Singing Archaeology: Philip Glass's Akhnaten

by John Richardson

While Philip Glass's operas, film scores, symphonies, and popular works have made him America's best-known classical composer, almost no analysis of his compositional techniques grounded in current cultural theory has yet been published. John Richardson's in-depth examination shows how the third opera of Glass's famous trilogy, the story of an adrogynous monarch who authored radical social and religious reforms, encapsulates Glass's ideational orientation at the time, both in terms of his unique conception of music theater and with regard to broader social questions. Glass's nontraditional musical syntax, his experimental, minimalist approach, and his highly ambiguous tonality have resisted interpretation, but Richardson overcomes those difficulties by developing new theoretical models through which to analyze both the work and its genesis.

In Akhnaten, Richardson says, the composer's concepts of sound and dramatic context, cultural theory, and gender construction intersect, providing perhaps the best demonstration of "the very nature of Glass's aesthetic, which places a strong emphasis on implicit levels of signification and steers clear of conventional 'story telling' narrative strategies." Careful explanations of theory and compositional strategies, close readings of the work itself, consideration of the collaborative aspects of the opera's evolution, and incorporation of previously unpublished interviews with Glass himself combine to illuminate both a landmark work of contemporary musical theater and a dominant figure on the American musical landscape.

Genres: Egypt, Music

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

1964-present

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[James]

While I know that this is not an Egyptological text, and that the focus is on works that specifically influenced Glass' research and writing, I do think it borders on irresponsible to re-represent some of those ideas here without real criticism or rebuttal beyond 'it's a controversial theory'.

An interesting work on the opera elsewise though some theses are more convincing than others in my reading.

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read prior to seeing the opera.