Chekhov's Mistress
Glass New Works, Ho-hum?
Alex Ross says about Philip Glass in The New Yorker (“The Endless Scroll”, Nov. 5th 2007):
“To encounter a new Glass work these days is to pass through a familiar sequence of emotions. More often than not, you start with a disappointed sense of déjá vu: a rapid onset of churning arpeggios and chugging minor-key progressions dashes any hope that the composer may have struck off in a startling new direction. At times, it seems as though he had launched Microsoft Arpeggio on a computer and gone off to have tea with, say, Richard Gere. But marvellous things can happen when the composer’s attention is fully engaged.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself (seriously, who could have said it better?). But Glass may deserve a little more credit than he’s often given (including by me). Truth is, besides his fabulous mad composer-hair, much of Glass’s work serves as fabulous backdrop where the ‘fabulous’ part of fabulous backdrop is just that, as in his “Plutonium Ode,” which I’ve mentioned here before in connection (oddly, admittedly) to Pynchon’s Against the Day. Although, much of his work I’d never listen to outside of their context. Film scores come to mind naturally (although so much of it is for film). Unfortunately, directors seem to emphasize Glass scores to the point that they nearly become a character themselves, such as in The Hours and Notes on a Scandal where the music takes on an air of kitsch because it’s so loud relative to its part as a scene-setting backdrop.
There are also some pieces I like that stand on their own, particularly his quartet pieces that the Kronos Quartet recorded, but there’s little about this music that makes you want to explore or get excited about something new. If you did want to explore though, you can get a visual/aural overview of Glass’s career with the Glass Engine on his site, which allows you to listen to clips chronologically or (tellingly) by the degree of Joy, Sorrow, Density, Intensity, and Velocity. It’s fun to play with, even though those characterizations make me feel like I’m in one of those wine stores for dummies; bold, fruity, spicy.
Speaking of the ever adventurous Kronos Quartet, I just found their MySpace page with free tracks for listening or download, including one I highly recommend: “Way Down in the Hole” with Tom Waits.
ex post: There’s a Philip Glass blog and looking around the site I found that Glass set some poems from Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing to music.
Whether the music does those poems any credit I’ll leave for you to decide, but it may have a lot to do with how you feel about the poems in the first place.
comments
Yeah, my wife won’t listen to Einstein on the Beach even though I find it deeply moving, I think because I can still see the opera when i listen (I saw the 1992 BAM revival...) Rumour has it it might be restaged at the City Opera in 2009-2010…
– Richard Nash (01/02 at 08:17 AM)
Richard, don’t tell me your a LoLAFTOM (League of Listeners Alienated From Their Odd Music)! It’s harder when your kid gets older too. Auden will listen to “Bachtoven” as he calls it, but he’s pretty adamant about not listening to a lot of stuff and the two of them, he and my wife, gang up on me so I’m often relegated to headphones while Noggin is on.
– Bud Parr (01/02 at 11:06 AM)
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