Trilogy Sonata for Piano Satyagraha - Conclusion , Act III Philip Glass

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Jacob Roggow Senior Recital Concordia University Nebraska 2/16/19

Satyagraha – Conclusion, Act III

Satyagraha is an opera that tells the story of Gandhi’s fight for the civil rights of the Indian minority in South Africa in the early 20th century. The piece performed is a piano transcription by Paul Barnes of the final soliloquy in which Gandhi (tenor) sings the following text on an ascending scale pattern in the phrygian mode:
The Lord said, I have passed through many a
birth and many have you. I know them all but
you do not. Yet by my creative energy, I consort
with Nature and come to be in time. Whenever the
law of righteousness withers away and
lawlessness arises, then do I generate myself on
earth. I come into being age after age and take a
visible shape and move a man with men for the
protection of good, thrusting the evil back and
setting virtue on her seat again.

Philip Glass uses minimalist music throughout the opera, which is music that begins with repetition of a simple motive and then with each round of repetition new material is gradually added. In the opera Gandhi works to bring about a social shift through slow structural change, and the minimalist nature of Glass’s music reflects this. The nature of Glass’s music also transports the listener to a more reflective state. In review of the opera, viewers have reported feeling as though they have just finished a long meditation session after leaving the opera house.