Made of Glass

Philip Glass doesn’t approve of intervals. Last week, at Yale University’s Sprague Memorial Hall, the prolific composer gave a preview of what audiences in Dublin, Edinburgh and Cork could expect from his piano performances a few days later. He starts by declaring that pauses in performance “damage the concentration” – and he ended it in front of an audience both entranced and exhausted by the musical equivalent of an optical illusion. For ninety minutes, Glass barely allowed a moment of silence to indicate where one piece ended and another began.

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His performance stands in a long East Coast tradition of using smaller towns – in his case New Haven, Connecticut – as a testing ground before performance on grander venues. Even then, some in the audience paid up to $1000 dollars to touts for the rare chance to attend a Glass premiere.