UK premiere of Philip Glass' "Book of Longing"

[Lizzie]

How many people are going to the London concert? Who wants to meet up for lunch?
Peter and I will be there. Please reply to my email: enm25@cam.ac.uk. No doubt, it'll be another year or two before I visit the forum again.

But love to all who know me.
Lizzie

[Red Poppy]

Are you Lizzy, Tish, or are you just Lizzie, Lizzie?

[lizzytysh]

Hi Red Poppy ~

Lizzie from the U.K. is Lizzie Madder. It's Lizzie Madder who posted the above.

I'm Lizzy/Lizzytysh/Lizzie [to Paula and a couple others only]. You can always tell who's who by our respective locations.


~ Lizzy

[Red Poppy]

I know who you are
but it's going too far,
expecting much of my vocation
to know your daily location!!!!!!!!!!

[lizzytysh]

Ah, yes...
I see your plight.

So, with all of your might,
try to look to the right.
The location you'll find
to get you out of your bind.

And then you will see
your vocation's been freed,
and since you'll be pleased,
a vacation you won't need.


~ Lizzy

[Diane]

Hi Lizzie,

Padma is sorting out a venue in London where we can all meet up before the concert. It'll be good to see you there. We are looking for somewhere to meet from late morning onwards, leading on to the pre-concert talk at 6pm. She is also exploring the possible pubs for somewhere to visit afterwards, as the Barbican reckon the performance is likely to finish between 9.30 and 10.00. Please look in the other gatherings section under Meeting in London for update in due course. I'll email you this message too, just in case you really don't look here for two years!

John and Rob, now I have the dilemma of whether I am going to see this show twice within the same week. I imagine I'll end up going if I can make it. But where are the reviews of the Toronto show?

Cheers,

Diane

[dick]

Sounds like our 'cross the pond friends are working up a great get-together! Wish we could join you. Now anxiously awaiting to see the show twice more in NYC mid July.

Diane -- sorry about not posting the toronto reviews... Anne posted the first that was luke-warm, but there were other more positive articles. I'll put them on the forum if I can find them again.

In the meantime, take a look at the Spoleto review I just posted. It tells it like it is! There was also a good review from Chicago. As with everything Glass, never 100% enthusiasm. I am convinced it will remain a lasting tribute to Leonard after all these performances.

You will like it I am sure.

Dick

[Anne]

I posted the reviews from the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star as soon as they were available. They are still up. They are here:
http://leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8835
http://leonardcohenforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=8829

My personal opinion of the work was that it was interesting. I enjoyed it. I like Glass. I think his work is good. He is NOT Cohen and his work shouldn't be viewed in the same light. It is a different type of music. But I liked it anyway. I would have enjoyed it if Glass had used Leonard's voice more in the work, but he didn't. I don't know if I agreed with all the staging either, but who knows about these things. The set was fantastic, the music was good, the experience was a great one overall. I enjoyed the evening.

[lazariuk]

But where are the reviews of the Toronto show?

I can offer some advice for people attending the London show.

If someone offers you money for your tickets. Take it.
failing that

if you are going because you are drawn to the specific way that Leonard presents the landscape that we all share then I would suggest that you keep your expectations very low. Phillip just might not share that particular kind of fondness that you feel so you might as well know that and just try to appreciate that he is very different from Leonard.

In the next day talk Leonard suggested that Glass' approach was similar to the Iceberg that reccently crashed into the Royal Ontario museum. I thought that was a reasonable statement. You can find pictures of that on the Internet by searches that have the words crystal, toronto, museum.

I made the mistake of having high expectations.

there is a little poem of Leonard's that I like a lot from the Book of Longing that I thought could have been presented musically in some wonderful ways. The poem goes

You go your way
I'll go your way too

The way that Glass presented it was that it was a taped reading by Leonard during a time when the audience was applauding the last number.
Suggestion: refrain from applauding until the end.

I like what Ann said about the show. It was interesting. I think that Leonard said that too.
It might be just as interesting watching it on YouTube and so if it ever appears there it would be worthwhile seeing.

The bulk of the singing was done like an off-broadway musical. That doesn't suit Leonard's songs and poems. If I remember right I think the next day Leonard said in the discussion that he and Glass talked about maybe considering a different approach. The word that Leonard used to describe what he thought would be better than broadway/westend was classical.

and speaking of the next day panel discussion I don't know if anyone mentioned that the moderator asked Leonard what he thought about this place, leonardcohenfiles. It seemed like such a stupid question and not at all relevant to the discussion. At first Leonard managed to ignor it and brought the conversation back on track to the Glass show but the moderator persisted with questioning him about leonardcohenfiles and so he finally said something like "This seems very important to you" to the moderator and then went on to say that leonardcohenfiles is a fine place and Jarkko is very helpful and that he has a bit of an audience here and he seems to like the situation. Then he got back to the subject that we were there to hear about.

I got to meet many of the forum members after the show and the next day. That was very enjoyable.

[Diane]

Thanks very much Dick, Anne and Jack! Very interesting mix of views and reviews. I hadn't noticed any and thought maybe it was so bad that no-one liked to mention it. I too would have far preferred a classical to a broadway sound. Hmmm, we shall see then...

Happy Solstice to everyone!

Diane

[dick]

I too would have far preferred a classical to a broadway sound

In the conversation, Leonard labeled the sound "Glassical."

[Joe Way]

I've been meaning to write a little about my impression of the Toronto production of "Book of Longing" but haven't had the time. And I envy not only the fact that you are getting to see it, but will be able to get together with other Cohen fans. I hope you have as great a time together as we did in Toronto!

I really enjoyed the production. First off, I should confess that I grew up listening to soundtracks of Broadway musicals so I have always enjoyed that dramatic style. It took me awhile to develop a fondness for singer/songwriters like Leonard because I didn't find them musical enough for my tastes. Obviously, I've overcome that particular prejudice now, but like the memory of a scent from childhood, the sounds of Broadway (or the West End of London) create a sympathetic ear immediately for me.

Philip Glass in his conversation with Leonard shared that he had divided the poems into different classifications-and I don't remember them all-but I believe there were five-dharma, Roshi, sexual, light/humorous and dramatic. I think that it was quite apparent that the overall dramatic structure was based on this mix. As an aside, I was seated next to my daughter, Kate during the conversation and she leaned over to me at this point and said, "That is so like a composer-they always have to re-classify and create their own structure." She was quite amused at his mannerisms and I think found them very similar to many composers that she has met in her musical career.

Another thing to remember about Glass is that he based some of his earlier work on sanskrit because it had a more predicable rhythmic structure. At this point I had meant to quote Leonard's answer when he was asked recently about the difference between poetry and song-but I don't have the transcript handy (I'll add it later), but it has to do with movement in time. Song has a very urgent progression-unless one is equipped to stop the singer, one needs to move along with it. Whereas, in reading poetry, the eye has the ability to linger and move back in time. Poets, composers etc. are all very attuned to this distinction. One only has to see the changes that Leonard makes when changing a poem into a song to recognize this. English has an odd meter to it.

What I particularly admired about Glass's treatment is that he adapted his work to fit the oddity of the poems. It takes a very fine musical craftsman to do this.

The dramatic highlight of the work was "I Came To You This Morning," which is the re-titled, "A Thousand Kisses Deep." He, of course, included every verse that Leonard used in the book. The poem is a tour de force in itself and the dramatic rendering served as the musical climax. Up to this point, most of the musicians and singers were featured with solo highlights. But in this piece, all were brought together in musical groups that emphasized the unity of the work. Compare what Leonard wrote about "A Thousand Kisses Deep" when he sent it to Jarkko to post on the Blackening Pages:

"This is getting pretty close. (...) The process has
become rather comic. But I think we've got it now. It took
the crisis of posting it to your site to force a clarification
of the text (after three years of secret tinkering). There is
an apparent violation of the metre in some verses (e.g. #4) but
the old poets would have justified them with devices such as
th'Holy Spirit, or th'Means. And these curiosities actually
correspond to the accents of the poem when it is sung. This
version represents a distillation of many, many verses, all of
them tottering over the final line, A thousand kisses deep.
I hope this is an end to it for a while."

If one goes back and reads the poem out loud it is apparent that "singing" it with any type of regular rhythm would be very difficult. By using different mixes of duple and triple time, Glass brought a cohesion to the music that was really quite astonishing. I really hope that it is brought out on cd as I can hardly wait to listen to it again to appreciate it even more.

I also thought that the production was very visually appealing with the projected artwork. I'm not really qualified to comment on the stage movement, but I found it interesting for the most part. Glass, himself, sat at an electronic keyboard and plunked a little bit. I suspect he is not a virtuoso in this respect, but it was interesting having him on stage. Occasionally, he would get up from the keyboard and move to an overstuffed chair at the front of the stage. I thought this was quite odd, but Kate solved the mystery for me as her seats were in such a place that it would have been impossible for her to see the soloists on one part of the stage had Glass not moved. When it came time for their solos, he sat in the other chair so that people could see them.

I realize that musically this is quite a departure from Leonard's own style, but I hope people are willing to be open to it. I suspect that it may grow on us more by repeated listening. I think that Leonard's comparison of the musical treatment of "Book of Longing" to the architecture of the Royal Ontario Museum as "that iceberg that plowed through the building" was meant to be a compliment to Glass. We truly come to appreciate any work of art through the filter of other works in a continual process of sifting and winnowing. There is also a continual development of a work of this nature. As Glass pointed out in the conversation, the version that you will see in London will be significantly different from the version that was premiered in Toronto. This is a process that Leonard goes through also. Listen to the album version of "Bird on The Wire" and then listen to a later live version as an example of this.

Above all, I hope you have a wonderful time together-for that is foremost in our enjoyment of art and life.

Joe

[Joe Way]

Oh, and at least none of us rioted in the streets like they did after the premier of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" in May 1913.

Here is a link to an account of that:

http://www.time.com/time/time100/artist ... insky.html

written by none other than our Philip Glass.

Joe

[lazariuk]

Oh, and at least none of us rioted in the streets like they did after the premier of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" in May 1913.

Joe

I thought about it but some prior experience with the Toronto police department kept me in check.

I liked the comments you made about the show Joe and I think they will be useful to those planning on attending.

The show was expensive and to get there was a six hour drive from Montreal. My date had to do ten hours of travelling to get to my place to start the six hour drive which all together was a considerable investment of money, time and energy to see this show. After it was all over we both concluded that we were very glad that we had decided to go.

There was for me an aspect of being put off by the show but also other aspects fell into place nicely to bring gladness to the performance and the weekend, not least of which was a kindness that you showed to me. Thanks.

[Joe Way]

Jack,
It was really nice to meet you and your date in Toronto. It seems like a long time ago already, but it will always be a highlight. As I re-read Glass's account of seeing Stravinsky conduct in New York and how it seemed that Stravinsky had one foot in New York and one foot on Olympus, I am sure that someday those of us who were fortunate enough to see Cohen and Glass on stage together will count this as a mountain top moment.

Take care,

Joe