I have already made my measured, lukewarm case for the Philip Glass concert in Herbst Theater (http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0709E&L=OPERA-L&P=R163 - and yes, it should be Cocteau), but now there are sounds of ecstasy are heard in the distance, using Josh Kosman's report as proof. Let's see just how judicious and balanced Mr. K. was in his assessment, how close he came to my "Glass Half Full," rather than exclaiming the new King of the Music Hill. Clearly, he appreciates Glass more than I do - and I like him well enough - but Glass is still basically the Michael Flatley of classical music - neat moves, repeated, income accumulated. Glass, guests make magic in intimate Herbst show Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic Monday, October 1, 2007 Philip Glass' music will be widely in evidence this month, between the premieres of his "Appomattox" at the San Francisco Opera and the Leonard Cohen collaboration "Book of Longing" at Stanford Lively Arts. But San Francisco Performances got the jump on the festivities Friday night, with a short and intimate recital program in Herbst Theatre. Glass was the star, naturally, playing piano and introducing five of his instrumental pieces in his best befuddled-mournful manner. He was joined by the superb cellist Wendy Sutter and percussionist Mick Rossi, and together they held an enthusiastic house spellbound for an intermissionless hour and a half. The source of that magnetism was not hard to spot. Glass' trademark compositional palette of *minor-key harmonies, hypnotic repetitions and elemental melodies can be deployed in seemingly endless ways to produce music with the eloquence and simplicity of a lullaby. His techniques vary somewhat from piece to piece, but not a lot. In a program that ranged across nearly 30 years' worth of music, *the same sorts of rhetorical gestures and harmonic strains recurred over and over - each time slightly redirected, but never significantly redefined.* This is not a criticism, because no one comes to Glass' music for surprises or new directions. We come to hear what wrinkles he can work on the established ground plan, and to experience once more the sorcery by which he conjures music of such improbable depth and power from such simple means. Part of the trick lies in Glass' ability *to flatten the horizon of expectations through simple repetitions, so that a single deviation - a brief metrical shift, say, or a chromatically inflected harmony - registers on a listener as a dramatic event. Another part is his ability to place the elemental building blocks of music - linear melodies, arpeggios, oscillating accompaniment figures - in an expressive light without hesitation or embarrassment. Some of the music on Friday's program used these procedures to memorable effect. Four short pieces from the soundtrack to Godfrey Reggio's 2002 film "Naqoyqatsi" - called "Tissues" because they served as connective passages between sections of the movie - set infectious tunes and figurations against vivid harmonies, never more arrestingly than in the second number, a quickstep for cello and celesta. Perhaps the evening's most haunting offering was "The Orchard," a short excerpt from music that Glass wrote with Foday Musa Suso for a 1990 stage production of the Jean Genet play "The Screens." Here, over an insinuating piano accompaniment, the cello plays a slow, minor-key melody that occasionally bursts into bruised, accusatory arpeggios; there's a whole emotional drama delineated in a few extraordinary notes. And from a little further afield came "Songs and Poems for Cello," a recent suite of pieces that sound like Glass' answer to Bach. Sutter, a New York-based virtuoso who performs with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, delivered them with a blend of contrapuntal clarity and verve. Glass is, quite rightly, a celebrity of the new-music world, and the fans who crowded Herbst Theatre were clearly there to see him as well as to hear his music. The catch is that he is no more than a competent pianist at the best of times, which gave his collaborations with Sutter and Rossi the feeling of a pro-am event. And when he opened the program by stumbling through an inexpressive, error-prone account of four movements from "Metamorphosis," it was enough to break the heart of anyone who knows how magnificent this music can and should sound. Janos Gereben <[log in to unmask]> *********************************************** The CLASSICAL mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's HDMail High Deliverability Mailer for reliable, lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html