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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...

Adhvagat
12 February 2011, 11:43 AM
Hello Sean, I'm far from being any expert in music, therefore I deeply appreciate musicians and their hard work.

The only piece of work by Philip Glass that I experienced entirely was his score of the movie Koyaanisqatsi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085809/).

Which is really a beautiful piece of work that illustrates how humans are disturbingly out of balance with Earth. For me, the final image of this movie clearly states: "What we are not finding here... We won't find outside."

Is there a place one can get this opera?

Sean
12 February 2011, 10:40 PM
Hi Pietro, Koyaanisqatsi is one of Glass's very best works; the film accompaniment is superb and amoung the most interesting ever made without a dialogue.

The CBS recording (NY City Opera orchestra under Keene) is available on Amazon- this is a Sony lable reissue, but the older CBS is still available. Whether there's any difference in sound balance etc I don't know, but if I were you I'd go for the older CBS to be sure they haven't messed with it

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Satyagraha-Complete/dp/B002DU7ONG/ref=pd_sim_m_3

There isn't all that much influence of Indian music in the Western art tradition but aside from minimalism important examples include by Messiaen and to lesser extents by Roussell and Holst.