The alacrity with which Philip Glass’s music has been taken up by record companies – and his willingness not only to play along but to control how this is done – have made him a genuinely controversial figure in new­music circles. He is a bête noire for those who believe that music should defy commercial values‚ and a hero for the broad swathe of listeners who know what they like. My problem with his music is that I know what I like too: and he rarely delivers. Glass is often compared (mostly unfavourably) to Steve Reich‚ who composes with such obvious integrity that he appeals equally to both camps. To appreciate Glass‚ a more appropriate analogy in contemporary terms‚ though‚ would be Andrew Lloyd Webber. Both composers have taken control of the distribution of their music and have created a production team to meet the heavy demands of fleshing out their music. Both have created interesting crossovers between classical and popular music in the field of opera and music theatre. Above all‚ both have the gift of coming up with marketing ideas that are unexpected and yet genuinely commercial. Who‚ in the ’80s‚ but Lloyd Webber could have thought of creating a hit single out of a Pie Jesu? Who‚ in the ’90s‚ could have anticipated the idea of Glass subsidising his Point Music label by reworking David Bowie’s Low to create an orchestral symphony? It is easy to underestimate the innovative talent – perhaps genius – it takes to carve out entirely new markets for classical music. If only both these composer’s compositional ideas could match this in inspiration! This five­CD retrospective of Glass’s film music is fascinating because film represents another area in which he has changed the way we understand new music. His through­composed score for Koyaanisqatsi proved the perfect minimalist foil to the innovative repeated­movement patterns of Godfrey Reggio’s film. The absence of voices and soundtrack meant that Glass was uniquely free to let the music do the talking. The fact that his music says less than that of most other contemporary composers‚ though‚ was an advantage. The comparative reticence of Koyaanisqatsi’s music enabled a new dialogue of music and silent images to take place on equal terms. Listening to it now‚ you still respond to the freshness of this conception and‚ indeed‚ of the music which has the distinctive electric organ­inflected sound of early Glass. Another success was 1988’s Mishima‚ again innovative in filmic terms and through Glass’s score‚ seducing cinema audiences for the first time with its cheesy aspirations to sublimity. In Powaqqatsi‚ the score to Reggio’s follow­up to Koyaanisqatsi‚ Glass daringly minimises the musical content further. You could say that there are signs of life in the fusion of Brazilian samba and his characteristic minor harmonies‚ but this was more a response to the success of Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ than a musical imperative. And‚ as with ‘Graceland’‚ the real music comes in the original samba playing‚ not in Glass’s additions. After this‚ however‚ I fear that the rot sets in. Whereas the British composer Michael Nyman has always shown signs of responding to detailed briefs by the filmmakers he works with‚ you feel that successive filmmakers have chosen Glass’s music almost as a fashion accessory. It’s as if Philip Glass has been asked simply to sound like Philip Glass. Listening to the fifth CD of this set (‘Various’) is a daunting task. To accomplish it I had to take to my bed. Appropriating world music influences have become Glass’s staple composing method here – in truth‚ the only way of distinguishing one film score from another. And when he has no world music to lean on‚ you hear him turning to classical models instead – Bach and Prokofiev for The Secret Agent‚ Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde for Anima mundi‚ even Nyman for Peter Greenaway’s The Man in the Bath. Grizzly stuff. By the time you hear the corny gunshots in The Thin Blue Line‚ suspended over quavering Glass harmonies 50 minutes into the final CD of this set‚ you’ll crack up‚ I promise you. So imagine my grateful surprise when I heard 1995’s La belle et la bête and was moved (particularly as the CD box does not provide a libretto). La belle is Glass’s own project‚ his take on Cocteau’s extraordinary black­and­white film with all voices and most soundtrack sounds removed‚ Godfrey Reggio­style. I’ve long thought that Glass’s key musical breakthrough was to present traditional accompaniment figures as the main content of his music. Here these figures are overlaid with the quicksilver dialogue of Debussy’s Pelléas. You get a curious double­take when you hear this score‚ for you hear the accompanimental textures both as French romantic kitsch and as the sound of Glass‚ inflected by the foreground French dialogue (to my ears‚ beautifully rendered). The result is possibly Glass’s finest 90 minutes. So can I recommend this set? It’s not for the faint­hearted; I would buy two Nonesuch CDs separately instead: La belle for something rather special‚ and Koyaanisqatsi to get a flavour of Hollywood film history.