Photo shows The Christian Wolff Sextet (photo: Martin Longley)

Philip Glass: Satyagraha: The Metropolitan Opera

It's very nearly three decades since the premiere of Satyagraha, the second opera penned by Philip Glass. Its predecessor was 1976's Einstein On The Beach, which was hardly an opera at all, but rather a new form of extended pulsation in the form of a multi-media theatrical experience. Set by its side, Satyagraha (truth force) almost seems like a conventional opera, but within the realms of the form's mainstream this is, of course, emphatically not the case. The narrative thrust is quite direct, and almost impressionistic. Glass rejects the concept of subtitles, even though the libretto is written in Sanskrit. He believes that too much attention to specific details will mar the work's cumulatively abstract ascension, so trimmed text excerpts are projected onto the stage backdrop itself, observational thoughts rather than precise storytelling. These are adapted from the Bhagavad Ghita. The narrative of Satyagraha deals with the early life of Mahatma Ghandi, in South Africa. These were the days when he was first formulating his ideas of passive disobedience, but it also moves through sections that conjure up the spirits of fellow thinkers Leo Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore and Martin Luther King, operating on an abstract time-level, where many decades intersect in a dreamlike stasis.

The production is directed and designed by Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, otherwise known as Improbable Theatre, and was premiered in 2007, with the English National Opera in London. Now it's The Metropolitan Opera's turn, as this was always planned as a co-production. The fundamental thrust of their style is to use ostensibly simple (and inexpensive) materials to create Satyagraha's look. Corrugated iron forms the curved backdrop to the action, on which most of the 'captions' are projected. The symbolic beings hefted by the players and chorus are fashioned out of newspaper, tape and glue, making huge caricatures, towering puppets that are created by the manipulations (and even in-the-moment constructions) of the performers. The use of yellowed newspaper is inspired by the Indian Voice, which was a major platform for Ghandi's ideas.

As the Met's huge chandeliers grind up ceilingwards, gradually dimming the matt-gold-encrusted auditorium, the orchestra readies itself in the pit, and then the Glass spiritual meditation begins. The whole work will sprawl over four hours, including its two intervals and Met-length applause, so the desired audience approach is to recline into a highly relaxed state, ungoverned by conventional notions of 'action'. Actually, this is dreamily easy to perform: the abstracted narrative, steadily progressing string wavelets and round-toned Sanskrit enunciations collude to produce a mesmerising process that's never really as uninteresting as many folks might fear. The Glass phrases might have an air of simplicity or, er, minimalism, but their development is keyed into the melodic frequencies that calm too-tense brain activity. A lot is happening visually, but it spirals and phases into position and shape very gradually, with each aspect of the experience aiding the other towards a grand aim of dispersed concentration. The chorus and Improbable's Skills Ensemble of physical manipulators are unhurriedly forming themselves into lines, crowd scenes and three-dimensional puppeteers. The vocal hooks of the three acts are so wonderfully restrained in their arrival that when the full choral phrase emerges, there's an enormous sense of, well, mental orgasm. The role of Ghandi is majestically tackled by Richard Croft, understandably onstage for much of the duration, his low tones seeming to drift in suspension. The visual impact is strong in all ways, from the obvious scale of the towering newsprint puppet-creatures to the final act's boldly simple whittling away of everything except Martin Luther King, on his podium, facing away from the audience, endless blue sky beckoning, whilst Ghandi stands in the foreground. The finale is spectacular, not just in musical terms, but in its courageous avoidance of a conventional climax, as all is stripped to its absolute naked state.

The Christian Wolff Sextet: Roulette

The band's name makes it sound like a jazz outfit, and indeed, composer Christian Wolff was originally billed here as playing Fender Rhodes electric piano. The reality is that he's sitting in front of an old-fashioned acoustic piano, augmented by melodica and some tiny pieces of percussion, with not much of his avowed tendency towards improvisation in evidence. Wolff is one of America's chief modernist composers, and this was a somewhat low-key gig. Although born in France, he's been a US citizen since 1946. At an early age, Wolff began to mingle with the John Cage circle, and later hung out with Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski. The sextet line-up is twinned guitars, cello, trombone and clarinet, with its players always required to leave a large amount of contemplative silence in-between their studied flourishes. Such hyper-restraint is so rare in music that these stretches of very slow development, pauses and pointed statements, are to be savoured carefully by the ears. In the second half, Wolff's Microexercises are shuffled in-between trombonist Jürg Frey's Les Tréfonds Inexplorés Des Signes, but the latter is so attuned to the Wolff way that it's not exactly clear where lies the dividing line. All of the players are delicately responsive, allowing tones to suspend themselves until their after-ring completely subsides, although shocks are still possible, when Wolff makes a sudden percussion move, or when he unexpectedly hammers his keys. Then, the contemplation continues...

Frederic Rzewski: Carnegie Hall

It's the US pianist and composer Frederic Rzewski's involvement with Italy's largely improvising Musica Elettronica Viva (though most of them were Americans) that first introduced these ears to his sounds. That old vinyl still remains the cherished noise to have emanated from his fingers, despite Rzewski having led his main life-spine as a new music composer. Not that I was hoping for any electro-acoustic spontaneity, within Carnegie Hall's portals, as Rzewski sits down to enjoy his seventieth year, giving a recital that re-visits many of those decades. Instead, when he's actually performing, he's commanding a completely acoustic piano, and when he's not, the Opus 21 ensemble are employing violin, cello, saxophone, clarinet, piano and what sounds like massed percussion, due to Rzewski''s predilection for guiding his interpreters towards the striking and slapping potentialities of their instruments and even their general surroundings.

The scene-setting interviews are also illuminating, as Rzewski is famed as an avoider of pomposity and over-elaboration. He wisely expects his compositions to possess their own voices. So, we have much more than the usual quota of dry humour, with old Fred refusing to be fixed forever in one location. It's the oldest piece, 1972's Attica, that still holds the most interest, with commanding actor Steve ben Israel intoning a simple phrase with a slowly revealing repetition. It's grown from the observation of Attica prison uprising organiser (or one of them) Richard X. Clark ('Attica is in front of me'), when quizzed over whether the experience was behind him. Israel holds firm the attention, but these repetitions don't have the compulsive profundity of similar phrase pile-ups employed by Steve Reich. The newest selection (given its NYC premiere, in fact) is War Songs, which finds Rzewski meandering somewhat as he sits alone at the piano. Far more arresting is the older (1980) Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, performed with fellow pianist Stephen Drury, which operates on a significantly more active level.