Philip Glass and Beck Discuss Collaborating on ‘Rework’

Catherine Opie for The New York Times

Beck and Philip Glass in Los Angeles.

Anticipating his 75th birthday, Philip Glass approached Beck about finding artists interested in reinventing pieces from the Glass catalog. "Rework: Philip Glass Remixed" features tracks by Amon Tobin, Tyondai Braxton, Beck and others. Glass and Beck met up recently at the Los Angeles home of Elyse and Stanley Grinstein, art collectors and philanthropists who befriended Glass decades ago.

How did you two meet?
GLASS: I actually don't remember. It's not that long ago. How did we meet?

BECK: You were looking into doing some kind of remix project.

GLASS: I'm interested in what happens to music when other people use it. Whereas there are composers who don't like anyone to touch their music, I think people should because they do things I can't think of. I'm the opposite of being possessive about a piece.

How did this cast of characters come together on the album?
BECK: I made a long list of people who I thought had affinities with his music. Listening to the music and thinking about how it connected with other musicians and realizing how many correlations I hadn't even thought of or had taken for granted, whether it's a Sufjan Stevens or a Radiohead.

What do you think pop music has gotten from Glass?
BECK: So much. Especially when I was working on my own remix for this. Hearing little bits of bands of the past 40 years. I think there are these patterns in the music, and I think that that really has become part of the consciousness of different musicians, whether they're aware of it or not.

GLASS: I felt completely comfortable working with people in pop music. I didn't think of it as a higher or lower art form. Young groups like Eighth Blackbird now, they can take art music and turn it into colloquial music and go back and forth between the two. We fought to break down those barriers, and those barriers are gone, there's no battle. When I hear young composers, it's not even clear to me whether they were conservatory-trained or they were trained in bars or restaurants or pop-music venues of the big cities. It's irrelevant.

Both of you have had fascinating careers, and I want to ask you about the question of change versus consistency, making an album that is recognizably yours while also making big changes from one album to the next. How do you negotiate that?
BECK: That's the hardest thing for me. 'Cause you go somewhere where your instinct takes you, and then the work begins when I have to get out of the woods and back to somewhere where people remotely recognize you.

GLASS: When I talk to young composers, I tell them, I know that you're all worried about finding your voice. Actually you're going to find your voice. By the time you're 30, you'll find it. But that's not the problem. The problem is getting rid of it. You have to find an engine for change. And that's what collaborative work does. Whatever we do together will make us different.

BECK: I love that story you told me, it was the first time we met, we were talking about the remix project. And someone had done a cello piece of yours, and then when you went to go see it, you didn't recognize it.

GLASS: It was Arthur Russell. And he was a very good cellist. I was doing a theater piece for the Mabou Mines, it was some Beckett piece, and I wrote him a cello piece, and he liked the work and was playing it. And I came back about three months later, and I heard it and I said, "Arthur, that's beautiful, but what happened to the piece?" And he said, "No, no, that is what you wrote," and I said, "Arthur, it's no longer what I wrote, it's your piece now." And he thought I was being upset, he apologized and I said, "No, no, no, I think we should put you down as the composer." He had reached the point of transformation. The incremental changes had turned it into this other thing. I love the fact that he did that. And I love the fact that he didn't know that he did it.

What do you both think about timelessness and your work, and how things in your work feel dated or not dated?
GLASS: It all sounds dated. Because I can't write that music again. I can't write "Einstein on the Beach" again. I played from it in a concert the other day, and it's like I never wrote it. My brain's been rewired. I don't think I've ever said this publicly, but I think that the music we write, it accurately reflects the way our brains work, and our brains are constantly evolving. Our brains are very plastic; they continue to grow.

How do you see the work that you did versus the work that you do?
GLASS: I don't mean to give you a Zen koan, but the work I did is the work I know, and the work I do is the work I don't know. That's why I can't tell you, I don't know what I'm doing. And it's the not knowing that makes it interesting.

Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang

Philip Glass and Beck Discuss Collaborating on ‘Rework’

Dengan url

http://koraninternetonline.blogspot.com/2012/10/philip-glass-and-beck-discuss.html

Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya

Philip Glass and Beck Discuss Collaborating on ‘Rework’

namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link

Philip Glass and Beck Discuss Collaborating on ‘Rework’

sebagai sumbernya