An Introduction to America’s Music

490 PART 4 | SINCE WORLD WAR II

In 1971 Reich and Glass split up to form separate ensembles. Containing

between fi ve and eight players, each of these groups sounded more like an

orchestra than like chamber music, for players doubled each other’s lines, and,

especially in Glass’s works, the music was amplifi ed by the use of synthesizers

and microphones. The music’s tonal simplicity, rhythmic interest, and, in Glass’s

case, rock-like timbres proved keys to the public appeal of minimalism.

Glass has described the Philip Glass Ensemble as the cornerstone of his

career. He supported the ensemble by working as a cab driver, plumber, and

furniture mover rather than teaching, as a more conventionally minded clas-

sical composer might have done. From the fi rst concert on, he paid his players,

which kept the ensemble together, while guaranteeing concerts of high quality.

Glass also bet on his music’s appeal by refusing to let anyone else perform it.

“I felt that if I had a monopoly on the music, that as the music became known

there would be more work for the ensemble”—again, an attitude more charac-

teristic of a jazz or rock bandleader than a classical composer. He committed the

group to twenty concerts a year after discovering that this would qualify his play-

ers for unemployment insurance. Glass worked day jobs until 1978, when grants

and commissions fi nally allowed him to concentrate more fully on composition.

Comfortable with the idea of making art that makes money, Glass has also

argued that he and his colleagues restored something valuable to American

musical life by returning to “the idea that the composer is the performer.” He has

also expressed a long-standing desire to transcend the gulf separating classical

and popular spheres. “I personally know that I didn’t want to spend my life writ-

ing music for a handful of people.... I wanted to play for thousands of people;

I was always interested in a larger audience.”

In November 1976 Einstein on the Beach, a “portrait opera” and collaboration

between Glass and theater director Robert Wilson, was staged in New York. Wil-

son’s concept was to wean theater away from narrative, reorienting it more toward

visual imagery and spectacle. As a result, the opera offers neither a plot nor any

singing characters. Singing is prominent in the work, but the soprano soloist and

the chorus sing only numbers and solfège syllables. According to Glass, people who

attended performances could be counted on to bring their own story with them.

Glass’s opera has turned out to be historically signifi cant. For one thing,

while opera has long enjoyed a prominent place in American musical life, few

American-composed operas have caused much excitement. Einstein was differ-

ent. The Wilson-Glass collaboration introduced a brand of theatricality that,

while refl ecting a contemporary spirit, was also musically accessible. At the same

time, the idea of a new American opera drew audiences, sparked debate, and

made the opera house a center for artistic ferment.

MICROTONALITY

In addition to minimalism, a quite different kind of musical experimental-

ism reached fruition in the 1970s. At least as far back as Charles Ives, maver-

ick musicians have questioned Western music’s standard division of the octave

into twelve equidistant half steps, the equal temperament that emerged in

eighteenth-century Europe as the approved system of tuning pianos and organs.

An experimentalist minority has long explored the possibilities of microtonal-

ity, narrowly defi ned as the use of intervals smaller than a half step, and more

the Philip Glass Ensemble

Einstein on the Beach

equal temperament

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