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  • Philip Glass

  • Music in Contrary Motion (1969)

  • Dunvagen Music Publishers Inc (World)
  • Organ
  • 15 min
    • 21st April 2021, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
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Programme Note

Contrary Motion, composed in 1969, is a work for solo organ in which pedal points add a functional harmony (A minor) and there is something faintly Bach-ian about its stern, rigorous counterpoint. Contrary Motion was written in what Glass calls "open form" — it never really ends, it just stops. The expanding figures upon which it is constructed could, theoretically, continue augmenting forever. Should an interpreter care to take it that far, a performance lasting hours, even days, would be possible.

Tim Page

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Score sample

Discography