This music is about something other than itself. One of the many important figures with whom Glass has collaborated is the late Allen Ginsberg. Glass played a recording of the poet reading his 1966 piece Wichita Vortex Sutra , and as Ginsberg’s high-intensity voice surged and ebbed, he performed a piece written specifically to partner it. Music was a backdrop full of aural associations. In that case the associations were with something specific; but in other cases they can be to whatever one’s imagination desires.
