Really, I don't see that Glass's 10th is worse than any of his others. They are all variations on the same basic compositional technique, which owes nothing to, say, 19th C Austro-German symphonic construction. Expecting a Glass symphony to be argued at the same level as a Sibelius symphony is missing the point. He does what he sets out to do, and I for one find it perfectly listenable. Good motorway music, by the way.
"...nothing to, say..."? "nothing to say", surely?!
Is 10 much worse than 1-9? Probably not so's you'd notice. "Expecting a Glass symphony to be
argued" at any level is "missing the point", I think. Whenever I listen to a Glass piece (which I have to admit is not so often!), I cannot resist the urge to listen to one of Carter's orchestral works immediately afterwards, in order to take the lack of taste away (by which I mean blandness and insipidity, not "tastelessness"
per se) and to restore my faith in American orchestral music in the latter half of the last century. Yes, PG does what he sets out to do, but quite why he keeps setting out to do it remains a mystery to me - and I for one find it perfectly forgettable!
Sorry!
I, too, have a great deal of respect fo Martin Anderson's writing although, in this instance, I not only fail to get on a level with it but I also wish that, instead of "The whole thing is over-scored", he'd written "The whole thing is overblown"...(groan!)...
But I don't think that any of Glass's symphonies could qualify as the thread topic...
