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).
The Poet Acts
Philip Glass Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
the mind moves back and forth,
trying to distinguish simplicity.
There are no look backs nor verification,
the meaning it is not memorized:
there are no plans for composition.
Grammar gets lost in a valley.
Analysis perishes;
But what is truth really?
That cannot be determined.
Most of the poet acts walk near by the words love, freedom, sadness, melancholy and self-awareness;
while others
struggle to find the voice
that once seemed clear
and now is completely forgotten.
The poet battles his way out from an emotional highway,
with drastic turns,
endless yellow lights, highlighted speed limits,
altering what once was
a smooth and unstoppable drive.
The acts dissipate between thoughts that put in question
what started with inspiration.
The poet has no map and no guidelines.
The mind travels deep down,
searching for the unknown.
It might be even possible
that nothing would come back at all as the written word,
maybe the emotion does not get exposed and all becomes
a lying fact
waiting to be broken and scrutinized.
Truth happens by accident.
Our illusory world tricks us in thinking we did find meaning,
but life does not care
at all.
The poet acts, similar to pieces of paper, are there,
in plain sight,
waiting to be judge for their content,
even when there may be,
in blank pages,
nothing to tell…
In Philip Glass's song The Poet Acts, the lyrics convey the struggles and uncertainties that a poet faces while trying to create a masterpiece. The first verse of the song talks about the poet's dilemma of the present moment. The poet keeps moving back and forth in his mind trying to identify something simple to write about. However, there's no confirmation of what he's thinking, and he has no memorized plan to start composing. Grammar is lost in the valley, and there's no analysis, only the truth is sought. But what is the truth? This question remains unanswered, unsolved, and undefined. The poet acts walk near words like love, freedom, melancholy, and self-awareness, but he struggles to find the voice that seemed clear and now forgotten.
Line by Line Meaning
The poet acts like if there is no present,
The poet writes as if the present moment does not exist.
the mind moves back and forth,
The poet's thoughts oscillate between different ideas.
trying to distinguish simplicity.
The poet seeks to find simple truth in complex ideas.
There are no look backs nor verification,
The poet does not look back or check for accuracy.
the meaning it is not memorized:
The poet does not remember the meaning.
there are no plans for composition.
The poet does not plan the structure of the work.
Grammar gets lost in a valley.
The poet ignores grammar rules.
Analysis perishes;
The poet does not analyze their work.
only truth is searched.
The poet seeks only the truth.
But what is truth really?
The poet questions the true nature of truth.
That cannot be determined.
The poet believes truth is beyond understanding.
Most of the poet acts walk near by the words love, freedom, sadness, melancholy and self-awareness;
The majority of the poet's work explores themes of love, freedom, sadness, melancholy, and self-awareness.
while others struggle to find the voice that once seemed clear and now is completely forgotten.
Other works by the poet attempt to recapture a lost voice.
The poet battles his way out from an emotional highway, with drastic turns, endless yellow lights, highlighted speed limits, altering what once was a smooth and unstoppable drive.
The poet navigates a difficult emotional path, with obstacles that impede their progress.
The acts dissipate between thoughts that put in question what started with inspiration.
The poet's thoughts wane and fluctuate, leading them to doubt their initial inspiration.
The poet has no map and no guidelines.
The poet has no clear path or structure to follow.
The mind travels deep down, searching for the unknown.
The poet delves deep into their subconscious to uncover new ideas.
It might be even possible that nothing would come back at all as the written word, maybe the emotion does not get exposed and all becomes a lying fact waiting to be broken and scrutinized.
It is possible that the poet's emotional experiences may not be effectively conveyed in writing, leading to a false representation of their feelings.
Truth happens by accident.
The poet believes that truth is an accidental discovery.
Our illusory world tricks us in thinking we did find meaning, but life does not care at all.
The world often deceives us into thinking we have found meaning, but life does not actually care about our human conceptions of meaning.
The poet acts, similar to pieces of paper, are there, in plain sight, waiting to be judge for their content, even when there may be, in blank pages, nothing to tell…
The poet's works are present and visible, open to interpretation and criticism, even if some works are seemingly empty.
Writer(s): Philip Glass
Contributed by Christian E. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Alan Bleier
on Kuru Field of Justice
I couldn't find them anywhere on the internet, so I'm posting them here:
(they are simply passages of the bhagavad-gita)
GHANDI:
yotsyamanan avekse 'ham ya ete 'tra samagatah
dhartarastrasya durbuddher yuddhe priya-cikirsavah
evam ukto hrsikeso gudakesena bharata
senayor ubhayor madhye sthapayitva rathottamam
(kirpaya parayavisto visidann idam abravit)
ARJUNA:
karpanya-dosopahata-svabhavah
prcchami tvam dharma-sammudha-ceta
yac chreyah syan niscitam bruhi tan me
sisyas te 'ham sadhi mam tvam prapannam
(kirpaya parayavisto visidann idam abravit)
KRISHNA:
atha cet tvam imam dharmyam sangramam na karisyasi
tatah sva-dharmam kirtim ca hitva papam avapsyasi
hato va prapsyasi svargam jitva va bhosyase mahim
tasmad uttistha kaunteya yuddhaya krta-niscayah
sukha-duhkhe same krtva labhalabhau jayajayau
tato yuddhaya yujyasva naivam papam avapsyasi
CHORUS:
tam tatha krpayavistam asru-purnakuleksanam
visidantam idam vakyam uvaca madhusudanah
kutas tva kasmalam idam visame samupasthitam
anarya-justam asvargyam ¡akirti-karam arjuna!
GHANDI:
sukha-duhkhe same krtva labhalabhau jayajayau
tato yuddhaya yujyasva naivam papam avapsyasi