Edinburgh Playhouse, Five stars
Rock 'n' roll, Beat poetry and contemporary classical music aren't exactly staples of Edinburgh International Festival's programme. The appearance of composer Philip Glass and singer, poet and shamanic force of nature Patti Smith to pay homage to counter-cultural guru Allen Ginsberg, however, is a bold and unexpected move that should point the way for EIF's future.
The New York duo's opening performance of Smith's Notes To The Future before an audience of ageing hippies and young bohemians is all too appropriate in this respect. The evening is divided into four loose-knit sections. In the first, Smith reads words penned by both Ginsberg and herself, with Glass discreetly underscoring on the piano.
As Glass leaves the stage, Smith is joined by guitarist Tony Shenahen, who accompanies her on emotive renderings of songs from her back pages. Glass returns to play three solo miniatures before Smith rejoins him for some final excursions into disembodied poetics. All this is accompanied by back-projected images of Ginsberg, from young rake to Beat generation icon to wise old sage.
This only hints at the sheer power of a compendium of work that goes gloriously off-piste from the advertised programme, with Smith pre-empting each song with readings of several Robert Louis Stevenson poems for children culled from a book she bought the day of the gig in a shop opposite Stevenson's birth-place.
A sense of both their own and Ginsberg's mortality permeates the evening, and, while mournful and elegiac, the rolling thunder of Ginsberg's words becomes thrillingly transcendent in Smith's similarly unfettered delivery. By the end, Smith's arms are raised in an act of homage and salvation in a life-affirming evening to cherish.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article