Editor's Note to Philip Glass's Akhnaten

Abstract

The study of Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten by Paul John Frandsen comes from an unusual source for publication in an American journal of music, especially in that it concerns American opera. Mr. Frandsen is neither American nor a musical scholar, but he has singular qualifications. He is a Danish Egyptologist whose background in music comes through his father, who is a former general music director of The Royal Opera of Copenhagen. And Mr. Frandsen's musical literacy is such that, not having a score available from which to work, he took the musical examples down by dictation from the CBS Masterworks (now transferred to Sony) recording of the opera. The paper, first presented as a public lecture, was originally written in Danish for publication in Papyrus, a journal of the Danish Egyptological Society. It is, to say the least, a quirky study. Mr. Frandsen's musical analytical methods are not particularly sophisticated. Nor, before examining Akhnaten, Mr. Frandsen admits, did he have much exposure to Minimalism. But finding such a nondoctrinaire approach toward what is surely the most controversial musical style of the past quarter century is precisely the attraction of this study for an American readership. Whatever its limitations, it brings a completely fresh perspective to an area of music so hotly debated that there seems little middle ground, a perspective that can not only shed light on the musical structure of the work, but also offer a unique inquiry into its historicity. Mr. Frandsen's study comes at a propitious time. Akhnaten, Mr. Glass's third opera, is not a new opera, but there have been few serious investigations into Mr. Glass's operatic works, even though Mr. Glass is, by far, the most prominent American opera composer of our time. He has written some seven or eight more operas since Akhnaten. (It is not easy to count them; the composer is so prolific some have not yet been performed, and there is the further difficulty in distinguishing between the more general theater works [such as 1000