Sean
12 February 2011, 08:43 AM
I'm wondering if people know this 1980 opera by Glass, the minimalist American composer. Glass travelled to India in the 60s, following which he renounced his earlier neoclassical style, and indeed he's been back twenty times or more.
His techniques are broadly influenced by Indian music and thought and this is a really fantastic work from his most significant creative period. It sketches Gandhi's life during his S.African period while browsing Tolstoy, Tagore and ML King, and has marvellous interludes of settings of Gita verses: the power and deep beauty of Sanskrit comes over superbly in a Western format.
I began a doctorate in musical minimalism, to which in fact I may return, and I can't enthuse over this music enough: it has really amazing magnetism and compulsion, and its CBS recording and performance is unmatchable in conviction and expertise...
His techniques are broadly influenced by Indian music and thought and this is a really fantastic work from his most significant creative period. It sketches Gandhi's life during his S.African period while browsing Tolstoy, Tagore and ML King, and has marvellous interludes of settings of Gita verses: the power and deep beauty of Sanskrit comes over superbly in a Western format.
I began a doctorate in musical minimalism, to which in fact I may return, and I can't enthuse over this music enough: it has really amazing magnetism and compulsion, and its CBS recording and performance is unmatchable in conviction and expertise...