Notes On: Einstein on the Beach

NOTES ON Einstein on the Beach Philip Glass PART ONE The music for Einstein on the Beach was written in the spring, summer and fall of 1975. Bob Wilson and I worked directly from a series of his drawings which eventually formed the designs for the sets. Prior to that period, we had reached agreement on the general thematic content, the overall length, its divisions into 4 acts, 9 scenes and 5 connecting "knee plays." We also determined the makeup of the company-4 principal actors, 12 singers, doubling when possible as dancers and actors, a solo violinist, and the amplified ensemble of keyboards, winds and voices with which my music is usually associated. The three main recurring visual themes of the opera (Train/Trial/Field with Spaceship) are linked to three main musical themes. The overall thematic divisions of the opera are as follows: Knee Play 1 (Chorus and electric organ) Act I Scene 1 - rain (ensemble with solo voice and chorus joining at the end) Scene 2- Trial (chorus, violin, electric organ and flutes) Knee Play 2 (Violin solo) Act II Scene 1- Field with Spaceship (ensemble with solo voice/dancers) Scene 2- Night Train (4 voices, chorus and small ensemble) Knee Play 3 (Chorus a cappella) Act Ill Scene 1 -Trial/Prison (chorus and electric organ, ensemble at the end) Scene 2-Field with Spaceship (6 voices, violin, electric organ) 63 Copyright @ 1976 Philip Class SPACESHIP Knee Play 4 (Chorus and Violin) Act IV Scene 1- Building/Train (chorus and ensemble) Scene 2-Bed (solo electric organ and voice) Scene 3-Spaceship (chorus and ensemble) Knee Play 5 (Women's chorus, violin and electric organ) The most important musical material appears in the knee plays and features the violin. Dramatically speaking, the violinist (dressed as Einstein , as are the performers on stage) appears as a soloist as well as a character in the opera. His playing position-midway between the orchestra and the stage performers-offers a clue to his role. He is seen, then, perhaps as Einstein himself, or simply as a witness to the stage events; but, in any case, as a musical touchstone to the work as a whole. It might be useful to delineate some of the visual/musical transformation of the material which makes up the opera: The image of the train appears three times-first in Act I, Scene 1, then in Act II, Scene 2 (as the Night Train), and finally in Act IV, Scene 1, where it appears in the same perspective a6 the Night Train, but this time transformed into a building. The music for the first train is in three parts, or "themes." The first theme (based on the superimposition of two shifting rhythmic patterns, one changing and one fixed) makes up most of the music of this scene. The second appearance of the train image, the Night Train, is a reworking of the first theme, this time with a larger complement of voices. The music for the Building is a development of the second theme, recognizable by its highly accented rhythmic profile, in which the repeated figures form simple arithmetic progressions. The 64 third theme is a rhythmic expansion of a traditional cadential formula. This "cadence" theme forms the principal material of the opera, being used for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Knee Plays, as well as almost the entire music for Act IV, Scene 3, the Spaceship. Act I, Scene 1 Act II, Scene 2 Act IV, Scene 1 Act IV, Scene 3 (Train) (Night Train) (Building) (Spaceship) Themes 1 1 2 2. 3 3 Knee Plays 2, 3 and 4 The second major visual image, the Trial, also appears three times in the opera-first in Act I, Scene 2, then in Act Ill, Scene 1 where, after the first few minutes, the stage divides, becoming half-trial/half-prison, and finally in Act IV, Scene 2, where the bed which has been in the center of the trial, and in half of the trial/prison, now occupies the entire stage. Here again the trial music is in three parts, or "themes." After the opening of the first trial we hear the violin, accompanied...