A Review in 12 Parts

It’s 6:01 p.m. on a Saturday at The Town Hall. A little girl is grasping a stuffie, as if attending a slumber party. An older man boasts to a group that he was here in 1974 — though, back then, he “didn’t get Philip Glass’s music one bit.”

It’s the 50^th anniversary, almost to the day, of the premiere of Glass’s Music in Twelve Parts — in this very hall — and the Philip Glass Ensemble is gearing up for three-and-a-half-hour marathon, not counting intermissions.

I first heard Music in Twelve Parts in the car — on the five-hour drive from Cape Cod to see my grandparents in New York. Back then, I’d join in nonsensically, making seal noises, certain that the lady coming from the speakers — who wasn’t really a lady but rather some kind of robot — was singing, “raisin raisin raisin.”

It’s 6:18 p.m. and there are six musicians onstage, one behind a switchboard — all men except one woman (Lisa Bielawa), whose voice melds with the synthesizer — and though I know now that the vocalizations are solfege, they still turn to words in my ears, a kind of Yanny Laurel transmutation: “It is impossible to know. It really is impossible to know.”

It’s 6:32 p.m. and sleepy heads are already lolling sideways: “so so la so so la.” A woman takes a scarf out of her bag and wraps it around her like a blanket. During the pause, I take a much-needed swig of cold brew.

It’s 7:07 p.m. and I must be in a trance, because the flute and sax (Peter Hess, Sam Sadigursky, Andrew Sterman) are beginning to sound like voices, too. What are they saying? The keyboard bassline a jumbled Rubix cube, as Michael Riesman joins in on raspy vocals.

It’s a 7:23 p.m. and a yawn is spreading, like contagion, through the audience. The guy next to me is snoozing — head back, open mouthed — like a subway commuter. The music is building to nowhere, an Escher staircase. I realize, then, that I’ve never heard “part 5” start-to-finish, because we always had to switch CDs halfway through.

It’s 7:39 p.m. Four listeners leave abruptly. But those who remain might as well be at a rave. I decide to make a study of head bobbing. There seem to be three methods: side to side, up and down, all around. There’s toe tapping, too. One audience member lifts his arms, conducting the air. 

During the hour-long intermission, I sit in Bryant Park eating a to-go charcuterie plate from Murray’s Cheese, the words “salaMI saLAmi salaMI saLAmi” running through my head, as a pedicab blasts “Empire State of Mind,” intermingling with the Mister Softee jingle.  

It’s 9:05 p.m. and The Town Hall is noticeably emptier. The children have all left. “A one, a two, a one two three four,” says Reisman, as if counting in a rock band, but what follows is total cacophony. I can’t help but laugh.

It’s 9:24 p.m. and the flutist is coughing. Bielawa’s enunciation suffers. The keyboard sounds so tactile, almost like a harpsichord. A tendonitis-inducing mechanical precision. Bielawa sings an augmented “doooooo siiiiiiii.”

It’s 9:40 p.m. and my mind wanders. I try isolating different voices in the undulating texture. I look around the hall, noticing the organ pipes on either side of the stage. Were those here in 1974?

It’s 10:12 p.m. The audience dwindles after each break. Only the diehard fans stay. What do I have in common with these bleary-eyed voyagers?

It’s 10:27 p.m. and people are stirring in their seats. Shifting their weight from one butt cheek to the other. The ensemble is tirelessly trilling, oscillating in and out of phase. Catching and losing the groove.

It’s 10:41 p.m. Where would we be now on our drive? Maybe we’d be crossing the Henry Hudson Bridge. The windshield wipers going at different speeds as rain spatters the glass. It smells of stale coffee, donut crumbs, leather, gasoline. My legs ache. My stomach churns. But now I can hear the crunch of gravel. We’re steering into the driveway. It’s 11 p.m.

Photos by Perry Bindelglass