Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble, with which he still performs on keyboards. He has written numerous operas and musical theatre works, twelve symphonies, eleven concertos, eight string quartets and various other chamber music, and film scores. Three of his film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards.
Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass. His family were Jewish emigrants from Lithuania. His father owned a record store and his mother was a librarian. In his memoir, Glass recalls that at the end of World War II his mother aided Jewish Holocaust survivors, inviting recent arrivals to America to stay at their home until they could find a job and a place to live. She developed a plan to help them learn English and develop skills so they could find work. His sister, Sheppie, would later do similar work as an active member of the International Rescue Committee.
Glass developed his appreciation of music from his father, discovering later his father's side of the family had many musicians. His cousin Cevia was a classical pianist, while others had been in vaudeville.
Glass has composed many film scores, starting with the orchestral score for Koyaanisqatsi (1982), and continuing with two biopics, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985, resulting in the String Quartet No. 3) and Kundun (1997) about the Dalai Lama, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. In 1968 he composed and conducted the score for director Harrison Engle's minimalist comedy short, Railroaded, played by the Philip Glass Ensemble. This was one of his earliest film efforts.
The year after scoring Hamburger Hill (1987), Glass began a long collaboration with the filmmaker Errol Morris with his music for Morris's celebrated documentaries, including The Thin Blue Line (1988) and A Brief History of Time (1991). He continued composing for the Qatsi trilogy with the scores for Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002). In 1995 he composed the theme for Reggio's short independent film Evidence. He made a cameo appearance—briefly visible performing at the piano—in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998), which uses music from Powaqqatsi, Anima Mundi and Mishima, as well as three original tracks by Glass. In the 1990s, he also composed scores for Bent (1997) and the thriller Candyman (1992) and its sequel, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), plus a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (1996).
In 1999, he finished a new soundtrack for the 1931 film Dracula. The Hours (2002) earned him a second Academy Award nomination, and was followed by another Morris documentary, The Fog of War (2003). In the mid-2000s Glass provided the scores to films such as Secret Window (2004), Neverwas (2005), The Illusionist and Notes on a Scandal, garnering his third Academy Award nomination for the latter. Glass's most recent film scores include No Reservations (Glass makes a brief cameo in the film sitting at an outdoor café), Cassandra's Dream (2007), Les Regrets (2009), Mr Nice (2010), the Brazilian film Nosso Lar (2010) and Fantastic Four (2015, in collaboration with Marco Beltrami). In 2009, Glass composed original theme music for Transcendent Man, about the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil by filmmaker Barry Ptolemy.
In the 2000s Glass's work from the 1980s again became known to wider public through various media. In 2005 his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1987) was featured in the surreal French thriller, La Moustache, providing a tone intentionally incongruous to the banality of the movie's plot. Metamorphosis: Metamorphosis One from Solo Piano (1989) was featured in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica in the episode "Valley of Darkness" and also in the final episode ("return 0") of Person of Interest. In 2008, Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto IV featuring Glass's "Pruit Igoe" (from Koyaanisqatsi). "Pruit Igoe" and "Prophecies" (also from Koyaanisqatsi) were used both in a trailer for Watchmen and in the film itself. Watchmen also included two other Glass pieces in the score: "Something She Has To Do" from The Hours and "Protest" from Satyagraha, act 2, scene 3. In 2013 Glass contributed a piano piece "Duet" to the Park Chan-wook film Stoker. In 2017 Glass scored the National Geographic Films documentary Jane (a documentary on the life of renowned British primatologist Jane Goodall).
Glass's music was featured in two award-winning films by Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, Elena (2011) and Leviathan (2014).
For television, Glass composed the theme for Night Stalker (2005).
Creation of Sentient Beings
Philip Glass Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
"Is there not a country below?"
Thereupon they thrust down the jewel-spear of Heaven,
and groping about found the ocean.
The brine which dripped from the point of the spear came together
and became an island. This island was named
and they made Ono-goro-jima the pillar of the center of the land.
Now the male god circled to the left,
and the female god circled to the right,
they went round the pillar separately.
When they met
they united as husband and wife.
They gave birth to the islands, the sea, the rivers, the mountains,
the ancestor of the trees, the ancestor of the herbs.
- The Nihongi
In the lead the whales proceed,
Mingling beneath the sea;
The 'opule fish advance in the distance;
They fill the deep ocean;
Like kumimi crabs clustered on the reef;
the youngest is carried by the current into darkness.
Black as night the opaque sea.
- The Kumulipo
Zambe, the son of the One Who Bears the World,
dipped his hands in the water, and sprinkled hair all over the body of the chimpanzee and said to him, moreover, "You will always live in the forests."
- Bulu Creation Story
Still Bumba our Creator was in pain.
He strained once again and from his mouth
nine living creatures came forth:
the leopard named Koy Bumba,
and Pongo Bumba the crested eagle,
the crocodile, Ganda Bumba,
and one little fish named Yo;
next, old Kono Bumba, the tortoise,
and Tsetse, the lightning, swift, deadly, beautiful like the leopard,
then the white heron, Nyanyi Bumba,
also one beetle,
and the goat named Budi.
The creatures themselves then created all the creatures.
The heron created the birds of the air,
The crocodile made the serpents and the iguana,
The goat produced every beast with horns.
Yo, the small fish, brought forth all the fish of all the seas and waters.
The beetle created insects.
Then the serpents in their turn made grasshoppers
and the iguana made the creatures without horns.
- Boshongo Creation Story
The lyrics of Philip Glass's song "Creation of Sentient Beings" tell different stories of creation from various cultures. The first paragraph is a retelling of the Japanese creation story from the Nihongi, where the gods Izanagi and Izanami created the islands and all living things on earth. The second paragraph is from the Kumulipo, a Hawaiian creation chant that describes the creatures that inhabit the ocean. The third paragraph is from the Bulu creation story of the Fang people of Gabon, where Zambe the Creator created the chimpanzee and sent it to live in the forest. The final paragraph is from the Boshongo creation story of the Bantu people of central Africa, where Bumba the Creator created the first living creatures, and they in turn created more animals and insects.
The song uses a repetitive and minimalist style that is characteristic of Philip Glass's music. The slow and steady rhythm emphasizes the weight and significance of the stories being told, while the simple and sparse melody allows the listener to focus on the words and their meaning. The use of different cultural creation stories highlights the universality of the human experience of wondering about the origins of the world and our place in it.
Line by Line Meaning
Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto stood on the floating bridge of Heaven and held counsel together, saying,
The gods Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto were on the bridge of heaven discussing among themselves
"Is there not a country below?"
They were curious whether a country existed below them
Thereupon they thrust down the jewel-spear of Heaven,
and groping about found the ocean.
The brine which dripped from the point of the spear came together
and became an island. This island was named
Ono-goro-jima,
and they made Ono-goro-jima the pillar of the center of the land.
After probing with the jewel-spear, they found the ocean and from the brine that dripped from the spear, they created an island named Ono-goro-jima and made it the center of the land with the title of a pillar.
Now the male god circled to the left,
and the female god circled to the right,
they went round the pillar separately.
When they met
they united as husband and wife.
The male god circled to the left and the female god to the right around the pillar, then united to become husband and wife.
They gave birth to the islands, the sea, the rivers, the mountains,
the ancestor of the trees, the ancestor of the herbs.
The couple gave birth to various landforms like islands, seas, rivers, mountains, ancestor trees, and herb ancestors.
In the lead the whales proceed,
Mingling beneath the sea;
The 'opule fish advance in the distance;
They fill the deep ocean;
Like kumimi crabs clustered on the reef;
the youngest is carried by the current into darkness.
Black as night the opaque sea.
This poem describes the sea and how sea creatures like whales, fish, kumimi crabs, and others live and move around in it.
Zambe, the son of the One Who Bears the World,
dipped his hands in the water, and sprinkled hair all over the body of the chimpanzee and said to him, moreover, "You will always live in the forests."
Zambe, the son of the creator, put hair on the body of the chimpanzee and told him to live forever in the forests.
Still Bumba our Creator was in pain.
The creator Bumba was still in agony.
He strained once again and from his mouth
nine living creatures came forth:
the leopard named Koy Bumba,
and Pongo Bumba the crested eagle,
the crocodile, Ganda Bumba,
and one little fish named Yo;
next, old Kono Bumba, the tortoise,
and Tsetse, the lightning, swift, deadly, beautiful like the leopard,
then the white heron, Nyanyi Bumba,
also one beetle,
and the goat named Budi.
The creator Bumba gave birth to nine living creatures, such as leopard, eagle, crocodile, fish, turtle, heron, beetle, and goat.
The creatures themselves then created all the creatures.
The heron created the birds of the air,
The crocodile made the serpents and the iguana,
The goat produced every beast with horns.
Yo, the small fish, brought forth all the fish of all the seas and waters.
The beetle created insects.
Then the serpents in their turn made grasshoppers
and the iguana made the creatures without horns.
Each of the nine creatures gave birth to another set of creatures; for example, Heron-to-birds, Crocodile-to-igguna, Goat-to-horned creatures, and so on.
Contributed by Eva K. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Michael Scribe
Even more beautiful than remembered when Glass champion Dennis Russell Davies and his Bruckner Orchester Linz performed it in a semi-staged version at BAM --
which I wrote up -- Michael McDonagh on Philip Glass Symphony 5.
Victor Hugo
Here in México I listened Another version of the principal singers on radio UNAM but i've never been able to buy the full CD, where can I buy it!!! WHERE!!!????