by Thomas MayAlong with being perhaps the best-known contemporary classical composer, Philip Glass is also one of the most intensely prolific--almost frighteningly so. Scarcely a season seems to pass without a major premiere--and, as Glass himself probably would be the first to admit, this factory level of productivity can lead to disappointingly uneven results. His music in particular requires an effort to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Symphony No. 5 began life as a commission from the Salzburg Festival to celebrate the new millennium. Glass took the occasion to reflect on the process of global evolution, and culled texts from the gamut of world religions and cultures; these are set for various combinations of five vocal soloists, large chorus, and children's choir in a 12-movement work that lasts nearly 100 minutes--all of which is scored with a brilliant orchestral palette. The symphony's subtitle (Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya), with its mix of Western and Buddhist terms, reflects Glass's multicultural ambitions, as well as the work's tripartite passage: from the past and stories of creation through consideration of death and a state of expectation to enlightened rebirth in the future. Together with familiar Bible verses are texts from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Koran, Hindu scriptures, Rumi, a Bulu creation story, and much more.