Philip Glass St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dundalk
An almost reverential silence fell on the capacity cathedral congregation with the arrival at the altar of one of the most influential composers of our time, and one whose music is anything but minimalist.Philip Glass has wrongly earned this description due to his development of his own repetitive chordal structure, but this performance confirmed the multiplicity of layers beneath such superficial simplicity.
The evening opened with Glass taking a side seat to enjoy a bravura performance by Romanian violinist Ioana Petcu Colan of the technically imposing ‘Knee Play #2’.And she was even more captivating when subsequently duetting with the maestro himself, demonstrating a deep connection. And Gerard McChrystal’s soulful soprano saxophone made for another empathetic partner.
Glass himself injected true dynamic verve into the performance. For someone whose music packs such a resonant emotional punch, the man himself is surprisingly chipper. The official programme was simply a skeleton for Glass to work off and there were both changes to the order of pieces and unexpected additions.Glass necessarily disposed of the interval in order to fit everything in and maintain the spell he cast over this most enraptured audience.
The Dublin Guitar Quartet’s extraordinary interpretation of ‘Company’ added a new dimension and freshness to this instantly identifiable sound. Introducing this work, Glass reminisced about how he managed to persuade the author of the original novella, one Samuel Beckett, to include music in the stage version.”He released a set of elaborate instructions, none of which I understood. But he never complained about the finished product, so I suppose he must have liked it.”
He returned for an encore with Petcu Colan and they performed a new work entitled simply ‘France’. From the first chord, one was transported to the terrace of a little French bistro. His ability to create such three-dimensional pictures through music is just one of the reasons this audience whooped and whistled as they gave him the kind of standing ovation more befitting a rock concert than a cathedral.-
By Sophie Gorman Saturday Irish Independent July 19 2008
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/heavenly-sounds-of-glass-overflow-in-cathedral-setting-1435732.html
