Philip Glass

July 25, 1976 is a date to remember in the history of 20th-century music. In Avignon, the famous city of popes (and antipopes), the Philip Glass Ensemble performs for the first time the monumental theatrical work "Einstein On The Beach," going on to stage it across Europe in the following months before closing this long march at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. 1976 becomes the year that closes the era of American minimalism, the year of "Music For 18 Musicians" by Steve Reich and, indeed, of "Einstein On The Beach" - the two works that push to their extreme consequences the path already traced earlier by Terry Riley and La Monte Young. In this glorious finale, the work of Philip Glass proves to be the most ambitious of all, and is universally recognized as the watershed between American minimalism and what would go down in history as post-minimalism, a movement whose life would prove far longer, and which continues to this day.

An extreme and rigorous work, "Einstein On The Beach" brings to full fruition the insights born in the New York lofts where minimalist music first took shape, through a series of repetitive tableaux that make up a colossal piece running over four hours, conceived to be both seen and heard. The theatre imagined by Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson (co-author of the libretto) allowed the audience to come and go as they pleased, experiencing this sonic journey even in part - since it is divided into sequences that need not be heard either in order or in their entirety - perhaps stepping out for a snack or a cigarette and returning without it affecting the listening experience in any way. This is because Glass's work contains no narrative element whatsoever (a basic rule of minimalist music); instead, its foundation consists solely of simple sound particles layered and overlapping according to a process worked out beforehand by the composer, leaving no room for improvisation on the part of the musicians.

From its very first performance, people wondered what "Einstein On The Beach" really was: an opera, a piece of musical theatre, a classical composition? The question is more than legitimate, since not even Glass himself has ever managed to give a definitive answer.

This problem – opera or not opera – had followed us throughout the entire Einstein tour. We'd sparked debates everywhere we went, and even in places we hadn't been. Two opposing factions had formed: one claiming Einstein was an opera, the other insisting it wasn't. In all honesty, I lean toward the latter view. To define Einstein, I prefer the term 'music theatre' rather than the word opera

(Philip Glass)

These doubts about definitions don't really lead anywhere, but they do point to how the listener – confronted with such an innovative work – is left bewildered and disoriented, having lost their usual points of reference. Not that Glass's music could ever be called unheard-of; it had in fact already been amply foreshadowed by his earlier composition "Music In Twelve Parts", as well as by celebrated minimalist works such as "In C" (1964), "A Rainbow In A Curved Air" (1969) by Terry Riley, and "Music For Mallet Instruments, Voices And Organ" (1974) and "Music For 18 Musicians" (1976) by Steve Reich. It's probably the fusion of music and theatre (the performance requires around ten dancers and at least four actors) and the imperious grandeur of Wilson's stage designs, combined with music so obsessive and uncompromising, that gives the impression of witnessing a unique, boundary-defying event.

"Einstein On The Beach" is the summa of the idea of repetitive, anti-narrative music, so emblematic that it can be described as both the swan song of the minimalist movement and, at the same time, the beginning of Philip Glass's new and glorious artistic career – one that, despite its constant evolutions, would always remain tied to this compositional method.

"Einstein On The Beach" is therefore a grandiose experiment in abstract music-theatre, with no narrative device whatsoever beyond a vague reference to a pop image of Albert Einstein. The work is thus a collection of environments and images to inhabit or observe, like viewing a painting. The structure is so pictorial that, as already mentioned, audience members are free to come and go from the theatre as they please. Everything is built on extremely short instrumental and vocal sound patterns, meaningless on their own, but which together create an imposing composition.

The work consists of four separate movements divided by shorter compositions called knee plays, which gave Wilson time to change his elaborate stage sets. The texts and vocalisations carry no particular meaning, nor are they connected to one another in any way; they're simply a device for pursuing sound itself, pure sound (another distinctive trait of minimalism). Within this chaos of convulsive, contorted patterns – certainly extreme, as the final destination of a process begun more than ten years earlier – Glass reveals a capacity to engage with audiences that would earn him, unlike other minimalist composers, mainstream appreciation.

One might also wonder about the title: Einstein on the beach, what's that got to do with anything? Perhaps it's a reference to Nevil Shute's post-apocalyptic novel "On The Beach" and its 1959 film adaptation (released in Italy as "L'ultima spiaggia"). In any case, Glass opens the first act with a touch of irony in "Knee Play 1", where the sound patterns are simply the numbers one through eight sung by a choir. It's the moment closest to operatic music, though naturally rendered in a typically minimalist grammar. A small gem that shows how Glass needs only the barest, simplest elements to create avant-garde compositions. "Train" is a striking example of just how extreme Glass had become over the years. An orgy of sound patterns chasing one another for seventeen minutes, between vocalisations, wind instruments and electric keyboard, truly sketching out a new sonic world.

While Glass strips the vocal parts of any trace of emotion, it does creep back in during rare moments where the tempo slows and the electric keyboard plays slightly longer sound patterns, sketching out vague melodies. "Trial" is a clear example of this, with various choirs accompanied first by an electric keyboard and then by a violin, creating intimate, almost secularly religious atmospheres. When the keyboards and violin intertwine, the music reaches its most exhilarating sequences, foreshadowing much of Glass's later work.

One of the most operatic sequences comes in the second act with "Night Train", where the numerical pattern from the first piece is repeated in an extremely rapid, whirling fashion, anticipating the hyper-chaotic choirs of "Knee Play 3". "Trail/Prison" opens the third act with sonorities clearly descended from "A Rainbow In A Curved Air", held in check for much of the piece before opening up completely from the twelfth minute onward into a dazzling keyboard chase — one of the moments that comes closest to the sonic ecstasy minimalism was reaching for.

The fourth and final movement combines the frenetic drive of "Building" (keyboard and sax) with the hypnotic sequences of "Bed", before returning to the classic format of instrumental and vocal patterns in "Spaceship", featuring an interlude that might sound familiar to fans of prog music.

It ends as it began, closing the circle with "Knee 5". After all, Einstein on a beach would have thought of nothing but his beloved numbers.

Note: the work was composed in 1975 and performed live in 1976. Two studio recordings exist: the first, two hours and 44 minutes long, was recorded in 1978 and released in 1979 by Tomato. The second, three hours and 20 minutes long, was recorded and released in 1993 by Elektra Nonesuch. Both were supervised by keyboardist and musical director Michael Riesman and performed by the Philip Glass Ensemble.

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19/03/2023