Gradus
1968
Info
9′
Music by Philip Glass.
Published by Dunvagen Music Publishers.
Commission
Written for Jon Gibson.
Instrumentation
soprano saxophone
Notes
Gradus is for solo soprano saxophone and is one of the first pieces Glass composed upon his return to New York from his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and work with Ravi Shankar. Structurally, Gradus deals with the juxtaposition of melodic and rhythmic material within repeated cycles of 32 beats, and although it is highly structured on the one hand, it also sounds highly intuitive and unpredictable (to me anyway) on the other.
When I met Philip, he was among other things, in the process of composing Gradus and also studying with the tabla master, Allah Rakha. This is the first piece by Glass that I performed and marks the beginning of a long and important association for me that continues to the present.
— Jon Gibson