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Friday, October 25, 2002

By Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic

In the '60s and '70s, many classical music fans were getting fed up with the avant-garde's abandonment of tonality. The cry for a return to the language of Beethoven and Bach was heeded by a young American living in France. Philip Glass did indeed return to tonal music, but with a radical move of his own, minimalism.

	Philip Glass and The Philip Glass Ensemble •WHAT: "Philip on Film," live concert featuring film shorts, 8 p.m. tonight. "Koyaanisqatsi," 8 p.m. tomorrow. •WHERE: Byham Theater, Downtown. •TICKETS: $18-$33; 412-456-6666. • WEB SITE: www.dunvagen.com

The apparent simplicity of Glass' musical repetitions -- his response to Eastern music such as from India and the Himalayas -- stem from a complex personality. He has always been deeply involved with the spirit of our times, collaborating with anyone from Robert Wilson to David Bowie.

Though the debate still rages over the effectiveness of his minimalism (especially as it compares to that of composers Terry Riley, Steve Reich or John Adams), these collaborations have been quite successful for Glass, born in Baltimore in 1937. One of the greatest has been with filmmaker Godfrey Reggio for a series of films with music in place of plot, dialogue and characters. The first, "Koyaanisqatsi" in 1983, created a new genre in film, which "Powaqqatsi" continued in 1988. Glass and his ensemble are now touring to promote the final part of the trilogy, "Naqoyqatsi," which opened in select markets last weekend and whose soundtrack is just out on Sony Classics.

With titles from the Hopi language, the films are powerful depiction and, sometimes, indictments of how humans treat the earth and each other. But they are meant to be interpreted differently by each viewer. Some, Reggio feels, will legitimately enjoy the gorgeous photography as it depicts "the beauty of the beast."

I was able to catch the busy composer on the phone from his place in New York City:

How often have you performed live to "Koyaanisqatsi"?

We have probably done it live 200 times. We began doing it in 1985 and hardly a year has gone by when we don't do it.

Are there differences from performance to performance?

Michael Riesman is the conductor and he visually synchronizes the image with the music. What really happens is it doesn't sync 100 percent to the picture. There are probably in any two-three minute period, four or five moments where you want to see things in sync. In between, there can be a minute and a half where things float. The trick in this kind of performance is to allow the music to kind of breathe in between what we call think points and to hit them square on the head when you get there. Therefore there will be slight differences every night.

Your style has changed over time, however, but the film won't change. How do you reconcile that?

I don't go back and rework the music. What is interesting for me is to go back to a piece I wrote in 1980 and play it. The evolution of the music has put me musically in a different place and to rediscover something that I did before is extremely interesting. It's like re-inhabiting a state of mind which is otherwise unavailable to me.

Indeed, in your new works, gone are the arpeggios and repetitions of your early music.

Well, they come back now and then [laughing]. But certainly the emphasis on certain stylistic things starts to change.

The music for each of the "Qatsi" films is so varied. Did Reggio ask for this?

You have to remember that the movies are quite a few years apart. Godfrey wanted each of the films to have a different look and I think he succeeded, even though the genre of film, which he invented, is the same. In the same way, he insisted that I reinvent the musical language for each film, and I succeeded in doing that.

What is "Naqoyqatsi" like?

"Naqoyqatsi" is really digitally fabricated images. It is very high-tech, beyond what might be bearable for most people to see for 90 minutes. I used the music as a bridge to a more human perspective. I chose an acoustic orchestra and Yo-Yo Ma, whose cello becomes the voice of the film. The music is the most traditional of the three, but the film is the most radical.

Reggio often incorporates huge scenes and big vistas in his films. How do you write to encapsulate this magnitude?

Sometimes you work against it. There are places in "Naqoyqatsi" that I had to go against the image. Sometimes the images are confrontational, they pin you to your chair. To level the field, the music had to lead you through the film.

Did you and Reggio approach these films as Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill approached epic theater, that art can engender positive change in the audience?

Actually, I think that is a good analogy, though I never thought of myself very close to Weill and Brecht. Their ideology is so different from mine. But the idea that art would be an engine for social change I did invite, even in my earlier operas.

You lived in Pittsburgh, right?

I lived there for two years. I was a composer-in-residence with the Pittsburgh schools. It was a program that was started by the Ford Foundation. I lived in Shadyside and on Baum Boulevard in 1961-63. I come to play now and then and still have friends there.

Were these formative years?

I was 25 and 26. They were formative in the sense that it was my first professional job writing music. I left Juilliard and went right to Pittsburgh, spent two years there, and then I went to Paris and then New York.

I would say that Pittsburgh was like my post-graduate years. I hadn't really developed my own approach to music, but I was able to write a lot of different kinds of music for Pittsburgh public schools. I wrote probably 25 pieces. At the end of the two years, I gave a big concert of my music at the Carnegie Music Hall. It was fun.

Was this at a time before you developed your identified style?

Just a little bit. It was when I moved to Paris when the big change in my music occurred. But some of that [Pittsburgh] music was published and still is in print. I looked at it recently. It's not so bad. It wasn't quite juvenilia, but it wasn't quite my current style, either.

"Naqoyqatsi" is subtitled "Life as War." That rings in this "tempore belli," doesn't it?

Not only were we shocked by 9/11, as everybody was, but what shocked us was how the events had caught up with us. Don't forget we had been working on the scenario for 10 to 12 years. We were finishing the editing when this event happened. There were images in the film that looked like we had shot them after it had happened. There are even pictures of bin Laden in the movie. Who would've known?