Glass originally wrote Part I of Music in Twelve Parts in early
1971: ““The first movement was originally intended to stand on its own
and the ‘Twelve Parts’ in the title referred to twelve lines of
counterpoint in the score,” he explained.
“I called it Music in Twelve Parts because the keyboards
played six lines, there were three wind players involved, and I had
originally planned to augment the ensemble to bring in three more lines,
for a total of twelve.
I played it for a friend of mine and, when it was through, she said,
‘That’s very beautiful; what are the other eleven parts going to be
like?’ And I thought that was an interesting misunderstanding and
decided to take it as a challenge and go ahead and compose eleven more
parts.”
The previously unreleased concert from 1975 features the Philip Glass Sextet performing five tracks at La Maison de Radio Paris – part 1, 2,
3, 11 and 12. The group was composed of Philip Glass, Jon Gibson, Dickie
Landry, Michael Riesman, Joan La Barbara and Richard Peck. (Gabriela Helfet)
