ConcertPulse
Philip Glass: Koyaanisqatsi
Elbphilharmonie, Großer Saal (Hamburg)
Cinema atmosphere in the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall: the Philip Glass Ensemble plays its eponymous founder’s soundtrack to the 1982 cult film »Koyaanisqatsi« live. Translated from the American Hopi language, the film title means »life out of balance« – the criticism of the often hectic life of modern man at the time is still relevant today. Famous fans like the producers Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) and George Lucas (Star Wars) helped to popularise the visionary film. Its narrative devices were entirely new and ground-breaking back in 1982: devoid of any plot or dialogue, people rush around through the modern, machine-influenced world in fast forward – an apocalyptic vision of the collision of man and nature, technology and the environment. The soundtrack by the minimal music legend Philip Glass enhances the hypnotic effect of the film, resulting in an audio-visual synthesis of the arts. The faster the machines turn and the assembly lines run, the more stressed the people working on them become, the more Glass ramps up the tempo of his repetitive music patterns. Although the composer himself no longer performs, his ensemble carries on the spirit of his music, true to the original.