Philip Glass: influences, peers and legacy

Every connection with its receipt

Philip Glass's music emerged from an unlikely braid: Paris conservatory rigour under Nadia Boulanger, Hindustani cyclical time learned transcribing Ravi Shankar, and the warehouse-loft downtown New York of the late 1960s, where he moved furniture and plumbing by day and played amplified organ by night. This mix tracks those sources, the theatre and film partnerships that carried his sound to mass audiences, and the generation of post-classical composers now working in his shadow.

The Kynda mix for Philip Glass

• Key Influence · Three Ragas by Ravi Shankar (1956). In 1965 Glass was hired in Paris to notate Shankar's score for Conrad Rooks's film Chappaqua, working alongside tabla player Alla Rakha. Forced to write Indian rhythmic cycles in Western bars, he realised the music was additive rather than divisive — built by accumulating small rhythmic units. That transcription job, more than any conservatory lesson, produced the repeating cells and gradual additive processes that define his mature style from Strung Out onward.ding.
• Influencia Obscura · Moondog 2 by Moondog (1971). Louis Hardin, the blind street composer known as Moondog, lived for a period in Glass's New York apartment around 1970, while Steve Reich also helped support him. Moondog's rounds, canons and relentless percussive ostinati — written on the sidewalk outside Carnegie Hall and performed in a Viking cloak — sit squarely between medieval counterpoint and minimal pulse, a private precursor to the downtown repetition Glass and Reich were formalising in their own ensembles.
• Local Roots · The Well-Tuned Piano by La Monte Young (1964). Young's Theatre of Eternal Music was the origin point of New York drone minimalism, and Glass encountered his sustained-tone aesthetic on arriving downtown in 1967. Where Young pursued just intonation and endless duration in Church Street lofts, Glass took the static harmony and set it pulsing. Both belong to the same small Manhattan network of artists performing in galleries and lofts because concert halls had no interest in them.
• Beyond the Medium · Play by Samuel Beckett (1963). Glass's first theatre music was for a 1965 Paris-era staging of Beckett's Play, and he returned to Beckett repeatedly, including Company and Cascando for Mabou Mines, the experimental company co-founded by his then-wife JoAnne Akalaitis. Beckett's reduction of drama to repeated fragments in a fixed light taught Glass that radical economy of material could carry enormous theatrical weight — the structural premise of Einstein on the Beach.
• Peer · Drumming by Steve Reich (1971). Glass and Reich met at Juilliard, and in 1967 Glass attended the Park Place Gallery concert of Reich's Piano Phase that redirected his thinking toward repetitive process; they briefly performed in each other's groups before a long estrangement. Drumming is the fullest statement of Reich's phase-shifting method — the rigorous counterpart to Glass's additive cycles, and the other half of New York pulse minimalism's founding pair.
• From the Canon · Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass (1976). Co-created with Robert Wilson and premiered at Avignon before two sold-out Metropolitan Opera nights, this five-hour non-narrative work replaced plot with solfège syllables, numbers and recurring visual images: a train, a trial, a spaceship. It ended Glass's loft period and invented a new model of music theatre, scored for his amplified ensemble of keyboards, winds and voices rather than an orchestra, and it remains his structural masterpiece.
• Key Collaborator · Deafman Glance by Robert Wilson (1970). Wilson was Glass's co-author on Einstein on the Beach, and the pair kept working together for decades on the CIVIL warS, White Raven and Monsters of Grace. Deafman Glance is the silent, hours-long tableau theatre Wilson had already developed before they met: extreme slow motion, architectural light, image sequences without narrative. It explains precisely what Glass's pulsing score was built to inhabit.
• Legacy · Sleep by Max Richter (2015). Richter, a founding figure of post-classical music, has consistently named Glass among the composers who showed that repetition and consonance could be serious compositional material, and he worked closely in the minimalist-adjacent ensemble world before his solo career. Sleep, an eight-hour overnight piece for piano, strings and voice performed to audiences in beds, extends Glass's Einstein-scale duration into the twenty-first century.

What influenced Philip Glass

• Jean Cocteau by Jean Cocteau. Glass states that Cocteau’s films formed the basis of his opera trilogy. “Les Enfants Terribles was composed in 1996 as the final part of a trilogy of operas based on three films by Jean Cocteau.” (Philip Glass)
• David Bowie (1947). Philip Glass praises Bowie's compositional gift. (also via Low) “Glass praised David Bowie's gift for creating "fairly complex pieces of music, masquerading as simple pieces".” (Wikipedia)
• Samuel Beckett. Beckett influenced Glass's sense of musical time. (also via Play) “began writing pieces based on repetitive structures of Indian music and a sense of time influenced by Samuel Beckett” (Wikipedia)
• Darius Milhaud. Glass studied with Milhaud. (also via La création du monde) “In the summer of 1960, he studied with Darius Milhaud at the summer school of the Aspen Music Festival” (Wikipedia)
• Nadia Boulanger. Glass studied with Boulanger, whose teaching influenced his work. “his studies in Paris with the eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger , from autumn of 1964 to summer of 1966, influenced his work throughout his life” (Wikipedia)
• William Bergsma. Bergsma taught Glass composition. “His composition teachers included Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma .” (Wikipedia)
• Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg (1956). Howl and Other Poems (Allen Ginsberg) — culture for Philip Glass “In the same year Glass met the poet Allen Ginsberg by chance in a book store in the East Village of New York City, and they immediately "decided on the spot to do something together, reached for one of Allen's books and chose Wichita Vor…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Glass names Mozart among the composers he continued to think about most. “The composers I studied with Boulanger are the people I still think about most— Bach and Mozart .” (Wikipedia)
• Low by David Bowie. Philip Glass adapted Bowie's Berlin Trilogy albums into classical symphonies. “The three albums were later adapted into classical music symphonies by American composer Philip Glass for his first , fourth and twelfth symphonies in 1992, 1997 and 2019, respectively.” (Wikipedia)
• La Belle et la Bête by Jean Cocteau (1946). La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau) — culture for Philip Glass “In 1954, Glass traveled to Paris, where he encountered the films of Jean Cocteau, which made a lasting impression on him.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Piano Phase by Steve Reich. A performance including Reich's Piano Phase impressed Glass and preceded a change in his style. “Glass attended a performance of works by Steve Reich (including the ground-breaking minimalist piece Piano Phase ), which left a deep impression on him; he simplified his style” (Wikipedia)
• Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano by John Cage (1948). Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (John Cage) — titan for Philip Glass “== Career == === 1964–1966: Paris === In 1964, Glass received a Fulbright Scholarship; his studies in Paris with the eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, from autumn of 1964 to summer of 1966, influenced his work throughout his l…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Igor Stravinsky. The article identifies Glass as influenced by Stravinsky. “Stravinsky's revolutionary ideas influenced composers as diverse as Aaron Copland , Philip Glass , Béla Bartók , and Pierre Boulez” (Wikipedia)
• Vincent Persichetti. Persichetti taught Glass composition. “His composition teachers included Vincent Persichetti and William Bergsma .” (Wikipedia)
• Moondog 2 by Moondog (1971). Moondog 2 (Moondog) — ghost for Philip Glass “His strongly rhythmic, contrapuntal pieces and arrangements later influenced composers of minimal music, in particular American composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Josef Albers. Glass compares a technique in his music to Albers's paintings. “a musical technique which Glass compares to "an optical illusion, such as in the paintings of Josef Albers ".” (Wikipedia)
• Strumming Music by Charlemagne Palestine (1974). Strumming Music (Charlemagne Palestine) — ghost for Philip Glass “Floyd (on Conlon Nancarrow), Pauline Oliveros, Charlemagne Palestine, Ben Johnston (on Harry Partch), Steve Reich, David Rosenboom, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum, James Tenney, Christian Wolff, and La Monte Young.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Johann Sebastian Bach. Glass names Bach among the composers he continued to think about most. “The composers I studied with Boulanger are the people I still think about most— Bach and Mozart .” (Wikipedia)
• Piano Trio No. 1 by Franz Schubert. Glass identifies Schubert's music as an influence from his youth. “Glass cites Schubert's work as a "big influence" growing up.” (Wikipedia)
• Play by Samuel Beckett (1963). Play (Samuel Beckett) — culture for Philip Glass “These significant encounters resulted in a collaboration with Breuer for which Glass contributed music for a 1965 staging of Samuel Beckett's Comédie (Play, 1963).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• La création du monde by Darius Milhaud (1923). La création du monde (Darius Milhaud) — titan for Philip Glass “In the summer of 1960, he studied with Darius Milhaud at the summer school of the Aspen Music Festival and composed a violin concerto for a fellow student, Dorothy Pixley-Rothschild.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Three Ragas by Ravi Shankar (1956). Three Ragas (Ravi Shankar) — titan for Philip Glass “In parallel with his early excursions in experimental theatre, Glass worked in winter 1965 and spring 1966 as a music director and composer on a film score (Chappaqua, Conrad Rooks, 1966) with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha, which added ano…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Gertrude Stein. Einstein on the Beach (Philip Glass) — legacy for Gertrude Stein (via Einstein on the Beach) (musicbrainz.org)

Peers and kindred spirits

• Robert Wilson by Robert Wilson (1941). Wilson collaborated with Glass on an operatic play at the Next Wave Festival. (also via Deafman Glance) “ending with an operatic play by director Robert Wilson and composer Philip Glass, a pair of next -wave veterans” (Luxembourg (public broadcasting))
• Richard Serra by Richard Serra. Glass describes repeatedly combining his music with Serra’s sculpture. “The composer Philip Glass once worked as an assistant for the sculptor Richard Serra, after the two befriended each other in Paris in the early 1960s and swapped cultural touchstones.” (The New York Times)
• Godfrey Reggio. Reggio and Glass collaborated repeatedly on film soundtracks. (also via Einstein on the Beach, Powaqqatsi) “We've done six movies together and every time he says 'I want something completely different.' The music making and the image happens at the same time, which is unusual.” (Eye For Film)
• Ravi Shankar by Ravi Shankar. Glass worked with Shankar on the score for Chappaqua. (also via Three Ragas) “Glass worked in winter 1965 and spring 1966 as a music director and composer [ 35 ] on a film score ( Chappaqua , Conrad Rooks, 1966) with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha” (Wikipedia)
• Polyrock by Polyrock. The article states that Glass and Munkacsi produced Polyrock. “Glass and his sound designer Kurt Munkacsi produced the American post-punk / new wave band Polyrock (1978 to the mid-1980s)” (Wikipedia)
• Steve Reich. Music in Twelve Parts (Philip Glass) — peer for Steve Reich (via Music in Twelve Parts, Piano Phase, Drumming) “In September 2014 for the 50th anniversary of Nonesuch Records, Reich reunited with Philip Glass at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Laurie Anderson. Anderson contributed lyrics to a Glass album. (also via Einstein on the Beach) “She also contributed lyrics to the Philip Glass album Songs from Liquid Days , and contributed a spoken-word piece to a tribute album in honor of John Cage .” (Wikipedia)
• Deafman Glance by Robert Wilson (1970). Deafman Glance (Robert Wilson) — collaborator for Philip Glass “I'd taken everything out with my early works and it was now time to decide just what I wanted to put in—a process that would occupy me for several years to come." Parts 1 and 2 of Another Look at Harmony were included in a collaboration …” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Powaqqatsi by Godfrey Reggio (1988). Powaqqatsi (Godfrey Reggio) — collaborator for Philip Glass “Glass also continued to write for the orchestra with the score of Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1981–1982).” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Dolmen Music by Meredith Monk (1981). Dolmen Music (Meredith Monk) — geography for Philip Glass “In 1978, Monk formed The Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble (modeled after similar ensembles of musical colleagues, such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass), to explore new and wider vocal textures and forms, which often were contrasted with mi…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Alla Rakha. Glass worked with Rakha on the score for Chappaqua. “Glass worked in winter 1965 and spring 1966 as a music director and composer [ 35 ] on a film score ( Chappaqua , Conrad Rooks, 1966) with Ravi Shankar and Alla Rakha” (Wikipedia)
• Dennis Russell Davies by Dennis Russell Davies. Davies recalls performing Glass’s music with Glass and discussing a later arrangement with him. “While discussing with Philip the possibilities for a work for my piano duo with Maki Namekawa, I recalled the fun I had playing a suite from the opera Les Enfants Terribles with Philip and the conductor Dante Anzolini in its original sco…” (Philip Glass)
• In C by Terry Riley (1964). In C (Terry Riley) — peer for Philip Glass “Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Drumming by Steve Reich (1971). Drumming (Steve Reich) — peer for Philip Glass “Fellow students included Steve Reich and Peter Schickele.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Lee Breuer (1937). Glass collaborated with Breuer on a staging of Beckett's play. “These significant encounters resulted in a collaboration with Breuer for which Glass contributed music for a 1965 staging of Samuel Beckett 's Comédie” (Wikipedia)
• Philip Glass Ensemble. Glass founded the named ensemble. “Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1968.” (Wikipedia)
• Lucinda Childs. Glass's music was incorporated into Childs's Dance; the surrounding passage identifies it as her production. “"Part Two" was included in Dance (a collaboration with visual artist Sol LeWitt , 1979), and "Part Four" was renamed as Mad Rush” (Wikipedia)
• Kathryn Bigelow (1951). Bigelow and composer Philip Glass collaborated on a real estate business venture. “Bigelow teamed up with Philip Glass on a real-estate venture in which they renovated distressed apartments downtown and sold them for a profit.” (Wikipedia)
• The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 by Doris Lessing (1982). The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (Doris Lessing) — collaborator for Philip Glass “Glass also continued his series of operas with adaptations from literary texts such as The Juniper Tree (an opera collaboration with composer Robert Moran, 1984), Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher (1987), and also worked w…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Linda Ronstadt (1946). The article states that Ronstadt teamed with Glass. “In the 1980s, Ronstadt performed on Broadway and received a Tony nomination for her performance in The Pirates of Penzance , [ 47 ] teamed with the composer Philip Glass” (Wikipedia)
• One Ton Prop (House of Cards) by Richard Serra (1969). One Ton Prop (House of Cards) (Richard Serra) — geography for Philip Glass “But there was just no point in attempting to do their music better than they did and so we started somewhere else." During this time, he encountered revolutionary films of the French New Wave, such as those of Jean-Luc Godard and Françoi…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• The Well-Tuned Piano by La Monte Young (1964). The Well-Tuned Piano (La Monte Young) — geography for Philip Glass “Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Shaker Loops by John Adams (1978). Shaker Loops (John Adams) — peer for Philip Glass “The symphony's first performance took place on January 1, 2012, at the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Austria (Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Bruckner Orchestra Linz); the American premiere was on January 31, 2012, (Glass's 75th birthday), …” (en.wikipedia.org)

Who Philip Glass influenced

• Sleep by Max Richter (2015). Sleep (Max Richter) — legacy for Philip Glass “At around the same time, the local milkman introduced him to minimalist music by the likes of Terry Riley, Philip Glass and John Cage.” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Mothertongue by Nico Muhly (2008). Mothertongue (Nico Muhly) — legacy for Philip Glass “Glass counts many artists among his friends and collaborators, including visual artists (Richard Serra, Chuck Close, Fredericka Foster), writers (Doris Lessing, David Henry Hwang, Allen Ginsberg), film and theatre directors (including Er…” (en.wikipedia.org)
• Orphée by Jóhann Jóhannsson (2016). Orphée (Jóhann Jóhannsson) — legacy for Philip Glass (musicbrainz.org)
• Hans Zimmer. Koyaanisqatsi (Philip Glass) — culture for Hans Zimmer (via Koyaanisqatsi) (musicbrainz.org)