Philip Glass on Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen

Filed under: Leonard Cohen | By DrHGuy | October 4, 2007 at 6:08 am

Philip Glass has authored an interesting essay in The Independent describing the renewal of his friendship with Leonard Cohen and the consequent creation of his musical work based on Cohen’s volume of poetry, Book of Longing.

Glass refers to the tasks involved in mounting an opera, his intuitive pairings of instruments and those poems from Book of Longing that fall into the category the composer has labeled “Rhymes and Limericks,” his work with Allen Ginsberg, and the special difficulties of working with the English Language.

Those familiar with Leonard Cohen’s poetry or music will not, I suspect, be surprised to learn that “There’s an erotic dimension to the piece, too.”

I’ve excerpted the first paragraph to give a sense of article:

I don’t know how Leonard [Cohen] and I arranged to meet exactly, but nine years ago we planned to spend the afternoon together. The afternoon turned into dinner and it turned into the evening, and we spent the whole time reading a book, which, at that time, was just loose, unpublished pages of poetry. It was, in fact, the Book of Longing [Cohen's collection]. We were in a very typical Los Angeles house with a backyard and a swimming pool, and we just sat on the grass and he read the poems.¹

The most striking and poignant passage consists of a few lines near the end in which Glass writes about Cohen’s generosity in a manner that resonates with appreciations by other artists, writers, audience members, and even random individuals who happen to cross the singer’s path:

I have been asked, am I understanding the poems in the way they were intended? It’s funny, in many ways Leonard and I haven’t talked about these things very much. Leonard’s attitude towards what I do was very generous. He trusted me, said: “Just do it.” With the poems I was given a terrific gift. Leonard had already gone through the whole process, he had found the structure, he had found the words. It was like being given flowers and asked to arrange them in a vase, only the flowers were already there.

The article by Philip Glass about his meeting and collaboration with Leonard Cohen is available online at Philip Glass: Leonard Cohen and me

Footnotes

While I don’t want to be a noodge, I must point out that, like Glass, I have a backyard, a pool, grass (during several months of the year) and my copy of the Book of Longing is nicely bound. I am also quite flexible about scheduling an afternoon, full day, or even an overnighter for a Leonard Cohen visit and will kick in for meals (I’m thinking carryout from a local Thai restaurant that is pretty nice) and quality snacks (none of those generic chips). Admittedly, I can’t promise that a world class musical production would result, but I could probably work up a couple of better than average blog posts and maybe a bawdy limerick that references the meeting. And, these divertissements would have a much shorter gestational period than Glass required. Dropping in is fine but calling ahead would give us a chance to make sure the guest bed has clean sheets. ~back~

Show Social Bookmarks

Hide Sites

Possibly Related Posts:

Leonard Cohen, Philip Glass, And The Iceberg

Oblivious, Part I

Julie - The Sojourn In The Wilderness, Part III

The Intimidators

Eye-catching And Eye-fooling Ads

1 Comment

Now that you are again ambulatory, I think you should change your schedule and join the many Cohen fans gathering on October 20 in London. Glass will be there and Leonard will be joining him in a public conversation.

It’s short notice, but if crossing the pond is too much, a similar event will be in Palo Alto California (Stanford) next week. Conversation 10/8; performance 10/9.

If you want extra incentive for California, I am fairly certain Anjani will be accompanying Mr. Cohen there.

Comment by dick — October 4, 2007 @ 2:09 pm