Sunday, December 23, 2018

Gandhi vs. Lamb Chop: A Little Sound and Fury About Philip Glass

Gandhi vs. Lamb Chop:

A Little Sound and Fury About Philip Glass

Eric Paul Nolte


Philip Glass is a renowned composer in the so-called minimalist stream of music that emerged some forty years ago.  At the age of 81, he continues to present new works and to perform and collaborate in the performance of his previous works.

In 2011, after watching a Met Live in HD broadcast of Philip Glass' Satyagraha, I slammed the opera and on my blog I posted my thoughts on the matter.  

In essence, I attacked Glass for squandering his superlative gifts on writing music that lingers in long, semi-comatose and repetitive loops.

Here is my conclusion in that blog post:

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Now Glass is a top-drawer talent of superb training and accomplishment.  He was in the last generation of students in the legendary Parisian atelier of the great Nadia Boulanger.  So how could such a well-trained and marvelous talent drive into such a ditch?

Philosophy, of course.  Philosophy, as always.  Philosophy, the mother of everything, the bedrock (or quicksand) on which all knowledge must rise (or sink).

So it was no surprise for me to learn that Glass majored in philosophy at the University of Chicago.  I will not now wander off into my baleful thoughts on the crazy, cockamamie intellectual viruses of postmodern philosophy, but suffice it here to say that I will put a tall stack of dollars on the proposition that it is this bizarre contemporary philosophy that steered Glass' very great talent into this postmodern musical sausage machine.

Glass has the ability to create eight measures of beautiful and arresting music and, by a process of extrusion, squeeze out 20 minutes of musical catatonia.  At the end of this soporific exertion, there is no evidence of the man's wanting to go hide in shame.

I imagine that it is his crazy postmodern philosophy that has so stripped him of aesthetic conscience that his heartless musical cranking leaves him stripped of the ability to feel guilt or any desire to atone for these crimes against his own talent, this sad abuse of his shimmering gifts from the gods.

Instead of going into a thoughtful few pages on this baffling postmodern philosophy, let me offer instead a little meditation on Philip Glass and Shari Lewis, the creator of the hand puppet, Lamb Chop.  

Consider Gandhi and Lamb Chop ...

The last act of Satyagraha ends with an empty stage, but for the character of Gandhi, who is singing a rising scale passage again and again and again, and then endlessly again and again.  And then a few more times, for good measure upon measure upon measure.  Oh, and did I mention that the phrase repeats itself?

The tune is in triple meter, say 3/4 time, in 8th notes (except the last note, which is a dotted half note), with an upbeat before measure one; it's a rising scale passage from mi to mi, if you know these solfege syllables:

mi fa sol la ti do re meeeee ...

(on the white notes of the piano, this passage rises from an E to the E an octave above, which is the C major scale, beginning and ending on the third degree of the scale.  The upbeat is on mi, or E, the first beat on fa, or F.)

As I did my stretches and calisthenics this morning, this passage from the end of Satyagraha wrapped itself around my mind and refused to let go.  Words kept setting themselves to this musical passage that recalled Shari Lewis and her hand puppet, Lamb Chop.  Do you remember this Shari Lewis song? --


     This is the song that does not end,
     It just goes on and on, my friend.
     Some people (clap!) started singing it,
     Not knowing what it was,
     And they'll continue singing it forever just because
     This is the song that does not end....


sol la ti do ti la do ti ... (G A B C B A C B, on the white notes of the piano, using the moveable doh system of solfege.)

This song, made famous by Shari Lewis, starts on the 5th degree of the scale, and the first line ends, hanging expectantly on the leading tone.

Back to Philip Glass' concluding passage (although it may be a misleading overstatement to call this phrase "concluding.") 

These are my words, in blank verse, to fit this phrase from the end of Satyagraha:

(Remember, it goes, "mi fa sol la ti do re mi," with mi an upbeat to fa, the downbeat.)


Miss Shari Lewis would be proud!
Because this song will never end!
But surely Death will intervene?
And take this song away from me?
Before I die and lose my chance,
I need a chord from Five to One.
But what's it mean, this Five to One?
The odds against a closing theme?
God help me find a way to stop,
Before the Union locks the door
And leaves me here to starve to death!

Abandon Hope, who hopes to find
In Philip Glass, a work succinct!
Instead, we have much brilliant work,
Created by this best-trained man,
Where tunes that ought to last a breath,
If written by a Brahms or Bach,
When written by this Philip Glass
Go on at soporific length!
A little tune that ought to have
Proportions of a toy balloon,
Are Zeppelins, the Hindenburg!

So what explains this so sad turn
Of brightly burnished talent spoiled?
Postmodern academic thought!
Philosophy should help us find
Life-serving purpose, sight, and joy!
Philosophy should clear the mind
Of Bullshit no one can believe,
Just like the cant that poisoned Glass,
Extruded, endless sausage link,
But tangled as a tumbleweed:
Postmodern surf that drowns the mind.



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