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
