What we saw at the Third Coast Percussion concert was a very high level of precision, cohesion and expressiveness, showing that the American is indeed one of the greatest composers of our time.

The audience nearly filled the new and welcoming Teatro de Cultura Artística on Monday to watch the first concert in Brazil by Third Coast Percussion, a quartet of North American percussionists celebrating their twentieth anniversary. And they shared flawless, precise performances of minimalist music.

In fact, a repertoire in tribute to Philip Glass, the greatest pope of music that the French ironically call repetitive. In the first part, his first-time partner, Steve Reich (now 88 years old), sandwiched himself between young composers in their 40s, such as the Englishman Devonté Hynes, the [American] Jlin living in the US (full name Jerrilynn Patton), and David Skidmore (member of Third Coast). The entire second part was reserved for Glass. And for works linked to the Amazon, motivated by the composer’s partnership with the extraordinary Grupo Uakti, from Belo Horizonte.

The piece that sounded most dated was Reich’s. Composed in 1973, before Hynes, Jlin, and Skidmore were born, Music for Pieces of Wood is performed with the quartet playing claves, “percussion instruments commonly used in rumba and other Latin American dances,” explains Eliana Guglielmetti Sulpicio’s program text. The incessant repetition of asymmetrical rhythmic patterns and the technique of time-shifting grate on the ears. I particularly like his innovative videos from the turn of the 21st century (especially “Three Tales: Hindenburg, Bikini, and Dolly,” from 2002).

On the other hand, Hynes’ Perfectly Voiceless, Skidmore’s Torched and Wrecked, and especially Jlin’s Duality, gave the quartet space to make minimalist music interesting, attractive and capable of connecting with the public. That’s no small feat.

In this sense, they matched the empathy that Glass’s music provokes in all types of ears – and which was repeated at the end of the excellent second part entirely dedicated to the Amazon (in arrangements by the group), with fair enthusiastic applause and the right to an encore.

One of the most notable musicians of our time, the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, who is very much in tune with contemporary music, referred to Vivaldi and Mozart when answering a survey last year about Glass’s music: “You may think that he is repetitive in his patterns and idioms, but wasn’t Vivaldi repetitive too? Wasn’t Mozart? I’m speaking superficially, but I still think that in many of Philip’s pieces you can find his refinement in dealing with the same patterns.”

In the same survey, conductor Dennis Russel Davies said the following: “You need to play absolutely in tune and be able to articulate the rhythms exactly with nuance, without rubato (unless you intend to use it).”

Davies talks about the orchestra. In percussion, the goal is even more difficult. That’s what we saw at the Third Coast Percussion concert: a very high level of precision, cohesion and expressiveness. It’s a piece of music that seems easy, but it’s not. It’s necessary to combine the precision of each person with the cohesion of the four percussionists – without forgetting the expressiveness. Repetition has everything to be boring. Unless the musicians who interpret it reinvent it on stage.

After all, as Gidon Kremer reminded us, “The challenge when dealing with minimalist idioms is that you have to be as expressive as possible.” I would like to pass on Kremer’s tip to everyone who attended Monday’s concert at Cultura Artística: “What inspired me a lot was reading Philip’s wonderful autobiography, ‘Words Without Music.’” There is a Spanish edition available on Kindle. Reading this book changed my attitude towards Glass. He is, indeed, one of the greatest composers of our time.

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