Sunday, May 4, 2008

a closer look

I find it rather difficult to do a specific analysis of just this work, as it serves more as a "joint" or connection between the rest of the pieces in the work (hence why Glass chose the term "knee" play -- he describes it as "the joining function that humans' anatomical knees perform"). (wikipedia.org) However, in looking past its' musical factors, I found it easier to picture and discover new things about the piece.

As a whole, the opera reflects on different parts of Einstein's life including references to the AM radio, nuclear weapons, and multiple mathematical and scientific themes. The latter (math and science) can be heard within "Knee Play 1." In fact, the first several times that I had listened to this work, references to Einstein's mathematical and scientific lifestyle immediately came to mind. The cluster of numbers being read from random, along with the orchestrated and rhythmic choral numbers, make me picture Einstein locked away in a classroom or laboratory scribbling away mathematical equations on a blackboard. I got the sense that if Einstein's brain could make noise, this is what we would hear. This Pepsi ad from 2000 surprisingly links this "image" of Einstein's brain with "Knee Play 1" (minus the advertising, of course):




The texts being read also seem to have a similar effect. Many of the audible lines help to portray how Einstein was such a "thinking-man." One line in particular, "All these are the days, and these are the days my friends," gives me the idea that Einstein was an optimist -- not taking a single day for granted -- always thinking and looking towards the future.

The fact that the numbers being performed in SATB setting are rhythmically and melodically matching the electric organ part also presents a sense of regiment and order -- another element that can be linked to the mathematical mind of Albert Einstein.

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