COMPOSER PROFILES ON CHANNEL 28

Rock videos notwithstanding, televised musical performances have always suffered from a built-in contradiction: music is basically aural; television is basically visual. For a musicial performance to hold the viewer’s attention, to quote D.W. Griffith, “It’s gotta move.”

Each installment of a series profiling American composers Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, John Cage and Robert Ashley, tonight and Saturday on KCET Channel 28, grapples with the restrictive nature of the medium--with varying success. Presented in conjunction with New Music America ‘85, these intriguing programs have been scheduled by the geniuses at our local PBS affiliate at the unholy time of 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.

The most delightful hour is spent with John Cage (Saturday, 11 p.m.). As with the three other composers, Cage is shown performing and talking about his music. What sets this portrait apart from its companions is the fascinating contrast of the man (giddy, giggly and ever-charming) and his art (ultra-serious, tedious and impenetrable).

The program is set in a restored English church--note the wonderful opening shots of the renovation accompanied by excerpts from “Indeterminacy,” Cage’s amusing series of minute-long anecdotes. The concert, billed as a “Musical Circus,” honors the composer on his 70th birthday. The music, of course, is excruciatingly redundant. But the quick cutting of Peter Greenaway (who directed the entire series) keeps the viewer involved.

Philip Glass and his virtuosic Ensemble are shown in a relatively straightforward and uncompromisingly dreary concert presentation (tonight, 11 p.m.), encompassing excerpts from “Einstein on the Beach,” “Music in Similar Motion,” “Glassworks,” etc.

The music is left to its own devices--which means that the hour is long on arpeggios and short on interest or energy. Occasional interviews break up the musical longueur , but even these potentially revealing moments with Glass prove pretentious and stilted: Unnamed interviewers sit by the composer, nod their heads in understanding, but are never seen posing a question.

An hour with the multi-gifted Meredith Monk is scarcely time enough to sample her talents, but this free-flowing mixture of dance, film, music and talk (tonight, midnight) comes close. As with Cage, Monk is a captivating presence apart from her work. In conversation, she is articulate and, thankfully, not too serious about herself as she discusses such works as “Dolmen Music,” “Turtle Dreams,” “Traveling” and “Biography.” Performances with her ensemble are shot in an effective uncluttered style. Most enjoyable, though, are snippets from two films, “Quarry” and “Ellis Island.”

All that is off-putting and pretentious about contemporary music is put on display in the concluding segment with Robert Ashley (Saturday, midnight). The hour is either a performance of his television opera “Perfect Lives (Privacy Rules)” or is a documentary about it. One is never sure--and one is not likely to care.

With fellow ultra-cerebral New York cronies Peter Gordon, “Blue Gene” Tyranny and John Sanborn, Ashley drones on in an endless spoken text about absolutely nothing, while oh-so-bizarre visual settings and oh-so-clever camera angles attempt to liven things up. The hour begins and ends with instructions on starting and stopping your videocassette machine. Better to use your tape on Monk and Cage.

Also as part of the festival, KPFK (90.7 FM) will air at noon today “Auto-Hum” by Bonnie Barnett. The New York-based humming specialist will lead those gathered at the radio station plus any listening in their cars or homes in an hourlong hum-athon. No need to learn any tunes for this event--Barnett specializes in one-chord compositions. Hmmmmmmm . . .