by Blue Gene TyrannyPhilip Glass is renowned for his style of pattern music, presented in its most developed form in this early work, still one of his best. Glass developed a method of writing that simultaneously retained the sense of the timeless present while bringing new thoughts about melody and harmony in a non-virtuosic sense. On Music in Twelve Parts (as well as his opera Akhnaten), these ideas are very elegant and profound, while at times Glass verges on the direct appeal of a movie-music sensibility as in 1000 Airplanes on the Roof. For having this range, he remains a very controversial composer.