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University Centre Auditorium
April 3, 2010
I must confess from the outset that I approached this solo piano recital by Philip Glass with a healthy measure of skepticism. Glass is an icon, no doubt, but a solo recital? As the audience, a melange of aging hippie and young hipster (both ripe with counter-culture affluence), gathered in the lobby and the hall my trepidation was fueled still further as the evening took on the air of "event" more than "musical performance". But the reverence was quickly dispelled when Philip Glass took the stage, strode to the microphone, and told us he'd play right through with no break, in part so we could get home earlier. The crowd laughed spontaneously, and Glass responded with a "Me, too." The reverence thus broken, Glass took to the piano at centre stage.
It's not often that a 73-year old has the chutzpah to perform a solo piano recital. But Glass held the audience in thrall through the roughly 90 minutes of the concert, performing a variety of pieces drawn from the past three decades.
A large portion of the evening was a selection of the piano etudes that Glass has been writing of late. Glass said he began writing these as a way to practice his piano technique, and they offer up a concise summary of his stylistic signatures. The familiar repeated ostinatos, the slightly off-kilter melodic passages, the arpegiated chords ... anyone familiar with his music will have heard it all before. But it was refreshing to hear that Glass still has some original twists left in him. At times, Etude #9 sounded like something from one of Keith Jarrett's recent solo piano concerts, looping back on itself with permutations and twists introduced with each repeat. The final etude performed was #10, a lengthy (on record, it runs six minutes) tour-de-force that requires an astounding dexterity.
Glass's music has always been characterized as somewhat inferior to the other minimalist composers. Analysts will tell you it lacks the rhythmic invention that characterizes the best of Steve Reich's music, and the sheer audacity of Terry (Baba O') Riley's. But whatever Glass lacks, it certainly doesn't show in the range of his work, from operas and other works in quasi-traditional forms (such as symphonies, violin concertos, and string quartets) through film soundtracks to collaborations with Leonard Cohen and the late great Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
It was the latter -- drawn from the chamber opera "Hydrogen Jukebox", with its libretto by Ginsberg -- that was the climax of Glass's solo recital. Using a tape recording of Ginsberg's recitation, Glass performed "Witchita Vortex Sutra", the piano part perfectly embellishing Ginsberg's driving-across-Kansas as stream-of-conciousness anti-war rant.
Altogether, this was as engaging a performance as I have seen in recent years.
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