Philip Glass - Music in 12 Parts (The Philip Glass Ensemble)

Information

Composer: Philip Glass

• Music In 12 Parts

The Philip Glass Ensemble

Date: 2026

Label: Orange Mountain Music

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Philip Glass composed Music in Twelve Parts between 1971 and 1974 as an expansive exploration of the repetitive structures that defined his early musical language. Originally conceived as a single piece built around twelve contrapuntal lines, the work evolved into a monumental twelve-part composition after Glass embraced a listener’s misunderstanding of the title as a creative challenge. Written for the Philip Glass Ensemble, the four-hour work marked a turning point in the ensemble’s artistic and professional development, solidifying its distinctive amplified instrumentation and performance style. Widely regarded as one of Glass’s most ambitious early achievements, the composition stands as both a theoretical study in musical repetition and a deeply immersive artistic statement that helped define the minimalist movement, despite Glass’s own preference for the term “music with repetitive structures.”