Editing Philip Glass (section)

===1967–1974: Minimalism: From ''Strung Out'' to ''Music in 12 Parts''===
{{See also|Minimalist music}}
[[File:86 St 2 Av Jan 2017 17.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Chuck Close]]'s portrait of Glass in a [[New York City Subway]]'s [[86th Street station (Second Avenue Subway)|86th Street station]]]]
{{quote box||align=|width=25em|bgcolor = MistyRose|quote=Glass' musical style is instantly recognizable, with its trademark churning [[ostinato]]s, undulating [[arpeggio]]s and repeating rhythms that morph over various lengths of time atop broad fields of tonal harmony. That style has taken permanent root in our pop-middlebrow sensibility. Glass' music is now indelibly a part of our cultural [[lingua franca]], just a click away on YouTube.|source=John von Rhein, ''Chicago Tribune'' writer<ref name=Rhein />}}

Shortly after arriving in New York City in March 1967, Glass attended a performance of works by [[Steve Reich]] (including the ground-breaking minimalist piece ''[[Piano Phase]]''), which left a deep impression on him; he simplified his style and turned to a radical "[[consonance and dissonance|consonant]] vocabulary".<ref name=Schwarz /> Finding little sympathy from traditional performers and performance spaces, Glass eventually formed an ensemble with fellow ex-student [[Jon Gibson (minimalist musician)|Jon Gibson]], and others, and began performing mainly in art galleries and studio lofts of [[SoHo]]. The visual artist Richard Serra provided Glass with Gallery contacts, while both collaborated on various sculptures, films and installations; from 1971 to 1974, he was Serra's regular studio assistant.<ref name="Potter, pp. 266–269" /><ref>Richard Serra, ''Writings Interviews'', Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994, p. 7</ref>

Between summer of 1967 and the end of 1968, Glass composed nine works, including ''Strung Out'' (for amplified solo violin, composed in summer of 1967), ''Gradus'' (for solo saxophone, 1968), ''Music in the Shape of a Square'' (for two flutes, composed in May 1968, an homage to [[Erik Satie]]), ''How Now'' (for solo piano, 1968) and ''1+1'' (for amplified tabletop, November 1968) which were "clearly designed to experiment more fully with his new-found minimalist approach".{{sfn|Potter|2000|p=277}} The first concert of Glass's new music was at [[Jonas Mekas]]'s Film-Makers Cinemathèque ([[Anthology Film Archives]]) in September 1968. This concert included the first work of this series with ''Strung Out'' (performed by the violinist Pixley-Rothschild) and ''Music in the Shape of a Square'' (performed by Glass and Gibson). The musical scores were tacked on the wall, and the performers had to move while playing. Glass's new works met with a very enthusiastic response by the audience which consisted mainly of visual and performance artists who were highly sympathetic to Glass's reductive approach.

Apart from his music career, Glass had a [[moving company]] with his cousin, the sculptor [[Jene Highstein]], and also worked as a plumber and [[Taxicab|cab]] driver (during 1973 to 1978). He recounts installing a dishwasher and looking up from his work to see an astonished [[Robert Hughes (critic)|Robert Hughes]], ''Time'' magazine's art critic, staring at him.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://interlude.hk/philip-glass-composer-taxi-driver/|title=Philip Glass: Composer and...Taxi Driver?|date=September 26, 2015|website=Interlude.hk|language=en-US|access-date=November 7, 2019}}</ref> During this time, he made friends with other New York-based artists such as [[Sol LeWitt]], [[Nancy Graves]], [[Michael Snow]], [[Bruce Nauman]], [[Laurie Anderson]], and [[Chuck Close]] (who created a now-famous portrait of Glass).<ref>Glass in conversation with Chuck Close and William Bartman, in, Joanne Kesten (ed.), The Portraits Speak: Chuck Close in conversation with 27 of his subjects, A.R.T. Press, New York, 1997, p. 170</ref> (Glass returned the compliment in 2005 with ''A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close'' for piano.)

With ''1+1'' and ''Two Pages'' (composed in February 1969), Glass turned to a more "rigorous approach" to his "most basic minimalist technique, additive process",{{sfn|Potter|2000|p=252}} pieces which were followed in the same year by ''Music in Contrary Motion'' and ''Music in Fifths'' (a kind of homage to his composition teacher [[Nadia Boulanger]], who pointed out "[[hidden fifths]]" in his works but regarded them as cardinal sins). Eventually Glass's music grew less austere, becoming more complex and dramatic, with pieces such as ''Music in Similar Motion'' (1969), and ''Music with Changing Parts'' (1970). These pieces were performed by the [[Philip Glass Ensemble]] in the [[Whitney Museum of American Art]] in 1969 and in the [[Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum]] in 1970, often encountering hostile reaction from critics,<ref name=Schwarz /> but Glass's music was also met with enthusiasm from younger artists such as [[Brian Eno]] and [[David Bowie]] (at the Royal College of Art ca. 1970).{{sfn|Potter|2000|p=340}} Eno described this encounter with Glass's music as one of the "most extraordinary musical experiences of [his] life", as a "viscous bath of pure, thick energy", concluding "this was actually the most detailed music I'd ever heard. It was all intricacy, exotic [[harmonic]]s".<ref>Tim Page, booklet notes to the album ''Einstein on the Beach'', Nonesuch 1993</ref> In 1970, Glass returned to the theatre, composing music for the theatre group [[Mabou Mines]], resulting in his first minimalist pieces employing voices: ''Red Horse Animation'' and ''Music for Voices'' (both 1970, and premiered at the [[Paula Cooper Gallery]]).<ref>Booklet notes to the recording ''Early Voice'', Orange Mountain Music, 2002</ref>

After differences of opinion with Steve Reich in 1971,<ref name=Schwarz /> Glass formed the Philip Glass Ensemble (while Reich formed [[Steve Reich and Musicians]]), an amplified ensemble including keyboards, wind instruments (saxophones, flutes), and [[soprano]] voices.

Glass's music for his ensemble culminated in the four-hour-long ''[[Music in Twelve Parts]]'' (1971–1974), which began as a single piece with twelve instrumental parts but developed into a cycle that summed up Glass's musical achievement since 1967, and even transcended it—the last part features a [[Twelve-tone technique|twelve-tone]] theme, sung by the soprano voice of the ensemble. "I had broken the rules of [[modernism (music)|modernism]] and so I thought it was time to break some of my own rules", according to Glass.<ref name=timpage>Tim Page: "Music in 12 Parts" in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|1999|page=98}}</ref> Though he finds the term minimalist inaccurate to describe his later work, Glass does accept this term for pieces up to and including ''Music in 12 Parts'', excepting this last part which "was the end of minimalism" for Glass. As he pointed out: "I had worked for eight or nine years inventing a system, and now I'd written through it and come out the other end."<ref name=timpage /> He now prefers to describe himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures".<ref name=Rhein/>