Moving Through Madness or "Einstein on the Beach"

Thoughts two minutes into the first scene of Einstein on the Beach: "This is music to go mad by." The quasi-hypnotic reiterations which only reluctantly allow you up for air, pummel you, coax, and finally suck you under. It is at that moment, when you feel you can't possibly take it any longer that it releases you with a suddenness that makes you gasp. You find you've passed some invisible threshold which allows you to breath without panicking, without drowning in the seemingly directionless frenetic repetitions. It is suddenly possible to see past all this static to the larger ebb and flow of the music as it bears you along, always in motion developing in monumental increments.