It seems that no one – not you, or Steve Reich, or John Adams – likes being called a minimalist. What do we call you if not that?
Let’s talk about this. The problem is no one is doing minimalism now. It’s music we wrote in the 1970s. It’s over 30 years out of date. It’s a crazy idea to use a description made up by journalists and editors to cover all kinds of music. It’s more confusing than descriptive. What do I really do? Listen to me. I’ve written 26 operas, 20 ballets, I don’t know how many film scores. I write theatre music. I write concert and symphonies too. I’m working on a new film score right now. Then I’ll start a new stage piece. My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies. But I’m premiering Symphony No 11 in a couple of weeks. These are all different forms of music. Maybe I do too many things.
But it’s the description that sticks: Philip Glass, the great American minimalist…
If people called me an American opera composer it would have the virtue of being what I actually do. This is reality. God forbid we should be accurate. I’m not making this stuff up. Would it be easier to say I’m an Icelandic composer who writes serial music? Would that be helpful? [Silence, then laughter.] I’m a theatre composer.
A lot of people want to hear my music of the 1970s and 1980s. And do you know what I do? I play it. I talk to Paul Simon or anyone like that and it’s the same. I say, “what do you play live, Paul?” and he says “I play my new songs and I play my hits”. And it’s true. If you go to hear Paul Simon, you want to hear Bridge Over Troubled Water. The new work, by the way, is beautiful, but it’s not why you buy the ticket. You want to hear the old ones. It’s the same for me when I play with my ensemble [the Philip Glass Ensemble]. We’ve been together 40 years. We play the familiar stuff, the highlights.
So you’re saying, then, you play… minimalism!
Well, yes, I admit I am part of the confusion. We’ve reworked a piece from 1971. And, guess what, it’s minimalist! OK OK OK, I’m just as bad as the journalists [more laughs].
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