SFP Celebrates Philip Glass’ 85th Birthday

Some readers may recall that, early in 2018, San Francisco Performances (SFP) presented a pair of concerts to honor Philip Glass’ 80th birthday. The first of these was a joint recital in Herbst Theatre by the Kronos Quartet and pianist Timo Andres. This was followed by an evening-length (about 90 minutes) performance of “Music with Changing Parts,” which took place in Davies Symphony Hall, bringing the Philip Glass Ensemble together with the San Francisco Girls Chorus along with brass and woodwind students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Adam Tendler and Jenny Lin (from the SFP event page for last night’s concert)

Last night in Herbst, SFP celebrated Glass’ 85th birthday with a somewhat more modest, but still highly engaging, offering. Pianists Adam Tendler and Jenny Lin joined forces to present a program entitled Philip Glass Mixtape. Reflecting on earlier days when we would listen to music on a record player, the program was structured into “Side A” and “Side B,” separated by an intermission.

Both “Sides” had the same structure: Tendler and Lin (in that order) would each perform a solo selection, after which they would play a two-piano composition. The first of those two-piano selections was a world premiere performance: an arrangement by both pianists of four of the movements from Glass’ one-act chamber opera “Les Enfants terribles,” based on the novel of the same title by Jean Cocteau. There was also one encore selection, an arrangement of “Closing” from Glass’ score for the film Mishima.

The “Enfants terribles” selection on “Side A” was complemented on “Side B” by a composition entitled simply “Four Movements for Two Pianos.” Putting aside any tired remarks about Glass’ “music with repetitive structures,” both of the two-piano offerings made for highly absorbing listening experiences. Once one accepts the primacy of repetition, one can appreciate how informed performances can bring out subtle approaches to interpretation that take the listener far beyond any sense of cookie-cutter uniformity.

Indeed, that interplay between repetition and interpretation was ingeniously introduced at the beginning of “Side B” with two of the etudes that Glass composed to maintain his own dexterity. Tendler began the “Side” with the sixteenth of those etudes, followed by Lin playing the second. While these etudes were conceived with technical skill in mind, both of last night’s performances mined no end of rhetorical sweet spots from their respective interpretations.

“Side A” began with “Mad Rush.” It is possible that Tendler made this selection because he felt that it would be useful to establish audience attention from the very beginning; and “Mad Rush” provides the listener with a landscape defined in terms of both repetition and distinguishing features. Lin complemented the impact of “Mad Rush” by performing a work that Glass explicitly labeled a passacaglia (thus preparing the listener for repetition), entitled “Distant Figure.”

This single recital may have seemed modest in the context of how Glass’ 80th birthday had been celebrated, but it still provided excellent orientation for those that appreciate the “repetitive structures” rhetoric. Tendler and Lin presented an engaging survey that highlighted both similarities and differences. Could there be a better way to honor Glass’ advance to his 85th year?