Absolutely. Although I'd steer clear of arguing that with a critic, as many of its melodies are based around arpeggios which feeds into the "repetitiveness" stereotype many hold against Glass.
Solo Piano is an interesting example, though, because melodic or not, even if one were to write it off as a rather mechnical work (which as, on the page, it looks) when Glass plays it himself it becomes quite organic due to his imperfect and almost swaggering rhythm.
I heard it live and he actually messed up at one point and had to start the piece again.
I can't fathom the concentration it takes to play some of the longer pieces off of Einstein etc. Let alone something like Reich's Piano Phase. Superhuman focus...
I often wonder though -- if Glass (or Reich for that matter) happened to start their careers at a time and place where sequencing and sampling were commonplace and accepted, and created their work using that medium, would the music really suffer much? Is the superhuman virtuoso musical dexterity and focus required to properly perform these pieces really germane to their success as musical compositions?
During the period AFTER the advent of sampling/sequencing but BEFORE the rise of YouTube as a channel to consume music you might have been right.
But I think people view music performance now much more than they ever viewed music performance prior and witnesses the actual act of performing is intrinsic to enjoying many pieces.
It's one thing simply knowing a piece was played by humans but seeing it played adds an extra dimension and I think the popularity of some performances now depends on this.
They're certainly based on arpeggios, but there is always (to me) a clear note in each section of arpeggio that form the melody, in the sense that if I were to hum the song, I would hum that sequence of individual notes.
Solo Piano is an interesting example, though, because melodic or not, even if one were to write it off as a rather mechnical work (which as, on the page, it looks) when Glass plays it himself it becomes quite organic due to his imperfect and almost swaggering rhythm.