New From Naxos American Classics For March: Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Posted by David in New Releases
Frederic RZEWSKI: The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
Ralph van Raat, piano
Naxos 8559360
In December 2006, Gramophone Magazine named Dutch pianist Ralph van Raat “one to watch.” Now, with his second recording for Naxos, van Raat tackles one of the most important works of the modern piano literature: Frederic Rzewski’s fiendishly difficult set of 36 piano variations, The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Naxos 8559360).
Composer Frederic Rzewski studied at Harvard and Princeton with composers Milton Babbitt and Roger Sessions, and later with Luigi Dallapiccola in Italy. As a successful
pianist, he performed works by classical masters alongside premières by fellow composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and Christian Wolff. Rzewski had hands-on, practical experience as a stage musician, and, as a founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva, he combined live electronics and avant-garde improvisation in theatres.
The People United Will Never Be Defeated! was written in only two months on a commission from American pianist Ursula Oppens, after Rzewski met Chilean composer Sergio Ortega. Three months before Salvador Allende’s death, Ortega heard a street-singer shout El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido!, which made him think immediately of a tune to accompany these words. A day later, the pop group Quilapayun played the melody. Since then, the tune has become an impassioned international symbol against any form of dictatorship. It was no surprise that Ortega and the politically leftist Rzewski greatly impressed and inspired each other when they met in Italy a few years later, resulting in Rzewski’s vision of this emblematic song.
One of the striking elements of this variation work is its length; the composition is a marathon for both the listener and for the performer. The extensive duration of its 36 variations is symbolic of the human struggle for change. Any struggle feels long, with many hurdles obstructing the final goal. The variations themselves all symbolize the different phases and aspects of a struggle: this readily explains the huge array of compositional styles that Rzewski has used, from angry, highly-energized modernism, via melancholic references to blues, calculated dense polyphony and nostalgic folk-music to written-out free jazz passages. Rzewski incorporates contemporary piano effects in some variations, which he charges with an unusual dramatic meaning (for example, the sound of a slammed piano lid in Variation 11, reminds one of a gunshot). Throughout all variations the intervals of Ortega’s theme are always present, whether they are used as a twelve-tone row or as a basis for a fugal passage.
Also featured on this recording is the popular Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues, which was written in 1979 as part of the set North American Ballads. The basis for this work is an existing song bearing the same name, which cotton-mill workers used to sing while working.
Pianist and musicologist Ralph van Raat studied piano with Ton Hartsuiker and Willem Brons at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and musicology at the University of Amsterdam. He concluded both studies with distinction in 2002 and 2003. As a part of the Advanced Programme of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, and with the support of a Prince Bernhard Fellowship, Van Raat also studied with Claude Helffer (Paris), Liisa Pohjola (Helsinki), Ursula Oppens at Chicago’s Northwestern University and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. van Raat has won a number of prizes, including the Second Prize and Donemus-Prize (for Contemporary Music) of the Princess Christina Competition (1995), the Stipend-Prize Darmstadt during the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik ( 1998), First Prize of the International Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition (1999), the Philip Morris Arts Award (2003), the Elisabeth Everts Prize (2004), a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship (2005), the VSCD Classical Music Prize (2005), and the Fortis MeesPierson Award from the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam (2006). He appears as a recitalist and soloist with orchestras in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the United States, with many of his concerts broadcast on radio and TV. He has several recordings to his credit and regularly collaborates with composers, many of whom have dedicated their piano compositions to him. Ralph van Raat has been a Steinway Artist since 2003.
RALPH VAN RAAT ON NAXOS:
“And then comes the true splendor of this disc, the 1996 piano duet “Hallelujah Junction,” which comes off — in a magnificent performance by van Raat and Maarten van Veen — like a synthesis of everything that’s come before. It’s boisterous and elegant and funny and beautiful, by turns and all at once.”
—Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle
“Ralph van Raat displays an innate affinity for the composer’s idioms, be it China Gates’ lyric beauty, Phrygian Gates’ stamina-testing epic sprawl, or American Berserk’s thorny, Ives-inspired ragtime allusions. Next to Gloria Cheng’s chamber-like refinement and Emanuele Arciuli’s extraordinary variety of color and touch, van Raat treats Phrygian Gates as an out-and-out virtuoso vehicle, with plenty of paragraphic sweep and brawny, roof-raising climaxes.”
—Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
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