Glassworks is a six-movement chamber work Philip Glass wrote for the recording studio after his large concert and stage pieces, released by CBS in 1982 on LP and on cassette, each with its own mix. It was meant to bring his music to a wider audience, and it did: the album sold well and made his name widely known.
A low, dark opera built by deleting violins — and a Western fantasy dressed as ancient ritual.
Einstein on the Beach is a 1979 recording of Philip Glass’s 1976 opera—the first of his portrait trilogy—composed in 1975 in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, in close collaboration with Robert Wilson. It incorporates Parts 1 and 2 of Another Look at Harmony. The 1979 recording features Paul Zukofsky on solo violin.
The 1983 album of Philip Glass’s score for Koyaanisqatsi is a landmark application of minimalism to film: nine movements built from repetition, brass sustain, choral tonality, and synth-driven ostinatos—performed by the Philip Glass Ensemble and the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble under Michael Riesman. It does not develop themes, resolve harmonically, or prioritise individual expression. It treats musical time as malleable, like the film’s time-lapse and slow motion. It is essential for listeners who treat sound as architecture—not atmosphere.
Satyagraha is Philip Glass’s 1979 opera, recorded in 1985, based on Gandhi’s early South African years. It uses Sanskrit text, symphony orchestra, chorus, and solo voices to embody the concept of satyagraha — not narrate it. Repetition is its grammar. Resistance is its rhythm. It does not explain. It insists.