Philip Glass: Music: Passages

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Passages
recordings
(1990)

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Music by Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar

films

CATALOG:
Private Music 2074-2-P

glass engine
listen/watch

SEE ALSO

TRACKS:
1.
Offering

9:40

2.

Sadhanipa

8:31

3.

Channels and Winds

7:56

4.

Ragas in Minor Scale

7:32

5.

Meetings Along the

Edge

8:05

6.

Prashanti

13:37

RELATED COMPOSITIONS:

Passages
RELATED RECORDINGS:

Dennis Russell Davies Performs Philip

Glass on Orange Mountain Music

NOTES:
Offering. After a slow introduction saxophone
plays the Shankar raga melody, subsequently
enriched by the two other saxes. A long
middle section in quicker tempo treats the
material more freely in several parts,
concluded with a shorter recapitulation of the
opening theme.
Sadhanipa. The title based on the solfege
notes (svaras): "SA DHA NI PA" from the
Indian octave (saptaka) based on the first four
tones of the Glass melody: "Do La Ti So" (DB-C-A). An opening "ad lib" trumpet
statement, echoed in the bass bamboo flute.
Then the chamber orchestra develops the
theme in 4/8-6/8-7/8. The Finale recapitulates
the original Glass theme.
Channels and Winds. is an intrumental work
with vocalists in A-B-A-B-A-B form which was
conceived as a bridge between the two
Shankar compositions based on the Glass
melodies.
Ragas in Minor Scale. The Glass theme is
introduced, after the veena introduction, by
the cello. The opening section is in 6/8,
middle section 4/8, closing in 4/8.
Meetings Along the Edge. A fast-paced work
based on: 1) a "Middle Eastern" sounding
Shankar theme in 7; 2) a seconf theme also
by Ravi and also in 7 but of a somewhat
different lenght; 3) A Glass theme in 4. Glass
also added an Introduction and other rhythmic
ideas. The themes are stated, blended and
combined in the Finale.

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Prashanti (Peacefulness). An extended
orchestral work in two parts: Musical depiction
of joyful people living in harmony. Slowly,
greed, envy, hatred and violence creep into
their contented lives. Out of this chaos a voice
sings out in Vedic prayer:
"Hey Nath, hama para kripa kijiye. Door kara
andhakar, gyan ka aloka dijiye, hinsa dwesh
lobha bamese chhin lijiye, manamey prem
shanti bhar dijiye."
(Oh, Lord. Be benevolent to us. Drive the
darkness away. Shed upon us the light of
wisdom. Take the jealousy, envy, greed and
anger from us, and fill our hearts with love
and peace.)
... and a feeling of spiritual awakening, peace
and tranquillity descends upon people's
minds.
This historic collaboration brings full circle a
process which began when promising young
American musician Philip Glass met Indian
master Ravi Shankar in Paris in 1965. That
week Glass, studying with the great Nadia
Bulanger, was earning pocket money doing
notation and conducting a recording session
for the soundtrack of Conrad Rook's film
"Chappacqua." The score's composer, Ravi
Shankar, was directing his ensemble from the
sitar.
Ravi recalls, "From the very first moment I
saw such interest from him -he was a young
man then and he started asking me
questions about ragas and talas and started
writing down the whole score, and for the
seven days he asked me so many questions.
And seeing how interested he was I told him
everything I could in that short time."
"It was possible to graduate from a major
Western conservatory, in my case Juilliard, "
remembers Glass, "without exposure to music
from outside the Western tradition. World
music was completely unknown in the mid60's."
"What the young Glass heard which lay
beyond his conservatory hermeticity was
RHYTHM, long out of fashion in the world of
American academic post-Webernism, with its
almost exclusive concern for harmonic
organization. Indian music is based on
melody, which would get you laughed at
Princeton or Columbia, and rhythm, which,
despite Stravinsky's efforts in works like "Le
Sacre du Printemps" or "Les Noces" was
considered "incidental" to constructing 12tone rows and other serious contrapuntal
matters.
So for someone to play for the budding
composer an expressive, vital, respect-worthy
music based on 4,000 years of refining the
interaction between the two forgotten
elements of Western music must have
been mildly astonishing at the very least. He

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Philip Glass: Music: Passages

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realized that one could construct music on a
rhythmic, as opposed to a harmonic, base.
Also, unlike most of the composers Glass had
met up till that time, Ravi Shankar was a
player, a composer/performer, whose
authority arose from intimate hands-on
contact with the music itself, and the other
musicians, with whom he regularly shared a
vibrating column of air. Glass became a
student of Shankar's, Philip Glass today
acknowledges "I owe a lot to Ravi; he was
one of my teachers. "
The movement Philip Glass helped to create
was called "Minimalism," and the founding
Minimalists are all fine performers. Whatever
differences they may have had in the mid60's, what they had in common was the
dynamic re-assertion of the primacy of
rhythm.
They chose different sources: Steve Reich
was drawn by African drumming and Balinese
gamelan (as well as Be-bop); Terry Riley by
Northern Indian vocal techniques under the
guidance of the legendary Pandit Pran Nath,
as well as blues and jazz improvisation; and
in the next generation, John Adams points to
rock and roll as well as the early Minimalists,
as his seminal influences.
Pandit Ravi Shankar went to collaborations
with Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal
and the much-publicized master/pupil
relationship with Beatle George Harrison that
served to introduce Indian music (and its
inherent spirituality) to a generation of rock
fans. Film scores such as the legendary Apu
trilogy, "Charly" and "Gandhi" as well as
additional cross-cultural excursions into other
musical traditions, have enriched his palette,
all the while he has remained pre-eminent in
the classical Indian music which traces its
history to at least 2,000 B.C.
Philip Glass, in part through re-emphasizing
the role of rhythm in his music (influenced by
non-Western forms including Indian Raga)
has created a uniquely affective music for
opera [Einstein on the Beach (1976),
Satyagraha (1982), Akhnaten (1984), The
Making of the Representative for Planet 8
(1988) and Hydrogen Jukebox based on the
poetry of Allen Ginsberg (1990)], film
(Koyaanisqatsi, Mishima and The Thin Blue
Line), ballet and concert hall.
Peter Baumann, founder of Private Music,
(who had been a member of the Minimalist /
Rock band Tangerine Dream and an admirer
of all of the above) responded enthusiastically
when the record company's President/CEO,
Ron Goldstein, suggested in the summer of
1989, that they bring the now-famous Philip
Glass back into musical contact with the ever
expanding world of Ravi Shankar.
Unlike previous Shankar
"collaborations" (actually elaborate sessions

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Philip Glass: Music: Passages

Page 4 of 5
with masters of other musical traditions
joining Ravi to "jam" on his own music) the
Glass encounter was rare instance of
classical music reciprocity, each composer
presenting thematic material to the other as
raw material from which these finished pieces
were fashioned. Passages contains four such
co-ventures: two Glass compositions on
themes by Shankar (Shankar / Glass); two
Shankar compositions on themes by Glass
(Glass / Shankar) as well as one piece from
each composer completely of his own
devising.
Martin Perlich
CREDITS:
Original music composed by Ravi Shankar
and Philip Glass. Produced by Kurt Munkacsi,
Ravi Shankar and Suresh Lalwani.
Production Shankar: Recorded at
Kodandapani Audio Lab Madras. Recorded
by A. R. Swaminathan. Assisting Ravi
Shankar in orchestration and arrangement:
Suresh Lalwani. Conducted by Ashit Desai
and Suresh Lalwani. Mixed by Michael
Riesman and Suresh Lalwani.
Musicians: Vocals Ravi Shankar and S.P.
Balasubramanyam and the Madras Choir.
Orchestral group from Madras. Soloists: Ronu
Mazumdar, Flute; Shubho Shankar, Sitar;
Partha Sarathy, Sarod; Partha Sarathy,
Veena; T. Srinivasan, Mridangam & Drum
Speech; Abhiman Kaushal, Tabla.
Production Glass: Music by Philip Glass.
Produced by Kurt Munkacsi for Euphorbia
Productions, Ltd., NYC. Conducted by
Michael Riesman. Engineered by Blaise
Dupuy. Assistant Engineers: Michael
McGrath, Ramone Diaz. Recorded at The
Living Room Studios, NYC. Executive
Producer: Rory Johnston. Edited with Sound
Tools by Digidesign.
Musicians: Strings: Tim Baker Violin; Barry
Finclair Violin, Viola; Mayuki Fukuhara Violin;
Regis landiorio Violin; Karen Karlsud Violin;
Sergiu Schwartz Violin; Masako Yanagita,
Violin, Viola; Al Brown, Viola; Richard
Sortomme, Viola; Seymour Barab, Cello;
Beverly Laudrisen, Cello; Batia Lieberman,
Cello; Fred Zlotkin, Cello; Joe Carver, Bass.
Woodwinds: Theresa Norris, Flute; Jack Kripl,
Flute, Soprano Saxophone; Jon Gibson,
Soprano Saxophone; Richard Peck, Tenor,
Alto Saxophone; Lenny Pickett, Tenor, Alto
Saxophone. Brass: Peter Gordon, French
Horn; Ron Sell, French Horn; Keith O'Quinn,
Trombone; Alan Raph, Trombone. Gorden
Gottleib: Percussion. Jeanie Gagne: Voice.
Michael Riesman: Piano.
Art Direction by Melanie Penny. Design by
Candy Jernigan. Photography by Ebet
Roberts.
Tracks 1,5,6 Composed by Ravi Shankar,
1990 Saira Music, Ltd./23rd Street Publishing,
Inc. (ASCAP).

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Tracks 2,3,4 Composed by Philip Glass,
1990 Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc.
(ASCAP).
1990 Private, Inc.

2007 Dunvagen Publishing, All Rights Reserve Home | Contact us about the Website

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