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Philip Glass: Finally being taken seriously?

The veteran composer divides music lovers like no other. Now he is getting his own Prom.

August 6, 2009 10:20
Philip Glass has written eight symphonies, 20 operas and countless film soundtracks. Critics, however, deride his work as repetitive

ByAnonymous, Anonymous

4 min read

It is astonishing when you think about it. The world’s most significant living composer — we can argue about this later — gets his first Prom at the age of 72. Consider who he has worked with — Ravi Shankar, David Bowie, Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Simon, Robert Wilson, Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese. Just because the greatest film directors in the world queue up to work with him does not diminish Philip Glass’s classical credentials — it is a testament to the greatness of his music that all the greats want him to score their films.

So how has the world’s largest music festival ended up missing him — indeed, previously only ever playing seven minutes of his entire output? (Facades, performed by Ensemble Modern, under John Adams, in 1997). Even Proms director Roger Wright — also controller of BBC Radio 3 — is at a loss to know.

“Philip Glass is without question one of the most significant composers in history,” he says. “It’s very hard to talk about international culture, and certainly not American culture and the world of western music, without, in some ways, engaging with the music that Glass has written. Why, indeed, has he not been performed?”

And now he is making his official Proms debut — with a performance of his 1987 Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 7 (Toltec), on August 12. “Glass has detractors, and there will be people that argue he doesn’t belong, but let their arguments rage on,” says Wright. “The opportunity to let people hear his music live, acoustically, in a late-night atmosphere, is a great one and what the Proms remit is about.”