Maki Namekawa performs Philip Glass's "Distant Figure" - A Passacaglia

[@SeattleMarc]

I was lucky enough to see her perform the compete Etudes in Brooklyn a few years ago. An unforgettable piano marathon. Glass was there, as he usually is at these events, just another fan in the crowd. I remember at another Glass concert a few years ago I was sitting reading the program and waiting for it to start. I was pontificating, lecturing my wife, "mansplaining" even, about his music and style in probably too loud of a voice and most likely saying lots of wildly inaccurate and made-up things to impress her. I turn around and guess who is sitting quietly right behind me listening in? Never been so embarrassed. That'll teach me.

[@kathleenthompson8134]

@MarcMiller, humility is a lesson we all need to be open to all the time (I know she's smacked me in the face a few times!). This music is so beautiful; I'm so glad it's here for all of us.

[@hubbcap54]

This made me smile. Thank you for sharing.

[@psykodiffeqparty]

Great story and lesson for us all, thanks.for sharing.

[@povertyspec9651]

LOL at this story. PG is a super cool guy. I'm sure he was getting a kick out of it.

[@dewaynewilliams8837]

I was a young college student when I first met Philip Glass at a Dracula concert. They played the film score live right behind a transparent screen projecting the film. Friends, family and even strangers will hear me rant my passion for Philip Glass music and my ticket to see him live. I'm sure they would look it up and think this guy is strange. I think we all know the feeling where you become part of the PG cult and you find yourself defending it. Back to the concert, so after the concert I went backstage and patiently waited with a few others to get an autograph and talk to Philip Glass. Well the carpet was swept right from under my feet when I overheard someone say he may not come out because I may rob him. I'm an African American male and that was the first time ever I felt shame and self-conscious of who I am and it never went away to this day, I'm 42 now. Honestly I don't know what bubble I was living in not to think this wouldn't eventually happen, but I guess you get to age where you fit into a profile. Philip Glass did come out signed my cd cover and was the most compassionate individual I ever met. Over the years I met him three more times, still self-conscious of me and that I didn't entirely fit in with the crowd. A few years later, I went to the back stage or some sort of VIP fancy room, I stood in a corner because I definitely didn't fit in clothing wise lol and he comes in and came right to me in my corner of shame signed all three of my Qatsi posters and we spent time talking about the movies, while others sip wine and ate cheese and probably could care less of the creative mind behind those addictive melody's. He asked me to stay but my self-conscious got the best of me. Just shows what a great person he is. We need to be kind to one another, you may effect someone negatively. His music is timeless, compassionate, open, and from what I can gather his persona is too. I have my posters framed and on my wall.

[@charlottejaustin6127]

DeWayne so happy you stayed brave and kept going to claim your rightful place as a fan. This should never have required such bravery...by you or anyone...but since it did I say well done! Wonderful story about a wonderful creator from a wonderful fan. ++cj

[@jillswarbrick-banks2587]

Thank you for telling us your very moving experiences. It is to your credit that you can rise above such pain. Mr Glass obviously sees your light too! My heartfelt warm wishes to you.

[@roylangtree2362]

Philip Glass's music never ceases to amaze me

[@PavelDGromnic]

How fortunate we have been to be regaled by these great artists. Is there anywhere more joyful moments than in his writing and her performing this wonderful piece? I listen to Glass' music every day. Something, somewhere, sometime in the day. Every day. I never realized before that music could have transforming capacities to this extent. Most likely I have only a few more years to feel this moving experience, but am happy for every single day of it. Thank you Mr. Glass, and thank you to all the inspired performers who bring this to us.

[@beatrixvantil8623]

Wonderful Passacaglia , Maki Namekawa is so beautiful in her white organdi kimono . poetical ensemble

[@sandycarlson6266]

This is beautiful. Stellar. So much heart in this music.

[@elizabethfletcher6029]

Wonderful. I love this. It brings joy in the trauma of lockdown. People will love his music forever. Just fantastic.

[@tomhighsmith]

Fantastic visualization goes perfectly with the fantastic music.

[@charlottejaustin6127]

Wow, so enjoyed this. Dexterity and flow of both the composition and the performance just transported me to another world. Always needed. ++cj

[@joethompson1467]

So sublime. Thank you.

[@GaryGold]

Thank you very much - great performance

[@roylangtree2362]

Maki Namekawa is probably. the finest inte rprerpretor of Philip Glass's piano music Ib I .

[@ИгорьДымченко-к9л]

Definitely, absolutely.

[@VallaMusic]

this is the first time i ever thought Glass' music sounds a bit like Franz Liszt in places - at any rate i'm glad i listened - this piece i really like from start to finish - some love today for the love/hate relationship i have with PGs music - Ha HA

[@nspgiszn9914]

Impressive !

[@paulpedersen1329]

Wonderful. Full of wonder.

[@l.stoiber2630]

So emotional, just wonderful, thank you!

[@gmztv]

Bravo! 👏 thank you for the beautiful performance!

[@lucianamaiorana1693]

Fantastic!

[@turearruda2947]

❤️

[@joykeithline698]

Wow-thank you!

[@Loreto_]

🙏

[@barbarasmith6005]

It's nice, but I guess I was expecting a passacaglia a little more like Walter Piston's. But then again, Piston was writing in another time (1940s, I think) within an post-tonal sound system.

[@LaserGryph]

There seems to be two types of performances of this thing. Those that include the harmonic errors published by Chester Music and those whose performers who have to intuit the correct harmonies on their own. It's a shame Chester was so careless with this piece.

[@ThePrigo]

Glass music is way too overrated, banal, simple, prosaic and, yes, ugly. It adds nothing to my soul and senses. Some simple iterative bass lines and melodic packets, a very conventional and super basic harmonic structure, and that's all. Yet he is an Untouchable, they tribute him as one of the "COMPOSERS" of this century. Bleating sheeps in the herd. I wonder if all those who like his music (they say, but do they, actually?) ever listened to the music of Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, Dvorak, Liszt, Bach, Elgar, Saint Saens... just to mention few.

[@MGJS71]

Suit yourself. Yes, I've listened to all the composers you mention - & many more. It's true Glass employs some apparently conventional arpeggios/scales etc, but the way he employs them is genuinely thought provoking & original. I remember looking at the score of the Etudes in a music shop and thinking "what? where is the music?" but I wasn't seeing the wood for the trees. The pacing, the surprising harmonic turns. Glass seems to be enjoying a remarkable "Indian Summer" like e.g. Richard Strauss - long may it continue - the recent Piano Sonata is fascinating.

[@ThePrigo]

@@MGJS71 No way. As I imagined, it’s always the same old story. They sell ugliness, banalty, lack of core creativity, of sensibility and of genius, for “provocation”, audacity, “surprising harmonic turns” (seriuosly? It’s just super basic, elementary harmony [I-IV-V…].), innovation, brilliance. “Oh You poor little naive, you can’t understand this, because it is... beyond all that” they say pompously. So no one dares to criticize, otherwise he will be relegated into the muddy underworld of the neglected and uncultured. It’s much too easier pretending to be a smart and fine conoisseur by mumbling just a couple of clichè phrases: “oh yeah, what a terrific artist Glass is! And listen how surprising those harmonic turns are!”

[@jeanlot]

I play Bach and Glass ...their music is different - but i like both

[@garygimmestad4272]

You’re making meaningless comparisons. And you assume that, having heard your preferred composers, the Glass lovers would abandon their naive sensibilities. You’re bent on denigrating those who like Glass - the “bleating sheep” - when you know nothing about them at all. You also assume far too much when you project a cultish attitude onto them. I can appreciate and love some of Glass’s music but it’s through a very different lens than the narrowly exclusive one you apparently use. Yep, I am bored by some of it. The piece in this video is not my favorite Glass. A lot of it of works wonderfully in film. A great example is his “Mad Rush” used in the film series “The 100-foot Wave.” It perfectly fits the obsessive-compulsive ndrive of the surfers in the film. The music doesn’t narrate; it elicits a mental and physical state. If you demand the narrative process of character-driven drama, the turns and twists of motivic and key developments in sonata form (as with the composers you listed - all of whom I love and have studied in college and grad school as a performer and musicology major), you’ll come up empty-handed with Glass. You assume we have to dumb down to like Glass. That’s naive. It’s only true if that’s the only way you’re able to hear music that uses such simple elements. That appears to be your condition. You might be surprised to learn of the very tightly organized formal structure of “Mad Rush.” It’s not at all naive or elementary. Glass is not a charlatan and he’s not at all “untouchable.” We’re not swooning, star-struck teens - although I prefer that crowd to the orthodox gatekeepers of culture. I’m not trying to change your mind about Glass; that’s very likely a futile endeavor. But I am calling out your chauvinistic insult to our intelligence.