I would dare say there are only two kinds of composers (at a rather ridiculous risk of oversimplifying):  1) those who, in searching for a personal, unique mode of expression, dig ever deeper and deeper within a particular aesthetic niche, and 2) those who, in searching for a personal, unique mode of expression, explore outward in any (and sometimes every) possible aesthetic direction.

I would argue (again, at the risk of appalling oversimplification) that this is perhaps the most significant distinction dividing various camps of composers/performers/listeners/scholars.  Everyone seems to pick one of these two teams.  Somehow this seems an elegant (if imprecise) overview of artistic work -- digging vs. striving.  I see myself in the digging camp.  Others see me as an imbecile.  The jury's still out, and hopefully will be for some time.

Along those lines, I have a huge admiration for Glass on a great many levels, but I really do hate the work.  Late 60s/early 70s Glass comes close to something that excites me a great deal, but I haven't yet heard a piece that engages timbre/texture/register/instrumentation/etc. in a way that I find satisfactory.  But I find the forms quite stunning and innovative and clever.  80s Glass seems altogether too wimpy, but I'm making every effort to see 80s Glass as his attempts at probing deeper (and perhaps at fixing errors in the earlier work?).  (I have it on ... well ... direct personal information/communication that perhaps there are larger, less ethical considerations at play, but I like to think the best of people.)

Anyhow, Chichivache, perhaps 'sameness' is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.  To some, Palestrina all sounds the same; to others, there's an infinite variety.  To some, all Ferneyhough or all Lachenmann or all Sciarrino or etc. etc. all sound the same, but to others there's a huge range of distinction within the work.

For those who may be interested and haven't noticed, the Godfrey Reggio film Naqoyqatsi is on BBC2 tv Saturday night / Sunday morning. Glass's soundtrack integral to the project.

   //////////////<<<<<<<<<<<<Yes, thousands of them! e.g. almost any Baroque composer (and Mozart!)

  ///////////////////////<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<But isn't immediate recognisability the main aim of the contemporary composer? That in effect was what my quondam composition teacher thought. If so, Glass has achieved it in spades, as they say. But actually he is good in some works. I remember being very impressed by hearing a radio broadcast of his opera "Akhnaten".

Thanks for the link. I'll read that later.

For the record, I thought it was wonderful (it took till some way into Act Two for me to feel that way, but from there on it was pretty much all up, and the evening grew even more in memory in the course of Friday and Saturday. I'll try to post more when I have a bit more time ...).

Now, here's a question. When a paper like the Independent on Sunday has someone like Anna Picard on its books, who is just about the only critic currently working in London whose thoughts on Satyagraha I'd pay to read, why did they send some old duffer who clearly had decided what he thought about Glass before going, so that he ends up trying to give a good review without giving Glass any credit at all:

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article2437467.ece

Why would you have to "reincarnate" him? He's not died, has he?...

By all means do, but why assume that Mr Christiansen "clearly hadn't flicked the 'on' switch on his brain in the first place" just becasue he wrote of it as he did? I have not seen the work myself but have heard as much as I could stand of it (no, more, actually) and, whilst listening without seeing no more gives the full picture than listening to only part of the work does, I have to say that, from such experience as I have had of the work, my sympathies here are pretty much with Mr Christiansen, but then that's just a matter of personal antipathy to this music (and most of the rest of Glass that I've heard, actually). Mr Christiansen's review is indeed pretty damning, but I think he meant what he said and based it upon the experiences that he actually had on the occasion rather than on previous personal experience, still less received opinion.

Best,

Alistair