"My reasons for writing pieces are often very strange...
Two Pages, you remember, is in unison. Someone asked me if I was attempting to trace the progress of musical history and if, therefore, my next piece would follow on logically and be in fifths. So, I wrote Music In Fifths. That was all in parallel motion, so I obviously had to do one in contrary motion next. And after Music In Contrary Motion came its opposite again, Music In Similar Motion. It was a very easy-going thing. In 1969, nobody knew me or really cared much what I wrote, so I could make any jokes I liked."
Philip Glass (in an interview with Keith Potter and Dave Smith in 1975)
Here's the joke pushed to eight pipers: four bagpipes, four bombards. These "first classics" are the premise for Einstein on the Beach. Philip Glass composed them after a trip to North Africa and India. Perhaps that's why these pieces are modal and perfectly suited to bagpipes? Surprisingly, they seem to have been written for our instruments.
Erwan Keravec, March 2024
