Musical themes of Einstein on the Beach

Introduction

Einstein on the Beach scenes

Einstein on the Beach themes and extracts

Introduction

Einstein on the Beach, opera in four acts, was created in 1976 from the collaboration of Philip Glass et de Robert Wilson. It is divided in three visuel themes, which are also composed of three scenes:

Train
Trial
Field

It also includes five pieces called Knee Plays at the begining and at the end of the work, and between the acts.

I took an interest in two of these three themes: Train and Trial, and in the Knee Plays used in each of them, thanks to scores and audio recordings (which last between 15 and 20 seconds and require an Ogg Vorbis capable player). All spoken texts are also available.

Extracts have been taken from Einstein on the Beach, Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, The Philip Glass Ensemble conducted by Michael Riesman, Elektra Nonesuch.

Einstein on the Beach scenes

The opera is divided into 9 scenes and 5 knee plays:

KNEE PLAY 1		(Chorus and electric organ) texts
Act 1	Scene 1	TRAIN (ensemble with solo voice ans chorus joining at the end) texts
	Scene 2	TRIAL (chorus, violin, electric organ and flutes) texts
KNEE PLAY 2		(Violin solo) texts
Act 2	Scene 1	DANCE 1 - Field with Spaceship (ensemble with solo voice/dancers)
	Scene 2	NIGHT TRAIN (2 voices, chorus and small ensemble)
KNEE PLAY 3		(Chorus a capella)
Act 3	Scene 1	TRIAL 2/PRISON (chorus and electric organ, ensemble at the end) texts
	Scene 2	DANCE 2 - Field with Spaceship (6 voices, violin, electric organ)
KNEE PLAY 4		(Chorus and violin)
Act 4	Scene 1	BUILDING/TRAIN (chorus and ensemble)
	Scene 2	BED (solo electric organ and voice)
	Scene 3	SPACESHIP (chorus and ensemble)
KNEE PLAY 5		(Women's chorus, violin and electric organ) texts

(drawings by Robert Wilson.)

Einstein on the Beach themes and extracts

The Train theme uses three musical themes (that we'll call theme 1, theme 2 and theme 3), described on the page: The Train Theme.
The Trial theme uses three musical themes (that we'll call theme 1, theme 2 and theme 3), described on the page: Trial.
The Knee Plays use a main theme, 'la-sol-do', declined in two forms (4+6+8 pulsations and 3+3+6 pulsations). They also borrow the 3rd Train theme , that we'll call 'Train theme 3 bis'. These themes are described on the page: Knee Plays.
The Field visual field is not studied here, except its musical theme called scale passage.

The extracts that illustrate each theme are the following:

Scenes	Knee	Train	Trial	Field
Knee 1
	la-sol-do (4+6+8)
	la-sol-do (4+6+8)
Act 1 scene 1: Train 1
		theme 1
		theme 2
		theme 3
Act 1 scene 2: Trial 1
Entrance			theme 1
"Mr. Bojangles"			theme 1
			theme 1
"All men are equal"			theme 2
Knee 2
	Train theme 3 bis
				scale
Act 2 scene 1: Dance 1
Act 2 scene 2: Night Train
		theme 1
		theme 1
Knee 3
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)
	Train theme 3 bis
Act 3 scene 1: Trial 2/Prison
"Prematurely Air-Conditioned Supermarket"			theme 1
Ensemble			theme 3
			theme 3
"I Feel The Earth Move"			theme 2
Act 3 scene 2: Dance 2
Knee 4
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)
	Train theme 3 bis
Act 4 scene 1: Building
		theme 2
		theme 3
Act 4 scene 2: Bed
Prelude			theme 1
Aria			theme 2
Act 4 scene 3: Spaceship
		theme 3
				scale
Knee 5
	la-sol-do (4+6+8)
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)
	la-sol-do (3+3+6)

Extracts have been taken from Einstein on the Beach, Philip Glass, Robert Wilson, The Philip Glass Ensemble conducted by Michael Riesman, Elektra Nonesuch.

This document was generated by Nicolas Sceaux on May, 13 2002 using texi2html
Copyright � 2002 by Nicolas Sceaux