As Philip Glass pointed out to me in a recent interview (see page 348), the master tape of his Gandhi opera, Satyagraha, was cut with CD (and cassette) in mind; to fit the music on to LP, a certain amount of gentle pruning was simply unavoidable. Admittedly the difference in playing time between the carriers is slight, and in any case you might wonder whether the odd cut makes that much difference to such repetitive music. The answer, surprisingly, is that it can and sometimes does. To take as an example the final few minutes of Act 2 scene 1 ( ''Confrontation and Rescue, 1896''), the series of descents—jolts, almost, from the prevailing tonality—follow on from one another in qu icker succession on LP than on CD, where the music is allowed to stabilize once more before the final thrusts downward eventually bring the movement to an agonized end. If you have the choice, then, buy Satyagraha on CD rather than LP; you'll have no cuts, and no side-change during the course of any of the three acts.
Unlike Einstein on the beach (reviewed above), this is a score that makes complete sense without its stage action. Despite its statuesque qualities, there is a story of sorts, together with fully-fledged roles for soloists and chorus, and ample opportunity for characterization. The music, too, is more conventionally illustrative of mood and set (most graphically and spectacularly in Act 2, scene 2, ''Indian Opinion, 1906'', which brilliantly mimis the action of the printing presses). Einstein might easibly be purged of some of its less absorbing passages for home listening, but Satyagraha must be heard in its totality.'