Philip Glass: Music in Twelve Parts — Parts 1 and 2

I got this in 1984 from the Our Price on Bridge Street in Cambridge. (I could have sworn that was true, though the £2.99 HMV price tag I've put on the inside of the sleeve suggests a different story.) I might have even tried to play it on your turntable — not having mine to hand — but I doubt you would have let me get through a whole side.

I'd read about these 'minimalist' composers — though David Bowie used to mention them, it was probably the suggested (and, with hindsight, fictional) similarity to Tangerine Dream that interested me more. I might have seen Koyaanisqatsi, with its Philip Glass soundtrack, by the time I bought this, though I remember being underwhelmed by the soundtrack at the time (and when I saw Koyaanisqatsi performed live, conducted by Glass, in Belfast in 1998, I fell asleep just like Frasier said he did in Einstein on the Beach).

Music in Twelve Parts is my second favourite Glass work, after Einstein on the Beach. Thinking about it, that may be because these two albums sound most like Steve Reich (and actually the dominance of the organ on Music in Twelve Parts also provides a link to Terry Riley's late '60s pieces)!

I've only ever heard Parts 1 and 2 — now you can get a 3-CD box with all twelve parts.