Words Without Music: A Memoir
Words Without Music: A Memoir book cover

Words Without Music: A Memoir

Paperback – May 3, 2016

by
Price
$17.95
Format
Paperback
Pages
432
Publisher
Liveright
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1631491436
Dimensions
5.6 x 1.2 x 8.3 inches
Weight
12.8 ounces

Description

"Illuminating… [Glass] is always vigorous in defending his artistic choices and aesthetics. Glass's music may sound simple, but it revels in subtle complexity. " ― Sudip Bose, Washington Post "Glass, a key figure of musical minimalism, was one of the first composers to reject a distinction between 'ethnic' music and Western classical music, and in this memoir he explains how he came to view a composition not as a linear narrative but as progressive rhythmic sequences." ― The New Yorker "Essential reading for anyone remotely interested in the evolution of the avant-garde during the past half-century… Words Without Music [is] an important contribution to cultural history." ― Steven G. Kellman, Dallas Morning News "Lively and colorful…. Glass is one of the most articulate composers around. Insight and practical common sense pervade his new book…. With a composer’s sense of form, Glass returns, in the final pages, to his youth, the subject that elicits his most evocative writing." ― Kyle Gann, New York Times Book Review "Well-supplied with droll observations and plainspoken assessments regarding the details of a career that has been as remarkable and noteworthy as any in American music―indeed, in American culture…. Honest and candid." ― Steve Smith, Boston Globe "Readers don’t have to like Glass’s music to find pleasure in this warm, unaffected, and deeply human book, but they may come away with an improved understanding of and a greater appreciation for both the music and its composer…. If a listener’s view of a composer is one of the things that shapes his or her perception of the music, an autobiography that alters the composer’s image should have the potential to change the way the music comes across. Words Without Music has done precisely that for me." ― David Hajdu, The Nation "Philip Glass has written a fascinating account of his life with recollections of family, teachers, and friends. From his childhood in Baltimore to his studies with Ravi Shankar and Nadia Boulanger and the collaborations with Robert Wilson, Allen Ginsburg, Godfrey Reggio, and Martin Scorsese, among others, Glass offers insights to his music and personal life. Words Without Music will be a pleasure to read, not only for musicians (although they will particularly enjoy it) but for anyone interested in the world of art." ― Paul Simon "I came to Philip Glass’s music very simply, without any critical prodding or guidance. I listened and was transfixed. I was excited to work with Philip on Kundun , and he exceeded my wildest expectations giving us a score that was genuinely transcendent. He’s exceeded my expectations again with this rich and beautifully written memoir. Who knew that he was as good a writer as he is a composer?" ― Martin Scorsese Born in Baltimore in 1937, Philip Glass studied at the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. The composer of operas, film scores, and symphonies, he performs regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble and lives in New York.

Features & Highlights

  • New York Times
  • Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year Winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Award Finalist for the Marfield Prize, National Award for Arts Writing
  • "Reads the way Mr. Glass's compositions sound at their best: propulsive, with a surreptitious emotional undertow." ―Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim,
  • New York Times
  • Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical music. Yet in
  • Words Without Music
  • , his critically acclaimed memoir, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. From his childhood in Baltimore to his student days in Chicago and at Juilliard, to his first journey to Paris and a life-changing trip to India, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his creative consciousness. Whether describing working as an unlicensed plumber in gritty 1970s New York or composing
  • Satyagraha
  • , Glass breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation.
  • Words Without Music
  • ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.
  • 32 pages of photographs

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
60%
(230)
★★★★
25%
(96)
★★★
15%
(58)
★★
7%
(27)
★
-7%
(-27)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Execrable

I read this some years ago, but hesitated to write a review because there’s too much wrong with it, more than I could possibly fit into a summary, and I couldn’t think where to start. I’ll give you just a taste:

The prose: flat-footed, banal, dumbed-down, and this is understating the case. It feels as if it were written condescendingly and unimaginatively for a slow-witted child with too much time on his hands.

The information: much more (irrelevant detail) and much less (little to the point) than a reasonable reader should care to know.

The insight: essentially non-existent. One example: Glass recounts the following as an epiphany. He asks an African musician what he calls a particular pitch, and the African replies, “This one.” He asks the African what he calls another pitch, and the African answers, “The other one.” It is suddenly and miraculously revealed to Glass, as Glass tells it, that our note names are mere arbitrary conventions independent of physical reality. I’m pretty sure I was perfectly well aware of that by the time I was around twelve or so. Acousticians have had a rigorous method for accurately describing the underlying physical reality of pitch for centuries: they call pitches “frequencies” and musical intervals “frequency proportions”. It’s difficult to imagine how someone could have managed to graduate from Juilliard without knowing that.

Trustworthiness: dubious. For anyone who knows much at all about the history of late twentieth-century (classical) music, this comes off as disingenuous, distorted, and self-serving. Example: Glass dismisses Steve Reich, the man from whom Glass obviously cribbed his style, in a sort of minor footnote, en passant, as solely concerned with phase relations.

I enjoyed Glass’s earlier book, “Music by Philip Glass”, and I still enjoy some of Glass’s music from the middle seventies to early eighties, but I eventually concluded that Glass as a composer is a sort of one-trick pony. He never really developed; he merely began to juxtapose his “minimalist” devices, the same few over and over and over, with unctuous pre-existing non-“minimalist” cliches. Why did he not develop? I’m tempted to suppose it’s because he was never an original thinker in the first place. His “minimalist” devices were too derivative, and they derive ultimately from Steve Reich and Terry Riley, not from Philip Glass.

(I was embarrassed to read, by the way, that Glass had to resort to pencilling in intervals on the margins of his part-writing exercises for Nadia Boulanger in order to avoid parallel fifths, and I was further embarrassed to read that he actually considered the practice somehow clever. That’s a thing I might expect from one of the poorer freshman theory students at an undistinguished institution.)
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Now it all makes sense!

Although I was introduced to the music of Philip Glass over 30 years ago, I never knew much about the composer himself. This was a very interesting and intriguing read, though it did seem to end rather abruptly. I was hoping Glass would have provided more insight into the development of his recent symphonies, but I was otherwise delighted with all of the other stories presented throughout.
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Wow.

I was absolutely blown away by this book. Glass has led an extraordinary life and has the insight and skill to tell us about it in a way that allows us to benefit from his wisdom. He's a scholar and philosopher as well as a great composer. After reading the last sentence, I just sat in silence.
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excellent read. Philip Glass is one of my favorite ...

excellent read. Philip Glass is one of my favorite composers. This book provided good insight to his development as an artist.
1 people found this helpful
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An interesting but oddly detached account

I’m about 1/3 of the way through this book and admittedly at my point in the narrative, Glass has accomplished little of note. He’s in India as I write this, and the book so far consists of a series of events that happened to him. There is very little introspection which is perhaps understandable from a man whose outlet is music. And yet…

This could almost as easily be a third person narrative of events. “This happened to me and so then I went here and met this person and did this.” Motivation and insight are difficult to discern. What had been most frustrating so far is his disinterest in his own art. “I wrote many pieces for the student group such and such,” without any idea at all of what kind of music he was writing at this early stage. Dude, you’re a composer. We came here to understand your process, or at least know what you were up to. Nothing.

I hope it gets better. But the impression I’m getting matches my earliest ideas of the man. A man best known through his music and your reaction to it.
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Eastman Graduate Gift

My Eastman School of Music Graduate son says he'll read this Philip Glass Memoir I gifted him. That's a good endorsement to me. When he's finished reading the memoir, I'll borrow it to read! Philip Glass compositions are in a class by themselves! I'm sure his Memoir will be as interesting as his music!
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Creative Process and Collaborations

I really enjoyed this book, especially Glass’s stories about his friendships and collaborations. For an artist who is celebrated for the single minded pursuit of his unique vision this other aspect of his life was fascinating. Glass expresses so much love and admiration for other people that this quality of his personality changed my thinking about him. His stories about early collaborations with Ravi Shankar and his later transformative work with Robert Wilson provides insights into the creative process in general as well as the specific works they co-created. One my favorite parts of the book is about his time working as an assistant to the sculptor Richard Serra. Amazing stories about 2 great artists at the beginnings of their careers and their spirit of mutual generosity. The chapter about Allen Ginsberg is a beautiful portrait of an artist, friend and human being. Glass’s description of Ginsberg’s death is incredibly moving.

I listened to the audio version read by Glass himself and recommend it thoroughly.
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Enjoyable and well written

I enjoyed every minute of it. Musically he didn’t get too technical, but he did talk about the main times of his life that contributed to the style of writing that he would become famous for. He did touch up on all the major points in his life including some of his relationship with his family and wives.

Another reviewer said that he was very cold; I don’t feel like he was cold at all, I think it was balanced and he simply mostly discussed how his life revolved around himself as a musician and composer; so the other elements of his life were only discussed as they were relevant to that.
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Good insight into the composer's musical style

The was an excellent memoir, well written, an honest testimony to the brilliant composer's philosophy and life of writing music.
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Great book

Wonderful book, easy to read, written by a composer, himself.
Made an ideal gift for my opera lover friend.

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