''Glassworks'' is a

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

work of six movements by

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

. Following his larger-scale concert and stage works, it was Glass's successful attempt to create a more pop-oriented "

Walkman is a brand of Personal stereo, portable audio players manufactured by Sony since 1979. It was originally introduced as a portable Compact Cassette, cassette player and later expanded to include a range of portable audio products. Since 2011, ...

-suitable" work, with considerably shorter and more accessible pieces written for the recording studio. The LP and cassette were released in 1982, each with its own separate mix: the record album intended for home listening and the tape for personal cassette players. The headphone-specific mix, previously only available on cassette, was reissued digitally 2016.

Movements

"Opening"

"Opening" uses triplet eighth

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

s, over duple

eighth note 180px, Figure 1. An eighth note with stem extending up, an eighth note with stem extending down, and an eighth rest. 180px, Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together. An eighth note ( American) or a quaver ( British) is a musical note pla ...

s, over whole notes in . Formally it consists of three groups of four measure

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

s of three to four

chords Chord or chords may refer to: Art and music * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord, a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * The Chords (British band), 1970s British mod ...

repeated four times each, ABC:, , ABC, which then merges with the next movement, "Floe" with the entrance of the horns.

"Floe"

There are two formulaically identical sections to the movement. Although rhythmically driven, the melodic implications of "Floe" occur somewhat coincidentally by orchestration. There is no

modulation Signal modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform in electronics and telecommunication for the purpose of transmitting information. The process encodes information in form of the modulation or message ...

, but the harmonic

progression Progression may refer to: In mathematics: * Arithmetic progression, a sequence of numbers such that the difference between any two successive members of the sequence is a constant * Geometric progression, a sequence of numbers such that the quotie ...

simply repeats over and over again. The layering of contrasting

timbre In music, timbre (), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes sounds according to their source, such as choir voices and musical instrument ...

s is characteristic of the piece as a whole. Floe borrows a theme from

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius (; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic music, Romantic and 20th-century classical music, early modern periods. He is widely regarded as his countr ...

's fifth symphony.

In popular culture

"Rubric" and "Façades" both appeared in the 2008 documentary about

Philippe Petit Philippe Petit (; born 13 August 1949) is a French highwire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized highwire walks between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1971 and of Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, as well as between the Twi ...

, '' Man on Wire''. "Floe" was featured on the soundtrack of the 1989 Italian horror film ''The Church''.

Release and reception

The album was commercially successful, introduced Glass's music to a large audience, and gave Glass widespread name recognition.

References

{{Authority control 1981 compositions 1982 albums Compositions by Philip Glass CBS Records albums Albums produced by Kurt Munkacsi Philip Glass albums