Mad Rush
At a Glance
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Length
c. 15 minutes
About this Piece
When the Dalai Lama visited North America in 1979, Philip Glass (b. 1937) wrote Mad Rush to honor the occasion. Although originally conceived as being of “indefinite length,” the published version indicates only three repetitions of the entirety, or a binary form with a shortened coda.
The opening three-voiced texture emphasizes two-note patterns playing against each other with two-against-three rhythm. This contrasts with a four-bar idea of running 16th notes in both hands that adds two extra beats during the fourth bar.
–Gregg Wager is a composer and critic. He is author of Symbolism as a Compositional Method in the Works of Karlheinz Stockhausen. He has a PhD in musicology from the Free University Berlin and a JD from McGeorge School of Law.
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