…warm, low-key and often delightful…At times Words Without Music reads the way Mr. Glass's compositions sound at their best: propulsive, with a surreptitious emotional undertow. Like his music, his prose is made up of simple componentsplain, honest sentences that work their magic cumulatively. He's at his best writing about process and craft…
The New York Times - Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
03/09/2015 In this episodic narrative of intellectual and artistic development, famed American composer Glass describes his involvement in the avant-garde music and art scenes in New York in the 1950s through the 1980s, as well as learning harmony and counterpoint in Paris from the brilliant composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger in the 1960s. He recounts touring the Indian subcontinent in search of a guru and eventually winning fame for repetitive compositions like Einstein on the Beach and Koyaanisqatsi, which delighted some listeners and enraged others. (When an annoyed audience member came up and started banging on the piano keys, Glass recalls, “I belted him across the jaw and he staggered and fell off the stage.”) At its core, Glass’s story is about work—he worked as a mover, a plumber, and a taxi driver to keep his family fed during his decades of obscurity, and since then he has immersed himself in the craft of composing. Glass is raptly alive to the aesthetic epiphanies, philosophy, spirituality, and magnetic personalities he has encountered, yet his prose is conversational and free of pretense. The result is a lively, absorbing read that makes Glass’s rarefied cultural sphere wonderfully accessible. (Apr.)
"Essential reading for anyone remotely interested in the evolution of the avant-garde during the past half-century…Words Without Music [is] an important contribution to cultural history."
Dallas Morning News - Steven G. Kellman
"An icon of the avant-garde."
"A joy to read… Considering the insight he provides into the various works he does discuss (particularly the operas and early minimalist pieces), anyone with a passing interest in Glass will come away with a better understanding of this musical giant's creative process and influence."
Shelf Awareness, Starred Review - Noah Cruickshank
"Long overdue… [Words Without Music ] rightly touches on only the major works of his early and middle periods, gracefully leaving the reader to conclude how much the 78-year-old Glass… has changed the cutting-edge music world, how that world is run, how pieces are made and disseminated, and the value of his having saved serious music from the hegemony of modernism."
Philadelphia Inquirer - David Patrick Stearns
"[A]n engaging, even charming book, one of the most readable autobiographies ever written by a classical composer."
Commentary Magazine - Terry Teachout
"An absorbing, graceful, and humane window into the interior life of one of our most important and arguably most famous composers…. For everyone who has been fascinated and moved by his music, the book will be full of deep insights into how Glass the man became Glass the composer."
The Brooklyn Rail - George Grella
"Warm, low-key and often delightful…. A portrait of a composer who rose to prominence almost entirely outside of the usual institutions…. Words Without Music reads the way Mr. Glass’s compositions sound at their best: propulsive, with a surreptitious emotional undertow."
New York Times - Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim
"Fascinating…. Glass’s wry observations of those he has worked with—alongside memories of those he has loved and lost—remind us of the human scale of his achievement over the years, and of how the years are numbered."
BBC Music Magazine - Nick Shave
"Readers don’t have to like Glass’s music to find pleasure in this warm, unaffected, and deeply human book, but they may come away with an improved understanding of and a greater appreciation for both the music and its composer…. If a listener’s view of a composer is one of the things that shapes his or her perception of the music, an autobiography that alters the composer’s image should have the potential to change the way the music comes across. Words Without Music has done precisely that for me."
"[Glass has] fascinated several generations of listeners, demonstrating mesmeric properties that are as palpable as they are inexplicable."
"Words Without Music is a sustained performance with fascinating scenes and a lucid text. If there is a ‘music’ to this book, it is the regular rhythm that being in the presence of someone humble and kind allows—it is a comfort and a constancy."
BOMB Magazine - Michael Coffey
"Philip Glass has written a fascinating account of his life with recollections of family, teachers, and friends. From his childhood in Baltimore to his studies with Ravi Shankar and Nadia Boulanger and the collaborations with Robert Wilson, Allen Ginsburg, Godfrey Reggio, and Martin Scorsese, among others, Glass offers insights to his music and personal life. Words Without Music will be a pleasure to read, not only for musicians (although they will particularly enjoy it) but for anyone interested in the world of art."
"Glass, a key figure of musical minimalism, was one of the first composers to reject a distinction between 'ethnic' music and Western classical music, and in this memoir he explains how he came to view a composition not as a linear narrative but as progressive rhythmic sequences."
"So bursting with culture and anecdote that names and stories virtually explode out of it… Gloriously readable."
Buffalo News - Jeff Simon
"The most prolific and popular of all contemporary composers."
"No matter your opinion of Glass’ music, you will like Glass the man….Aspiring musicians and artists will learn much from Glass, as will general readers, musical or not, who will discover an artistic life exceptionally well lived."
"An appealing memoir from one of the foremost creative geniuses of the last fifty years, Philip Glass’s homespun reminiscences are as accessible as his entrancing musical compositions. In his epic quest to discover ‘where the music comes from,’ Glass chronicles his transformative, lifelong journey across four continents, including his musical epiphany with Ravi Shankar, which had a dramatic impact on contemporary instrumental music and opera."
"America's most significant symphonist."
"Well-supplied with droll observations and plainspoken assessments regarding the details of a career that has been as remarkable and noteworthy as any in American music—indeed, in American culture…. Honest and candid."
Boston Globe - Steve Smith
"Words Without Music is one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read. The book overflows with love and enthusiasm for life and art. Philip Glass’s vision of human culture as the transmission of ideas through time is transcendent. Hilarious, touching and profound, this book should be read by everyone interested in music and great writing."
"I came to Philip Glass’s music very simply, without any critical prodding or guidance. I listened and was transfixed. I was excited to work with Philip on Kundun , and he exceeded my wildest expectations giving us a score that was genuinely transcendent. He’s exceeded my expectations again with this rich and beautifully written memoir. Who knew that he was as good a writer as he is a composer?"
"Illuminating…[Glass] is always vigorous in defending his artistic choices and aesthetics. Glass's music may sound simple, but it revels in subtle complexity. "
"Lively and colorful…. Glass is one of the most articulate composers around. Insight and practical common sense pervade his new book…. With a composer’s sense of form, Glass returns, in the final pages, to his youth, the subject that elicits his most evocative writing."
04/01/2015 Reading composer Glass's (Einstein on the Beach; Satyagraha) memoir is like listening to one of his earlier compositions, which would alight upon a particular theme, develop it for a time, and then repeat. Though the book unrolls in roughly chronological order, beginning with Glass's childhood in Baltimore in the 1940s and ending with the Cocteau trilogy, individual chapters deal with subjects such as studying with French composer/conductor Nadia Boulanger, journeying to India and Tibet, and the composition of operas, developing them forward in time before leaping back to take up the main thread of the narrative. Though the result is occasionally jarring, it does make for some intriguing meditations on several of Glass's major creative influences, including jazz music and experimental theater. His prose will win no points for style, particularly when he touches on more personal topics such as the effect of the AIDS crisis on the artistic community of which he is an inextricable part. Yet his insights into his own creativity and the influences of theater, visual art, travel, and spirituality on it, are fascinating. VERDICT A satisfying reflection by one of the late 20th-century's preeminent American composers that should please fans. [See Prepub Alert, 10/5/14.]—Genevieve Williams, Pacific Lutheran Univ. Lib., Tacoma
2014-12-27 An engaging memoir of an adventuresome, iconoclastic career.The composer of 25 operas, 30 movie soundtracks and scores of other works, Glass (b. 1937) reflects on friendship, love, fatherhood and more than 70 years in music. Growing up in Baltimore, he played the flute; by the age of 15, he was the classical music buyer for his father's record store. As a high school sophomore, he took an early-entrance exam to the University of Chicago. To everyone's surprise but his, he passed and spent the next four years in that rich intellectual community, reveling in the city's major, and diverse, musical venues. One question obsessed him: "Where does music come from?" Composing, he decided, might help him find the answer. When he graduated, Glass submitted a small portfolio of compositions as application to Juilliard. Although not admitted immediately because he lacked academic preparation, after a few years as a nonmatriculated student, he earned a scholarship to the school's small department of composition. Like Chicago, New York opened up a thrilling aesthetic world. To support himself as a student and long after, Glass worked as a furniture mover, sheetrock installer, studio assistant to artist Richard Serra, self-taught plumber and taxi driver. He composed much of his opera Einstein at the Beach, he writes, "at night after driving a cab." In the 1960s and '70s, Glass became deeply interested in Eastern culture: hatha yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Taoist qi gong and tai chi, all of which influenced his music. Equally crucial were his teachers, especially the imperious Nadia Boulanger, with whom he studied in Paris, and Ravi Shankar. Undaunted by critics who called his music "nonsense," Glass aimed to create an emotional experience for his listeners, with music that felt "like a force of nature…organic and powerful, and mindful, too." Writing with warmth and candor, Glass portrays himself as driven, self-confident and tenaciously determined to invent his own, radically new musical language.