Words Without Music: A Memoir
Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical music. Yet in Words Without Music, his critically acclaimed memoir, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. From his childhood in Baltimore to his student days in Chicago and at Juilliard, to his first journey to Paris and a life-changing trip to India, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his creative consciousness. Whether describing working as an unlicensed plumber in gritty 1970s New York or composing Satyagraha, Glass breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation. Words Without Music ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.
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Philip Glass was born in Baltimore in 1937 and studied at the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. The composer of operas, film scores, and symphonies, he performs regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble and lives in New York.
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.--Kyle Gann
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.--Steve Smith
