Doing an extremely rare UK appearance, Philip Glass’s official ensemble continues his legacy performing some of his most well known operatic and chamber music compositions as part of two sets featuring the composer’s early works spanning 1973 – 1984. These were spread across two sets, the first focussing more on pieces of music and the latter opera scores. The ensemble was made up of six players on keyboards, woodwind (flute, piccolo, clarinet, soprano and alto saxophones) and vocals, under the direction of Michael Riesman (keyboard).
The opening piece was an opera composition, ‘No. 2’ from the American section of ‘The CIVIL war’, with staccato organ keys and trilling flute and clarinet, whilst the following composition ‘The Grid’ was a noise piece of frantically scaling organs and choral vocals. Both pieces displayed Glass’ use of repetition in his work, seeing the keyboardists especially playing repetitive keys throughout. The ensemble performed chamber music, ‘Façades’ from ‘Glassworks’ headed by suspenseful and pitched clarinet, whilst subdued string keys provided a bassline on which ghostly woodwind reverberated. They closed the first set on ‘Part 8’ from ‘Music in Twelve Parts’ (1971-74); a trance-like composition of undulating instrumentals and vocals with changing tempos.
For the second set, the PGE focussed on Glass’ opera compositions, beginning on ‘Rescue’ from ‘Satyagraha’ (1980), which saw dual layers of wavering and percussive organs, then breaking into a new darker section that created an ominous scurry of chaotic vocals amongst church organs. The percussive tribal bashings of 1983’s ‘Funeral’ from Akhnaten’ were topped by sirenic vocals before fountain explosions of piccolo and woodwind trills. However, the best piece of the night was 1982’s chamber opera, ‘The Photographer’, Act III; a longer composition that created a dream-like state of dizzying heights interrupted by repeated staccato; then with psychedelic twinkling keys underlined by deep brass from alto saxophone. The PGE did an encore of the playful and bubbling repetitions of ‘Spaceship’ from ‘Einstein on The Beach’ to finish the night on.
28/09/24: Philip Glass Ensemble @ Barbican, London.
Photo © Ayisha Khan.
© Ayisha Khan.