DIALOGUE WITH

PHILIP GLASS AND

STEVE REICH
(1980)
TIM PAGE

Tim Page: Houf did the two of you get to know each otherf
Steve Reich: / met Philip at the Juilliard School of Music twenty years ago,
in 1 958. We were both composition students, and both had come from an

undergraduate background in philosophy, strangely enough; Philip at the

University of Chicago and I at Cornell University. I studied at Juilliard
from 958 through 1961, at which point I left to go to California to study
1

with Luciano Berio. In 1965, 1 returned to New York City and began per-
forming ttdth my first ensemble. At that point it had no name. It was sim-
ply myself and Art Murphy (who was a friend of PhiUp's and mine at
Juilliard) and Jon Gibson, a woodwind player who presently plays with
Philip, and whom I knew in California. So many of these paths cross!
Philip Glass: We met again after I returned to New York from Paris,
where I was studying with Nadia Boulangec We met on the occasion of
Steve's concert at the . .

Reich: . . .atthe Park Place Gallery,

Glass: That was a very famous concert in its day. We each had been devel-
oping our own music in our distinctive ways. When I met Steve, I discov-
ered that there was another group of musicians working in a way similar
to the way I had begun working. For a number of years immediately after
that, we spent a good deal of time together. We showed our music to each
otheL There was a very active dialogue going on.

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 This was a very small world we're talking about. A lot of these
people know each other . . . Jon Gibson has played with Terry Riley, La
Monte Young, Steve, myself, and with his own ensemble. Ten or twelve
years ago, this phenomenon was so underground that it was really our iso-

lation from everyone else that threw us together. It was the isolation and
leal hostility and/or indi^eience that created a kind of community.
From that point of view, it was a very healthy and exciting period.

Ifs interesting that people always seem to lump your names together,
whereas in reality, your paths have diverged from what were somewhat
similar beginnings. How do you feel about this continued pairing of your
names f
As our paths continue to diverge, it becomes easier for us to be in situa-
tiofis hke this dialogue. It's so dear we are dealing with two distent per-

sonalities. Ten years ago, when you had something like Music in Fifths on
the one hand and Four Organs on the othei^ there wasnt an awfiil lot of
other music around to compare it to except [Charles] ^uorinen*s music
and [Mario] Davidovsky's music. So, in that context, we looked like
Siamese twins.
Ten years latei^ with not only ourselves but a whole new genera-
tion of people, it's very dear —as it was always and me that
clear to Steve —
our personal ways were very distinct. I don't think we were ever particu-
kurly worried about that
There are obvious similarities. But anyone living in a particular period of
time in the world, in the same general geographical area will probably give
off a similar response if their receptors are in order.

I think one of the most important things about the effect the ttvo of you

have had on young composers is the way you've liberated an entire gen-
eration from having to go the old post-Webem route, which was becom-
ing so institutionalized.
Can you believe that was true when we were students twenty years ago?
As a matter of fact, they hadn't gotten to Hfot yet. While we were at
Juilliard, the blooming aesthetic was ''Americana." Elliott Carter's quar-
tet —I ^wtk it was his sectmd—was premiered while we were there, and it
was considered very questionable by some members of the faculty. Some
liked It, some didn't, but it was on the edge of respectability. And if you
were composing twelve-tone pieces . . .

I think a lot of the reasons for our many problems with

the music world
were economic. Funds for new music in America are still so limited that as
soon as people begin to appear who can challenge the funding—or the tra-

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dxttond funding of new music and raise questions about it-Hhese people
become the "young turks" and tbejr are very threatening to other people.
/ think you're right. There is also a psychology involved: there are bound
to be deep first impressions involved with our music, particularly among
people who make up the faculties of music departments at various uni-
versities. what was
This music might have struck them as really alien to
an accepted norm in the late 1960s —which
was a toss-up between
European seriaUsm and a certain sort of American aleatory music, both of
which came out sounding atonal and non-rhythmic This music is very
rhythmic and very tonal. I think this must have struck certain people as
being psychologically threatening. It has taken a long time for this music
to gain acceptance. But music is a pretty slow moving art field as opposed
to, say, movements in painting and sculpture which at least during the—
1960*s —were very rapid. On the other hand, there seems to be a little

more permanence Once something seems to gather the inter-

in the field.
est of Other musicians and composers, there is a possibility that they will
remain interested in it.

Itmust have taken a good deal of courage to play this music in a time
when the prevailing attitudes were so diametrically opposed to it.
I remember when Michael Tilson Thomas and I played Four Organs on

an otherwise normal Boston Symphony program at Carnegie Hall m

1973. The subscribers came to hear the other music — C.P.E. Bach,
Mozart, the Bartok Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, arui the
LisztHexammeron. There was a pretty full house ami, after my piece, I
would say weU over three-quarters of the people were not booing, but
were enraged—shaking urnbrelias so loudly during the piece that,
really
on stage, we began
to lose count. Four Organs is a piece that calls for a
lot of concentration on the part of the performers. There was so much
active feedback from the audience during the performance that we got lost
while playing. Michael Tilson Thomas had to yell out numbers so that we
knew what bar we were in. When the piece was over, a small crowd was
bravoing and a much larger crowd was booing as strongly as possible.
And the reactions of the pressl "Primitive" was one word bandied about
a lot.

Like the Rite of Spring all over again,

We*ve all had our own ''Rites of Spring." It is very interesting that one tian
still write music that causes this kind of reaction. However, that's hardly
been the purpose of this music. One of the things that motivates this type

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of reaction is the audience's thinking that, for some reason, you arc trying
to make a fool of them. That's what really gets them upset. And, of course,
the furthest thing from my mind is to bait an audience in that way.

I tinnk the way you relate to your audience is very interesting. You have
revived the composer-performer tradition.
Itwasn't entirely a dead tradition. Stravinsky conducted and played a lot
of his music and made much of his living that way. Aaron Copland is a
conductor. Bela Bartok was primarily a concert pianist. It is true that we
both believe in performing our own works.

You also have very different attitudes towards the publication of your
music StevCy you once told me there were going to be a number of your
works published entirely by Universal Editions in the spring of 1980,
whereas you, Philip, are very reluctant to part with any of your works.
I don't want to talk for Steve, but my motivation has been mainly eco-

nomic. We both make a living as performers of our own music. Fm unwill-

ing to let pieces go one at a time. I want some publisher to take the whole
ball of wax; when 1 make a deal, I'm going to make it with one company

for everything.
At this point, I have decided to publish only pieces that can be done rela-

tive easily. Something like Clapping Music can be performed a lot more
easily than a piece like Drumming. I'm not going to release a piece which
would interfere with the living I make as a performer, but some of the
pieces Universal is going to publish are now out of my repertory—some-
thing like Four Organs, for example. I would like other musicians to con-
tinue playing these pieces, even if I am not domg so.

If I'm the only one who owns the music, then anyone who wants to hear
it has to hire me to play it. That's what it comes down to. In England
after a number of years bickering with various sponsor
where I did a tour
groups—I was able to organize concerts for the simple reason that there
was no other way for the British to get my music. They would have been
much happier performing it themselves, but they couldn't get the scores.
So they had to hire the ensemble.
/ would say that the largest source of my income is —and has been for a
number of years now —European. We couldn't live here without —and
it

yet I have no desire to live there.

Yes, I calculate that90% of my income is made in Europe. There is much
more government support of the arts. Nothing like that exists here.
We//, let*s give credit where credit is due. There is a New York State

Diahgue with Philip Glass and Steve Reich (1980)

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Council on the Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts. I have been
to a lot of premieres that wouldn't have been possible without them. So I
want to give them the credit, I just think they stand alone.
certainly
They do their best with what they have, but they work with a very limit-
ed budget.

Shotdd there be a budget strictly allotted to **minimar music?'

Iwant to say right away that that is a misnomer. It is not **minimal'*
music. I think that word should be stamped out! To call it ''minimal'* is

just a mistake. This technique is capable of supporting music of richness

and about Music in PifdfSy okay. If you want to
variety. If you are talking
talk about Violin Phase, okay. Butif you want to talk about the works

which have continued these ideas, it's not at ail an appropriate term.

But nothing seems to be a suitable term! What do you call itf

That is a problem that has pls^ued all of us for years. If there had been a
good name, we would have leapt on it long ago. For that reason, one talks
around it ui various ways. I talk about music that's based on process. I talk
about repetitive structures. I think this comes closer to it than anything
else. Anyone who wants to talk about this music seriously is going to have

—
to talk about repetitive structures both harmonic and rhythmic. The
minimalism idea is only a rather short-lived stylistic period of this music.
/ don't think these questions are answered, historically, by composers. For
instance,Arnold Schoenberg wanted to call his music "pantonaL " He des-
perately wanted to call it "pantonaL " But everyone else called it atonal
music, and that was that. He also insisted that there was no such thing as
atonality. He used to rant and rave about "atonal." But finally the deci-
sion wasn't m his hands. I think Hfe various meduH^hether they be
scholarly journals, newspapers, or somewhere in between — really make
the decision. Philip tries to convey information and I try to convey infor-
mation about the music when we talk about it. But I don't think that this
is what makes for m music. That's left to other people.
catch-all titles

Recorded a$ WKCR Studhs, New York City

MtttU wiA Cbangit^ PmU

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