The Heart Of Glass

The American Philip Glass, who turns 80 this month, is a composing trailblazer whose impressively wide range of styles and works has helped shift the course of western music. Brian Wise meets him in New York.

- Brian Wise

As Philip Morris Glass celebrates his 80th birthday on 31 January, musicians and concert presenters have been confronted with the increasingly daunting question of how to recognise such a wide ranging, entrenched and influential force in music.

If Glass had lived only to Mozart’s 35 years of age, concert presenters could easily fashion career retrospectives around Music in Contrary Motion, Music in 12 Parts, and other early scores that helped establish the style known (to most of Glass’s chagrin) as minimalism. Had Glass lived to Beethoven’s age – 56 – he might be recognised for Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten, his trilogy of ‘portrait’ operas on themes of science, politics and religion.

Add another decade and the music world might focus on Glass the Hollywood composer, following the successes of The Truman Show, Kundun and The Hours, from about 1997 to 2002.

But in 2002, Glass had only just begun writing concertos and symphonies, and a second wave of operas was on its way, with Appomattox (2007), Kepler (2009) and The Perfect American (2013). This year, his Symphony No. 11 premieres at Carnegie Hall on his actual birthday and a third piano concerto, for fellow New Yorker Simone Dinnerstein, arrives in September. 

GLASS HIMSELF DECLINES to identify the music that best defines his career. But when pressed, his body of more than 30 operas stands front and center.