The currently noted composer Philip Glass brought his performance troupe, the Philip Glass Ensemble, to Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall last November to present the New York premiere of his "Descent into the Maelstrom," the "Prelude" from the Koln Section of the CIVIL war S: a tree is best measured when it is down, and his immensely popular song cycle Songs of Liquid Days.
Glass has received a great deal of attention these past several years, due mainly to his treatment of subjects of sociological interest and of cultural realities other than those of his native America. An example is his opera, Satygraha, about Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi. His recent and very well-received "crossover" into quasi-popular realms with Songs of Liquid Days has also made him a focus of fascination. I was curious to know what all the fuss was about.
Having attended the concert, however, I don't know. Can't figure it out for anything.
There were some lovely voices, and in general such material as there was, was performed well. But it was downright boring.
The "Prelude" and "A Descent," which constituted the gratifyingly short first half of the program, combine the forces of the synthesizer with traditional instrumentation and were cast, surely enough, in the direction of the popular style. But partnerships of synthesizers and traditional instruments are already commonplace, and there is scarcely anything novel in them any longer. Moreover, the interest generated by interminably repeated fifths or octaves on the synthesizer at high levels of volume while the other instrumentalists wave little fragments of melody through the air like so many tattered flags, is limited indeed, and it is largely of such elements that the music of these first two selections is constructed.
Splendid things to fall asleep by, save that it was all so loud. I wondered if the musicians had all gotten their start playing in the streets and thought they were still competing with the traffic. Throughout a lifetime of listening to music, I have found no convincing reason to discontinue being at lifelong odds with the practitioners of the cultural philosophy that exhorts, "If you have nothing to say, be sure to say it very loudly."
I felt culturally bullied. And a considerable number of others in my proximity expressed similar responses to what they heard - unsolicited. There was plenty of disgruntlement.
Each of the voices that performed the various installments of songs was a fine instrument, and well applied, especially the light, clear lyric tenor voice of Paul Sperry, who performed the selection entitled "Open the Kingdom," which demands extended passages in a high tessitura. What offended was the texts, which, assembled from the writing of Paul Simon, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne, and Laurie Anderson, make less-than-compelling observations about relatively inconsequential subjects. I found them an embarrassment and a tedium.
I'm not sure that a text like Simon's "Gradually we became aware/of a hum in the room/an electrical hum in the room/it went MMMMMM/…maybe it's the hum/of a calm refrigerator cooling on a big night" ought even to have been written, to say nothing of set
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