Philip Glass - The Complete Sony Recordings

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In 1976, composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson executed an ingenious end-run around the cautious classical music establishment of their day. After a short workshop and tour in Europe, the creative partners decided that Einstein on the Beach—a four-hour plus, non-narrative opera—was ready for its American debut. So they rented the Metropolitan Opera house for two nights.

It was more than a sold-out success. It was a decade-defining sensation in New York’s artistic community. The brief run also set Glass and Wilson back nearly $100,000. (Renting the biggest opera house in the country wasn't cheap.) In the immediate aftermath of Einstein’s American premiere, Glass famously went back to driving his cab. But the pinnacle of this composer’s early, hardcore minimalist period—which relied on hypnotically long, not-quite-repeating melodic lines—would lead to a major-label deal before long.

CBS Masterworks reissued Glass’ independent studio recording of most of the music from Einstein in 1979. Glass had shortened some scenes for the first LP issue—on the logic that without Wilson’s stage tableaus, trims were advisable. But everything that made the recording still clicks. The synths have a snarl that’s appropriate, given the opera’s Downtown New York parentage. The big ensemble riffs motor along at thrilling tempos; the “trial” scenes unfold with otherworldly ease. The spoken vocals produce deadpan surrealism. (Check out the delirious syllabic layering in “Knee Play 2.”) And the instrumental performance of the Philip Glass Ensemble—which included wind instruments and a small chorus—is locked in beyond belief.

Forty years on, this first recording of Einstein has never been bettered as an audio-only experience of the opera. A booming live performance from 1984 comes close; a ‘90s re-recording that restored the excised music isn’t anywhere as energetic or as charming. The only rival way to experience this avant-garde triumph involves doing so with Wilson’s dazzling staging added—something that’s now possible, thanks to a home-video version of Einstein’s most recent revival tour. Still, the inaugural Glass recording remains the ideal way to put the melodies and rhythms into your ears.

After reissuing Einstein, CBS Masterworks signed Glass to an exclusive contract as a performer. Over the following decade, Glass delivered nine albums to the label: a haul that included two other stage pieces from his first opera trilogy, an iconic solo piano set, and several long-form works for the composer’s house band. Those protean sessions form the core of The Complete Sony Recordings. (That title reflects the subsequent corporate acquisition of CBS Records; stray Glass recordings for Sony that postdate his CBS years are also included.)

This 24-CD box also offers a few exclusive bells and whistles meant to entice collectors—some of which prove revelatory. But in a classical marketplace clogged with reissue sets, the key selling point of this one is its contextual comprehensiveness. Full librettos, stage-action summaries and various liner notes are provided not just for Einstein, but for every album here. Most importantly, the box’s accompanying book provides key information on two of Glass’ most important dramatic works: the Gandhi opera Satyagraha and the ancient Egyptian tale Akhnaten—a piece that saw Glass writing for a traditional opera company, for the first time.

Though it didn’t immediately take the opera world by storm in 1980, Satyagraha is now acclaimed as as one of Glass’ milestones. The commission allowed Glass to leave his various odd jobs behind and to focus on composing full time. He responded with a magisterial score that dramatized Gandhi’s time in South Africa, and that also reflected the thinker’s broader journey from newspaperman to activist to political philosopher. The second act’s climactic “Protest” has a galvanic force, thanks to Glass’ strange-but-stirring union of string orchestra and synthesizer. In the third act, Satyagraha looks ahead to the subsequent legacy of nonviolent direct action, as extended to Martin Luther King, Jr. Glass’ score closes with an ascending melody that, with its simultaneous suggestion of vulnerability and determination, makes for one of the most soul-stirring moments in contemporary opera.

In an abstract theatrical touch, the entire libretto for Satyagraha is adapted from the Bhagavad-Gita—the Sanskrit text of which creates a spiritual accompaniment for the opera’s stage action. To follow the narrative on a recording, English-speaking audiences need a track-by-track translation of the Sanskrit, as well as summaries of each scene’s onstage particulars. Akhnaten works similarly, through multiple ancient languages. And Einstein’s blizzard of English fragments is also better studied with a printed lyric sheet. Prior budget-CD reissues of all the early Glass operas have ignored this. Consequently, the small hardcover book included with The Complete Sony Recordings feels as though it’s worth its weight in gold.

A lovingly produced reissue set of the opera trilogy alone could have fetched a high price. (After all, those recordings occupy ten of the CDs here.) But this box wisely expands its purview to include everything in the label’s vaults—including shorter, oft-forgotten theatrical works like The Photographer. As a result, this set allows listeners to re-encounter the decade of Glass’ rise to a position of pop-culture prominence.

While Glass was often sensitive to the idea that he was betraying his classical training by become a “crossover” artist, the Sony recordings do shed light on his fascination with the way different audiences might absorb contemporary composition. His first album under the exclusive contract with CBS, 1982’s Glassworks, was a consciously scaled-down look at his aesthetic. Instead of presenting multiple hours of his gradually morphing themes, the suite of six compact pieces plays in just under 40 minutes. The standard mix is perhaps the most well-known and ubiquitous of all his recordings. But since 1982 was also the era of the Walkman, Glass and his sound designer created a version of Glassworks “specially mixed for your personal cassette player.”

The inclusion of the “cassette mix” in this box marks its first digital release. Bursting with low-end thump and a punchy, less-separated stereo sound, this bonus mix of Glassworks blows away the more genteel, familiar version. Here, the album’s first emotional swing—from the pensive “Opening” to the mechanized march of “Floe”—registers even more grandly. Better than any other CD in the Sony box, it comes closest to representing the potent live sound of the Philip Glass Ensemble, when amplified in a large venue. (This mix of Glassworks also prefigures the strategy of contemporary classical imprints like New Amsterdam, which work to produce recordings in ways that will appeal to all sorts of listeners.)

Not every experiment from this period paid off. Songs from the Trilogy was a useful compilation, back when recordings of Glass’ early operas represented a more substantial physical-media investment. Now it’s a curiosity. And Songs from Liquid Days is a strange misfire. Its harmonic progressions and ensemble tempos seem consistently alienated from the pop-song lyrics (written, variously, by David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Paul Simon and Suzanne Vega). And the vocal performances—by the Roches, Linda Ronstadt and the lead from the cast of Satyagraha—often sound equally uncertain of the appropriate texture to pursue. Still, it’s a fascinating look at a composer with a long corporate leash, and a willingness to play around.

More successful are albums for Glass’ ensemble, originally commissioned as scores for dance performances. These include the miniatures found on DancePieces and the opulent, side-length statements on Dance Nos. 1-5. And the composer’s popular reputation hit a new level with the release of Solo Piano—still one of the most fervently beloved entries in his vast catalog. This record gave fans an intimate encounter with Glass’ solo-instrumental style, and also offered premieres of major pieces like “Metamorphosis” and “Wichita Sutra Vortex.” The former is a piece that has been admired and performed by Blood Orange. The latter is a work that many elite classical virtuosos fail to pull off with exuberance of the more technically limited Glass.

In 1993, Glass jumped from CBS/Sony to Nonesuch—a label that he’d been sneaking movie soundtracks to, on the side, for some time. Before long, Glass would establish his own imprint, Orange Mountain Music (which remains the place to find his latter-day chamber music, operas and symphonic statements). But Sony has also stayed in the Glass business, here and there. It recorded Itaipu/The Canyon—one of Glass’ early forays into orchestral writing for its own sake—in 1993. (Glass would quickly outstrip this effort with several later symphonies.) Thanks to the label’s association with Yo-Yo Ma, this box gets to claim Glass’ fine soundtrack to Naqoyqatsi (on which the cellist performs).

Sony also has the rights to Passages, Glass’ 1990 reunion with Ravi Shankar, his onetime mentor. On that album, each composer arranged themes by the other. Not everything there comes off seamlessly, but it’s a blast to hear Shankar’s adaptation of Glassian melody. The box also gathers obscure sets like Organ Works—an interesting series of Glass arrangements, performed by Donald Joyce. There’s also a rarities collection titled Recent Recordings. It’s a fun listen, even if it contains some recordings that aren’t all that recent. (A short Glass Ensemble performance at the 1984 Olympics torch-lighting ceremony? Sure, let’s have it!)

Aside from the obscure “cassette mix” of Glassworks, however, the exclusive material advertised on the packaging doesn’t have much to do with the true value of this box. The real attraction is the half of the set that sits in the excellent-to-iconic zone of Glass’ catalog. A lot of that material has been widely available for years—though often without important contextual material that can aid deeper immersion. This reverent, smartly produced set fixes that problem. In doing so, The Complete Sony Recordings represents a worthy completion of the company’s original investment in a young composer.