Interview: Philip Glass

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

In the Mansion section of today's Wall Street Journal, I interview Philip Glass for my "House Call" column (go here). The influential modern classical composer and pianist is a fun guy. We talked about life growing up in Baltimore in the 1940s, particularly his father's record store. Philip's modernist roots can be traced back to avant-garde classical 78s that no one bought. What's more, Philip mastered the fine art of smashing records that didn't sell. Record companies back then paid 10 cents for records that were damaged, so Philip and his brother were dispatched to jump on duds so they could be returned and collected upon while making room for new ones. Philip's memoir, Words Without Music, is remarkably accessible and elegant. You'll find it here. [Painting above of Philip Glass from a photograph by Chuck Close]

If you're unfamiliar with Philip Glass's music, here's a taste: an excerpt of pianist Maki Namekawa playing his Piano Etude No. 16...

Also in the WSJ this week, my "Playlist" column for the Review section is devoted to an interview with author Tom Robbins on the Beatles' Hey Jude. Go here. If you're unfamiliar with Tom's work, grab his latest book, Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life, a memoir, is out now in paperback. I absolutely love the book and highly recommend it. There's a rebellious, pop feel to it that is addictive. [Photo above of Tom Robbins with his wife, Alexa, and dog, Blini by Wiqan Ang for The Wall Street Journal]

For the Arts in Review page, I reviewed a new exhibit that just opened at New York's Jewish Museum: Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television. The exhibit looks at early television's use of modern art to draw in sophisticated viewers who abhorred "the box" and raise the taste level of the mass market. Sometimes the effort worked and sometimes it didn't. Go here. [Photo above: Florida, by Lee Friedlander, 1963]

And finally, for my "Track Record" column in WSJ/Europe today, my interview with Alexis Taylor (above) of the British experimental electronic band Hot Chip. I asked him about five albums that blew his mind when he first heard them. All are a revelation, especially Raymond Scott, who was new to me. Go here.

Hot Chip's new album, Why Make Sense?, is fascinating. Here's Alexis Taylor in Need You Now...

And here's Huarache Lights...

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Glass Looks to the Heavens, Again

By Allan Kozinn
Published: November 19, 2009
Philip Glass clearly enjoys examining ideas from just about every angle, and that applies as fully to opera subjects as to specific musical moves. His earliest operas, for example, were about historical figures who changed the way their societies thought: Einstein, in “Einstein on the Beach”; Gandhi, in “Satyagraha”; and the monotheistic Egyptian pharaoh, Akhnaten, in the opera that bears his name.

In recent years he has returned to that theme, with a twist. In “Galileo Galilei,” his 18th opera, from 2001, he used scenes from the life of the astronomer and mathematician to examine the fraught relationship between science and religion. Mr. Glass’s 23rd opera, “Kepler,” arrived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Wednesday evening, and its essence is strikingly familiar: he uses scenes from the life of another astronomer and mathematician — a contemporary of Galileo, each having straddled the 16th and 17th centuries — to examine again the relationship between science and religion. The issues are less fraught this time, but still weighty and tangled.

In both works the scientists expound on the theories that made them famous, and that can make for some dry moments in the opera house. When, for example, Kepler asks, “Is it cold that gives snow its starry shape?” and then ponders the question from several angles, or when he explains the scientific method (“First, we pose our hypothesis”) and his theories of how the planets’ orbits are shaped, chills do not run up your spine.

“Galileo,” at least, had its protagonist’s persecution by the church to deal with, and Mr. Glass wisely included an Inquisition scene. The most dramatic moment in “Kepler,” which has a libretto by Martina Winkel drawn largely from Kepler’s writings, is his accounting of his own character flaws, and how he made enemies of most of his colleagues. Not that we meet those colleagues, or see their animosity in action. Kepler is the only named character; the six other soloists are Soprano 1, Soprano 2 and so on down the vocal ranges, and although several have brief moments in the spotlight, they mostly work as a chamber choir.

The performance was described as a concert staging. The soloists and the larger Choir of the Upper Austrian State Theater, from Linz, marched on and off the stage regularly, reconvening either behind the Bruckner Orchestra Linz or in front of it. As Kepler, Martin Achrainer, wore a patchwork leather coat and walked around the stage looking thoughtful, troubled or dour. Maybe the biggest problem with “Kepler” is that it is called an opera. As an opera, it is exceedingly nondramatic. But as an oratorio, it works brilliantly.

Oratorios allow for the presentation of ideas without the expectation of action. And the ideas here — not least, Kepler’s almost continuous struggle to show that science and religion are separate, noncompeting realms, and that his discoveries are not a disavowal of God — are worth exploring. They are even timely, given the increasingly corrosive debates about evolution and creationism. At one point Kepler argues that the church should treat literalist readings of the biblical creation story as a form of heretical abuse.

Mr. Glass’s score includes many of his trademark moves: the repeating chords on a foursquare beat, as well as with syncopations of various kinds, usually in minor keys; the scale figures and arpeggios (now increasingly angular); the swirling string and flute effects; and the use of a minor third as an engine of sorts. There is no chance you’ll be wondering who the composer is. But “Kepler” offers quite a few novel touches as well, including a colorful use of pitched percussion instruments and hollow blocks, often paired with rumbling bass lines. Mr. Glass’s vocal writing is more varied that it once was: Mr. Achrainer’s first aria takes him nearly to the high and low extremes of his range, a test he handled beautifully, and the choral writing includes several vigorous pieces, including a few biblical settings.

Dennis Russell Davies, unquestionably Mr. Glass’s most eloquent interpreter these many years, kept the musical focus on the work’s novel touches, and on the beauty and power of the vocal writing. But the Bruckner Orchestra Linz has sounded better: the strings and woodwinds produced a rich, warm tone, but the brasses, which have several exposed passages, seemed to be having a hard time playing in tune.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/arts/music/20kepler.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss