United States Philip Glass, Mixtape: Adam Tendler (piano), Jenny Lin (piano). Presented by San Francisco Performances, Herbst Theatre, San Francisco, 19.11.2022. (HS)
Glass – Mad Rush (arr. Lin/Tendler); Distant Figure: Passacaglia for solo piano; Selections from Les enfants terribles for 2 pianos [world premiere]; Etude No.16; Etude No.2; Four Movements for Two Pianos
A ‘mixtape’ is a time period that dates from the Nineteen Seventies, which is about when composer Philip Glass hit the scene along with his music. To make a mixtape, one copied a couple of favourite tracks to a cassette (keep in mind cassettes?), often with some try to create clean segues from one piece to the subsequent.
Pianists Adam Tendler and Jenny Lin utilized the thought to their recital of Glass piano works on the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, and it made a sure sense. The first two items, for instance, started and ended with related musical figures, a back-and-forth between two adjoining notes. These solo items have been performed with out pause, first Tendler with Mad Rush, written in 1979 for a New York look by the Dalai Lama, after which Lin with Distant Figure, a newer piece.
The distinction between the 2 works demonstrated how Glass’s musical model turned richer and extra complicated over the 38 years that separated them.
In the hypnotic model acquainted from his early minimalist items, Mad Rush establishes a shifting melodic gesture repeat. Tendler appeared to hold it within the air, till the correct hand reached left for the subsequent chord and pitched a minor third decrease to create a form of sigh. As the piece progressed, a chiming determine in the correct hand regularly expanded with every repetition, one other Glass signature. Tendler’s enjoying right here softened the perimeters of Glass’s repetitiveness, making the piece right into a meditation actually applicable for the Dalai Lama.
Without a break, Lin segued into Distant Figure, subtitled ‘Passacaglia for solo piano’. Although a conventional passacaglia is predicated on a repeated bass line and constructs variations above it, the Glass model, written in 2017, form of sneaks within the bass line late within the piece. It begins with a gently rocking shift of a minor third. Instead of a bass line, we hear cycles of shifting chords, with contrasting rhythms – triplets and sextuplets towards twos and fours – creating surprising variations because the music swells to a climactic end towards, lastly, a powerful bass line. Lin discovered a supple groove to carry this colourful music to life. Her contact introduced out the flicker within the ever-growing arpeggios and different embellishments that reached a wealthy climax earlier than receding within the ultimate few measures.
Next got here 4 segments from Glass’s 1996 Les enfants terribles, the third opera in his Cocteau Trilogy (the others have been La belle et la bête and Orphée). Originally achieved for 3 pianos, this discount for 2 was billed as a world premiere. The pianists tore into the overture with crispness and a way of abandon, then painted a considerably softer portrait for ‘The Somnambulist’. The third section, ‘Are You in Love, Agathe?’, got here off as a research in musical swirls, which dipped and dodged in uncommon instructions. The finale, ‘Paul’s End’, ultimately returned to among the dissonances from the overture and introduced the primary half to a vigorous end.
The second half of this system adopted an identical arc. Two solo etudes, written in 1994 and 2012, preceded a two-piano suite. Lin squeezed loads of harmonic sweetness out of Etude No.16. Without a pause, Tendler entered with Etude No.2 in C main, lending a deft contact to this research in arpeggios. It nods to Bach’s C-major prelude from The Well-Tempered Klavier earlier than straying into extra complicated harmonies.
Four Movements for Two Pianos from 2008, the most important and maybe most difficult work on this program, summarized Glass’s tropes and elegance ideally, and obtained an enthusiastic and spectacular efficiency. Lin and Tendler relished the contrasting sections of Movement I, first driving rhythmically earlier than discovering a softer respite. A delicate tempo introduced out the harmonic subtleties of the quieter Movement II.
The pianists dug into Movement III, which will get its fireworks from overlapping meters, bringing the music to an exciting climax earlier than subsiding into an unexpectedly fast end. Movement IV settled into one of many composer’s signature ostinatos, which despatched off pianistic thrives and harmonic surprises till its ending disappeared in mid-phrase.
The appropriately named encore, ‘Closing’ from Glassworks (1982), despatched the viewers dwelling with a six-minute bubbly romp by means of contrasting rhythms and rapidly shifting harmonies.
Harvey Steiman