitative counterpoint, sequences.
> 
> ...


Jerome Robbins' "Glass Pieces" is one of his most popular ballets. I've seen it several times.

p.s. I just watched a bit of the Paris Opera Ballet version on YouTube. They didn't get it.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Yes well this is the crux of the matter. Does the content justify the length?
> 
> He decided to write a long opera. Why did he feel that it needed so much time to say what he needed to say?


Well, no, at least imho, as in this case length itself is an important aspect of content. And this technique is nothing new in western music. In the operas of Richard Wagner, one can hear the same (seemingly) simple theme repeatedly endlessly for over four hours, from the opening prelude to the very end, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg being a prime example. Playing even selections from Wagner's operas in an orchestra is an immense challenge to one's concentration and discipline due to this endless repetition. And yet, this is carefully considered and intentionally constructed by Wagner. It is very much not a case of an inept composer who doesn't know how to edit his operas down to a more manageable length. The length is fundamental to the overall concept.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

fluteman said:


> Well, no, at least imho, as in this case length itself is an important aspect of content. And this technique is nothing new in western music. In the operas of Richard Wagner, one can hear the same (seemingly) simple theme repeatedly endlessly for over four hours, from the opening prelude to the very end, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg being a prime example. Playing even selections from Wagner's operas in an orchestra is an immense challenge to one's concentration and discipline due to this endless repetition. And yet, this is carefully considered and intentionally constructed by Wagner. It is very much not a case of an inept composer who doesn't know how to edit his operas down to a more manageable length. The length is fundamental to the overall concept.


Wagner was incredibly good at that, he could repeat a theme to just the limit, and then changes things just in time. Very good there - I remember an example in Siegfried just before Siegfried finds the sleeping Brunhilde. He was just a genius at making dramatic judgements.

Minimalist music seems to be not at all dramatic like a Wagner opera though. Lamont Young, Feldman have different aims - though I'm not sure what they are, I'd like to explore that. Glass too I bet. These people reject the idea that music, opera, is about narrative, either narrative of plot or the musical narrative of the resolution of tension through harmonies and cadences. What they replace it with, and whether their poetics is interesting or not at the end of the day, is something I'm not sure about.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'd like to apologize for all the ignorance on display here. Please forgive them. BTW, I'm not with them. They came separately.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

jegreenwood said:


> Jerome Robbins' "Glass Pieces" is one of his most popular ballets. I've seen it several times.
> 
> p.s. I just watched a bit of the Paris Opera Ballet version on YouTube. They didn't get it.


The thing I saw was called Galileo Galilei, this sort of thing


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Phil loves classical said:


> Not a work I take can take seriously. The music is very amateurish.


That's the impression I got when I heard one of his piano concertos in concert. And when I heard some of his piano pieces on the radio. The music sounded rudimentary akin to student works or exercises. I'm not sure why Glass has become so famous? The little I've heard sounds unremarkable at best. And that excerpt from the opera you uploaded wasn't very impressive.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I'm not sure why Glass has become so famous?


That's the question which I'm trying to get an answer to, none forthcoming.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Wagner was incredibly good at that, he could repeat a theme to just the limit, and then changes things just in time. Very good there - I remember an example in Siegfried just before Siegfried finds the sleeping Brunhilde. He was just a genius at making dramatic judgements.
> 
> Minimalist music seems to be not at all dramatic like a Wagner opera though. Lamont Young, Feldman have different aims - though I'm not sure what they are, I'd like to explore that. Glass too I bet. These people reject the idea that music, opera, is about narrative, either narrative of plot or the musical narrative of the resolution of tension through harmonies and cadences. What they replace it with, and whether their poetics is interesting or not at the end of the day, is something I'm not sure about.


Well, no argument from me about Wagner being a genius, or Lamont Young, Morton Feldman and Philip Glass, all of whom I also consider geniuses, or at least highly original and imaginative artists, having different aims. I would say there is a great deal more to what Wagner does with his musical themes than use them "to the limit" and then change them "just in time".

My point was a much more simple and basic one, and that was to raise the question, Why do Wagner's operas and Einstein on the Beach stretch on for several hours?, and to add the opinion that it is not because either Richard Wagner or Philip Glass are incompetent composers who do not know how to express themselves more economically or efficiently.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Well, no argument from me about Wagner being a genius, or Lamont Young, Morton Feldman and Philip Glass, all of whom I also consider geniuses, or at least highly original and imaginative artists, having different aims. I would say there is a great deal more to what Wagner does with his musical themes than use them "to the limit" and then change them "just in time".
> 
> My point was a much more simple and basic one, and that was to raise the question, *Why do Wagner's operas and Einstein on the Beach stretch on for several hours?*, and to add the opinion that it is not because either Richard Wagner or Philip Glass are incompetent composers who do not know how to express themselves more economically or efficiently.


For different reasons, surely?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> For different reasons, surely?


Well, no one has come up with an explanation of the length of Einstein on the Beach, even though it's one of its most remarkable features.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Well, at least Wagner gives you good reasons to stick around for hours.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

EOTB's length probably has a lot to do with Robert Wilson's conception of theater. His theater pieces move along at a glacial pace because he thinks of his stagings as paintings. He wants audiences to ponder the moment as they do when they sit before an enchanting or emigmatic painting. For this reason his sensibility has been called "theater of images."

Glass's involvement with extraordinarily lengthy works was accidental before EOTB. His longest piece beforehand was Music in Twelve Parts, which takes about 4 to five hours to perform with a dinner break. But the piece was not so intended. He wrote the piece Music in Twelve Parts, petformed it, and was then met with, "Well, that was good, but where are the other eleven parts?" The comment inspired him to write 11 moere sections offering a veritable encyclopedia of his musical techniques as developed at the time (1974), and which served as EOTB's immediate precursor, now that he saw evening length works were manageable.Glass and Wilson coming together was thus remarkably serendipitous.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Well, at least Wagner gives you good reasons to stick around for hours.


You mean, you want to hear the fat lady sing?

I must say, I have always wished that he'd ended Tristan with the death of Tristan, and Gotterdammerung with the death of Siegfried, and . . . but this is not the time or the place . . .


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

DaveM said:


> Well, at least Wagner gives you good reasons to stick around for hours.


There were many alive at Wagner's time who would have vehemently disagreed.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PeterFromLA said:


> EOTB's length probably has a lot to do with Robert Wilson's conception of theater. His theater pieces move along at a glacial pace because he thinks of his stagings as paintings. He wants audiences to ponder the moment as they do when they sit before an enchanting or emigmatic painting. For this reason his sensibility has been called "theater of images."
> 
> Glass's involvement with extraordinarily lengthy works was accidental before EOTB. His longest piece beforehand was Music in Twelve Parts, which takes about 4 to five hours to perform with a dinner break. But the piece was not so intended. He wrote the piece Music in Twelve Parts, petformed it, and was then met with, "Well, that was good, but where are the other eleven parts?" The comment inspired him to write 11 moere sections offering a veritable encyclopedia of his musical techniques as developed at the time (1974), and which served as EOTB's immediate precursor, now that he saw evening length works were manageable.Glass and Wilson coming together was thus remarkably serendipitous.


I saw Robert Wilson's Lassus, St Peter's Tears, a few months ago in London. Basically he has them portray the text with gestures almost like makaton. When it started my heart sank, I thought it was going to be childish, silly. BUT, it was fabulous, I was completely engrossed in music and movement for three hours. I think he's a genius.

I've not enjoyed everything by him, there was a disastrous Aida with gratuitous Egyptian style dancing and gratuitous light effects, at least that's what I thought. But when he's on form he's magic.

DELETE ABOVE, THE LASSUS WAS PETER SELLARS! SENIOR MOMENT.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

PeterFromLA said:


> There were many alive at Wagner's time who would have vehemently disagreed.


Haven't heard from any of those personally, but I do know that there are only 2 recordings of EOTB, the last one over 2 decades ago, while there are well over 2 dozen recordings (plus 9 or 10 DVD/video releases) of Wagner's 15 hour Ring Cycle.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Glass may have had no reason at all to make _Einstein_ as long as it is, but if we assume that it was a genuine aesthetic choice, we might suppose that he felt the length was necessary to induce a sort of trance or meditative state which, if we're willing to let go of normal expectations of being entertained, will leave us feeling refreshed and cleansed.

I do not intend ever to test this theory.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

From Keith Potter's essay, _Philip Glass: Compositions and Some Contexts_.



> 4. EINSTEIN ON THE BEACH: "ON THE EDGE"
> Works such as those already discussed provide vivid and exhilarating experiences for both their performers (whatever reserves of physical and mental stamina they require) and their listeners (who can adopt a wide variety of approaches to their own involvement, from wallowing in the sheer sonic and dramatic power of much of this music to attempting to follow its structural details, as originally prescribed). Yet these compositions are seldom, if ever, straightforward in their import; still less do they conform to the stereotype of naive and mindless affirmation imposed on them by some of their harsher critics. Early minimalism is rarely "easy listening," though Riley's In C may seem so to some, as do many of its more commercial offshoots: one thinks particularly of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells album of 1973-as emblematic of 1970s inconsequentiality, and poor taste, as Music With Changing Parts is of the wilder reaches of Sixties experimentation with alternative modes of listening. Insistence on repetition as the prevailing norm rather than as a simple contrast or contradiction of expecta-tions, for instance, practically forces the listener to scan the range of possibilities open to him, or her. Lying back and letting it wash over you does admittedly sound dangerously like submitting to merely naïve affirmation. But I would argue there is great potential in such music for listening structurally, yet quite differently from the way you would to the structures of Western classical music.
> 
> With Glass's first full-length stage work, the five-hour "opera," Einstein on the Beach [DISC 3], conceived with the director and designer Robert Wilson, and premiered in 1976, dramatic shaping plays an important role in the now further-extended proceedings. This is most obvious, probably, in the work's last half-hour or so, when we reach "Spaceship," the opera's final main scene, the penultimate track on [DISC 3]. In reaching what feels like a real denouement, Glass and Wilson openly manipulate the opera's gradual unfolding, culminating in an impressive major-key blaze. As the composer says, "it works towards a finale; you can't miss it. A real finale; a real razzle-dazzle finale," he calls it, "a piece that left its audience standing.
> ...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Glass may have had no reason at all to make _Einstein_ as long as it is, but if we assume that it was a genuine aesthetic choice, we might suppose that he felt the length was necessary to induce a sort of trance or meditative state which, if we're willing to let go of normal expectations of being entertained, will leave us feeling refreshed and cleansed.
> 
> I do not intend ever to test this theory.


That's to say, he needed the time to do what he wanted to do -- put us in a trance. But when said, it sounds a bit unlikely to me. Another answer, which sounds more promising to me, is that he needed the time to say what he wanted to say.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> From Keith Potter's essay, _Philip Glass: Compositions and Some Contexts_.


This idea, that "The viewer completes the work.", is, I think, a really difficult one, worth thinking about.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

starthrower said:


> I'm not sure why Glass has become so famous? The little I've heard sounds unremarkable at best. And that excerpt from the opera you uploaded wasn't very impressive.


Well, I'm somewhat reassured to learn that I'm not the only one who feels that way about Glass. And, while we're at it, about Steve Reich too. I've never heard a work by either of them that I'd listen to out of choice. As for why the fame, I'd suggest trendiness as one possibility... think of the oh-so-hip crowd in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. It's de riguer for them to like Glass and Reich.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> From Keith Potter's essay, _Philip Glass: Compositions and Some Contexts_.


Thanks, those comments of Keith Potter are interesting, in particular, "This is opera as a series of static stage tableaux, with interconnecting so-called Knee Plays, as well as more extended scenes grouped in four acts." The idea of creating at least relatively static stage tableaux, or thinking of staging as paintings, as PeterfromLA characterizes the theater of Robert Wilson, is hardly a new theatrical device. One can find parallels in 19th-century western opera. But maybe I'm the only one here interested in things like that. Otherwise, I see the familiar battle lines drawn -- Glass (and Young, and Feldman, and Reich) are geniuses, or are amateurish poseurs.


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## Guest (Jul 31, 2019)

I don't have any interest in theater, or particularly modern theater, and I was never tempted to investigate Einstein on the Beach. But my fleeting exposure to Glass makes me think of his music as eclectic and colorful. I am interested in exploring his orchestral works, eventually.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Bluecrab said:


> As for why the fame, I'd suggest trendiness as one possibility... think of the oh-so-hip crowd in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. It's de riguer for them to like Glass and Reich.


That argument would carry some weight if people professed to like Glass and then just moved on to the next shiny bauble adored by the art gallery/art school crowd. However, that is not the case. Read the YouTube reviews in which folks describe loving the music for decades, long past the fad expiration date. Furthermore, I don't profess to love all of Glass, only some of Glass. Distinctions are drawn between his strong and mediocre works. We're not mindless, uncritical listeners, you know.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

PeterFromLA said:


> That argument would carry some weight if people professed to like Glass and then just moved on to the next shiny bauble adored by the art gallery/art school crowd. However, that is not the case. Read the YouTube reviews in which folks describe loving the music for decades, long past the fad expiration date. Furthermore, I don't profess to love all of Glass, only some of Glass. Distinctions are drawn between his strong and mediocre works. We're not mindless, uncritical listeners, you know.


With his exceedingly eclectic and wide ranging theatrical / multimedia / collaboration projects, never mind a wide range of exclusively musical works, over what by this point has become a very long career, I think it would be asking a lot of a listener to "love all of Glass". But I see this eclecticism in itself as a fundamental aspect of what he has done, without attempting to argue in favor of every aspect of it.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Bluecrab said:


> Well, I'm somewhat reassured to learn that I'm not the only one who feels that way about Glass. And, while we're at it, about Steve Reich too.


I find the two very different. For me, Reich is more sophisticated and subtle in his approach, while Glass is too elementary.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Vasks said:


> I find the two very different. For me, Reich is more sophisticated and subtle in his approach, while Glass is too elementary.


I prefer Pat Metheny. He's applied the sophisticated rhythmic approach of Reich and composed some fantastic melodies like The First Circle.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Vasks said:


> I find the two very different. For me, Reich is more sophisticated and subtle in his approach, while Glass is too elementary.


I'll sooner listen to La Monte Young than either of those other two "composers".


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

starthrower said:


> I prefer Pat Metheny. He's applied the sophisticated rhythmic approach of Reich and composed some fantastic melodies like The First Circle.


And, of course, Reich wrote Electric Counterpoint for Metheny.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I enjoyed the "Building" part. Don't think I could get through the whole thing.
Still, my tolerance for repetitive music is quite high. Probably because I've listened to a lot of repetitive electronic music.
It may be less "artsy" and all, but to me the 1970s Berlin School electronic music scene did the whole repetition/minimal/trance/drone thing best of all.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

If we're expanding the discussion to Reich (and maybe Part), I enjoyed this last April.


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## PeterFromLA (Jul 22, 2011)

Good interview with Steve Reich:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PeterFromLA said:


> Good interview with Steve Reich:


Much appreciated. The piece of music which turned me off him was Different Trains, I saw it with the videos a few years ago and I thought it was maudlin. But maybe I'm not doing it justice and hearing him speak has made me curious enough to give it another chance.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Just for giggles, I picked out random Reich works on YouTube. Most of them seemed to be the same variations on cacophony. Really! The same beat, the same monotony just with different instruments. He has plagiarized himself, 3 times over!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Cacophonous means “involving or producing a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.” I don’t find any of these three works cited above as cacophonous in harshness or harmony, though for some listeners the repetitive rhythms could become irritating. But irritation is not the same as harsh or discordant cacophony... I consider these classic 20th-century works as full of great charm, delight, and highly individual according to Reich’s own personality. They have great color and variety and the repetitive rhythms can build into a smile. I consider each of these works as highly individual and different despite their repetitive rhythms, but they aren’t the same repetitive rhythms or orchestrations in each one. I find Different Trains charming as if the engines were actually alive... These are highly skillfully done works, IMO, fun, playful, colorful, engaging, and not just randomly thrown together. They can also be exceedingly demanding to play and a fun challenge for musicians. Musicians need stimulating challenges every now and then to sharpen their focus and concentration, and it’s easy to get lost in works such as these. I believe Reich has carved out a place for himself and created something unique. They are positive, can be uplifting, in a sometimes negative artistic climate.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I watched a preview of a Philip Glass opera at the Met on Saturday and made a mental note not to attend.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Someof this music is I think really about an experience, they're supposed to be like aural theme park rides. Reich once talked how the phase loop technique he applied in _Come Out_ and _It's Gonna Rain_ appealed to him because of it's visceral properties -- he could feel the music kind of go in one ear and through his brain and out the other.

The problem I have is mostly with Reich, because he takes weighty themes. Political themes. What does it mean to take some words spoken by Daniel Hamm and turn them into this, what does that gesture say about Reich's attitude to race and racism in the US?








DavidA said:


> I watched a preview of a Philip Glass opera at the Met on Saturday and made a mental note not to attend.


I think you're probably just not ready yet for it, that's all. You don't have the level of development to benefit from the experience. If you went it would be like giving pearls to a piggy.


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

I prefer Satyagraha to Einstein--Satyagraha is one of my favorite works of the latter half of the 20th.






I think there's striking beauty there. That said, I'm not sure I'd go to a Glass opera in the theater since I do tend to hit my limits with him after an hour or so. But for home listening, I enjoy listening to a scene or two at a time.

This music isn't super high in my list of priorities but I'd say in general that I think the minimalism/holy minimalism strand of the avant garde is much more interesting and musical to me than the sterile and dated sounds of the serialism/dodecaphonic strand.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> I prefer Satyagraha to Einstein--Satyagraha is one of my favorite works of the latter half of the 20th.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


My own view is that these operas need the production, there's just not enough in there musically to capture my imagination without the stage action.

And to be honest in opera terms it's not that long. Think the first part of Gotterdammerung, before the first interval.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> The problem I have is mostly with Reich, because he takes weighty themes. Political themes. What does it mean to take some words spoken by Daniel Hamm and turn them into this, what does that gesture say about Reich's attitude to race and racism in the US?


Yeah that work in particular is, uh, problematic as they say.

Music for 18 Musicians will always be one of my favorites.

As far as Glass goes, I've enjoyed a pretty small minority of his pieces, but there are a few I like quite a lot. I like a lot of Einstein that I've heard, but I've never been able to sit through the whole thing. It may just be beyond my attention span.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Very much enjoying this, I think the whole thing's on youtube


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> The problem I have is mostly with Reich, because he takes weighty themes. Political themes. What does it mean to take some words spoken by Daniel Hamm and turn them into this, what does that gesture say about Reich's attitude to race and racism in the US?


I've never particularly engaged with the "program" of Reich's music, whether Different Trains or Come Out. I suppose I'm no more interested in what exactly he means to say about race or racism than I am interested in whatever Beethoven means to say about Napoleon with Eroica or whatever Verdi means to say about Italian nationalism with Simon Boccanegra. Artists take inspiration from the world, whether the natural world or the social, and I'm really only interested in the artistic product.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

howlingfantods said:


> I've never particularly engaged with the "program" of Reich's music, whether Different Trains or Come Out. I suppose I'm no more interested in what exactly he means to say about race or racism than I am interested in whatever Beethoven means to say about Napoleon with Eroica or whatever Verdi means to say about Italian nationalism with Simon Boccanegra. Artists take inspiration from the world, whether the natural world or the social, and I'm really only interested in the artistic product.


The big difference between Reich and those other composers is that he's using Hamm's voice. That choice, and what he does with it, seems to me to be well worth thinking about. In fact, I'd go further, I'd say it's by far the most interesting thing about the piece! Same for Come Out.

Imagine if he'd have done it with Hitler's voice, or Mother Theresa.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's an amazing early Reich type thing by Glass -- has anyone seen the "score" -- what does he actually ask the musician to do?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Does anyone know how Glass met Robert Wilson? How did their relationship start?


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> The big difference between Reich and those other composers is that he's using Hamm's voice. That choice, and what he does with it, seems to me to be well worth thinking about. In fact, I'd go further, *I'd say it's by far the most interesting thing about the piece*! Same for Come Out.
> 
> Imagine if he'd have done it with Hitler's voice, or Mother Theresa.


I don't think it is that particularly interesting. He listened to many hours of tapes about the Harlem Six, he plucked out this 4 second snippet from Hamm, not even one of the Harlem Six who was involved in the murder case. I think Reich probably picked it because of tonal and rhythmic way that Hamm said the words was interesting for use in repetition.

I'm not denying that there's something evocative in the phrase (there being almost a double meaning between Hamm's description of cutting his bruise open to show the bleeding to prove he was bruised, along with the idea of publicizing and airing the reality of racial oppression in the US). But to me, those are almost incidental to the piece.

Although it's possible I think that because my roommate in college played this (and other minimalist composers) a lot and I grew to appreciate it long before I knew anything about the source of the tape samples. Same with Different Trains--I just heard the choo choo noises and went, "oh, trains".


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