Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen in MUPA
As shop-worn, I was running late. Why is it that every time I go to a weighty concert I seem to be booking it in shoes that are immutable to run in?
Fortunately, not only did we make it (huffing and puffing as the lights dimmed), but we got sport seats than we'd paid for, presumably because they hadn't sold enough tickets in the gods. - yay!I was seated next to a man with a money belly in T-shirt and shorts who smelled like he'd dog-tired the whole day smoking in the sun.
I came to this concert because of Philip Glass, having no recommendation at all that it was Leonard Cohen's poetry and images put to music. The only element I knew about LC was Hallelujah (it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the schoolboy fall and the major lift - always liked those lyrics). I found out through this concert that his other words are wry, pithy and severe-handed by turns, that he likes monochrome his face and guitars, and that his voice is intense and gravelly.
There was a small ensemble of musicians, and 4 singers belting it in draw near-showtune style harmonies. The words were always sung with significance, even when they were saying "Do not try to pet the ant, you'll destroy it with your awkward tenderness". I couldn't help laughing though it didn't seem commandeer since nobody else was. Glass tinkered on his keyboard on the stage in front of some preposterous instrumentalists, all of whom took turns on solos and kept up with those eternal arpeggios and triplets. Sometimes the singers sat, or walked off tier in deliberate exits. The bass baritone was royal. The mezzo reminded me of Shockheaded Peter.
Other snippets of words:
daffodil machete
I crowd round your privacy for a lonesome mile
your thighs a gather of sheep
Three bows (the soprano seemed undoubtedly touched by the display of admiration from the press, not realising that this is the Hungarian way) and we were off to an evening of me saying "Oh heck, why the Tophet not, another...
