Philip Glass' Heroes Symphony
American Minimalist Inspired by David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy
Philip Glass based his fourth symphony on David Bowie's "Heroes" album. How did such an appropriation of art rock turn out?
Along with Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Adams, Philip Glass is a composer often associated with minimalism, an aesthetic that highlights the skeletal structures of music through extended repetition of simple forms.
Philip Glass might be compared to the visual artist Andy Warhol: both operated within the more avant garde "high art" sphere, but both incorporated popular media forms into their work. Andy Warhol took images of famous people (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, JFK, Mick Jagger) and "mass produced" them through screen painting techniques. Philip Glass took the David Bowie albums Low and "Heroes" and incorporated them into his Symphonies No. 1 and No. 4, respectively. The minimalist approach could be compared to the Warhol's mass production: the many repeated images or sounds meld together into a single piece of art.
Taking inspiration from Bowie's Berlin albums is appropriate: Bowie was heavily influenced by Kraftwerk at the time, a German group known for their repetitive electronic music and therefore not too far removed from the minimalist aesthetic.
Glass' Symphony No. 4 is in six movements, each named after a track on David Bowie's "Heroes" album. The original album was recorded and mixed in Berlin, and dealt somewhat darkly with the tensions dividing the city during the Cold War. Glass' treatment of the musical material conveys a much lighter tone, quite possibly because the orchestral scoring relies heavily on the harp, celesta, and strings, instruments with heavenly connotations. In addition, Glass wrote the symphony in 1996, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and nearly 20 years after the original album was released. The cultural attitude regarding the Berlin Wall seems to have lifted with the barriers.
The first movement, "Heroes," is based on the title track of Bowie's album. The original lyrics ironically relate a romantic encounter beside the Berlin Wall. Glass' version opens with ominous brass chords, but pulsating strings push the mood towards the triumphant.
In the second movement, Glass relies on a track that was recorded during the 1970s but not released with the rest of the album till 1991. Glass' "Abdulmajid" exaggerates, condenses, and extends the slightly exotic dance rhythms that underlie the original (an instrumental track).
The third movement "Sense of Doubt" returns to the ominous, cartoonishly mimicking Bowie's clichéd descending bass line that dissolves into other worldly shimmers (in Glass' version, on the celesta).
In "Sons of the Silent Age," the fourth movement, the brass and winds carry the melody. Glass' signature two-note pulsing strings again infuse a spirit of relentless triumphalism.
The fifth movement, "Neuköln," does little to modify the main melodic motif that underlies Bowie's original (an instrumental track). The descending line recalls the ominous bass line of "Sense of Doubt," but transposed to a higher register, it reflects introspective restlessness.
Named for the V-2 rocket and Kraftwerk's Florian Schneider, Bowie's "v2 Schneider" pays tribute to the German influences on his music. Glass' version exploits the repetition of small motives found in the original.
