Philip Glass is one of the most innovative contemporary American composers, and has made a considerable reputation for himself in the field of composition now generally referred to as minimalism. The repeated rhythms, using small cells of music, create fascinating sound patterns that are illuminated with brilliant shafts of tonal colours. Glass’s third opera, Akhnaten, set in Ancient Egypt, is regarded among the most outstanding stage works of our time. The Violin Concerto, composed three years later in 1987, combines the soloist’s lyric quality with an orchestral backdrop of shimmering textures. By contrast, Company is a dark work in four short movements originally used in a staged soliloquy on the subject of death.