Frederic Rzewski

[wolff]

What are your thoughts on this composer?  I would rank him among the "best" of living composers, and perhaps all composers (OK, maybe going too far here...).  I'm working on his "Mayn Yingele," which is a set of 24 short variations (and optional improvised cadenza) based on a traditional Yiddish theme.  He makes his work quite difficult to play, despite being a pianist himself!

His works are all over the place.  Exploring his catalogue, I've heard elements of minimalism, dodecaphony, a sort of neocloassicism that reminds me of Beethoven, intense dissonances (e.g., "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" and other works), extended technique, singing, shouting, tapping, ...the list goes on.  His most recent work, the nanosonatas, have taken a more abstract theme.  I saw Rzewski perform an extract of the sonatas live.  Overall, I hear an abundance of creativity and genius unparalleled, as far as I can tell, by any other living composer.

[ryguillian]

What are your thoughts on this composer?  I would rank him among the "best" of living composers, and perhaps all composers (OK, maybe going too far here...).  I'm working on his "Mayn Yingele," which is a set of 24 short variations (and optional improvised cadenza) based on a traditional Yiddish theme.  He makes his work quite difficult to play, despite being a pianist himself!

His works are all over the place.  Exploring his catalogue, I've heard elements of minimalism, dodecaphony, a sort of neocloassicism that reminds me of Beethoven, intense dissonances (e.g., "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues" and other works), extended technique, singing, shouting, tapping, ...the list goes on.  His most recent work, the nanosonatas, have taken a more abstract theme.  I saw Rzewski perform an extract of the sonatas live.  Overall, I hear an abundance of creativity and genius unparalleled, as far as I can tell, by any other living composer.

I really like Hamelin's Rzewski album (featuring The People United Will Never Be Defeated! with an improvised cadenza filled with ruine & combustion), but I haven't very much enjoyed other things I've heard by him; although admittedly I haven't heard much of his gigantic output. De Profundis, for example, strikes me as quite cartoonish and stupid (although I'm not a big fan of vocal stuff superimposed on solo piano in general).

As far as his pianism goes: I would certainly like to hear more of his recordings, especially his recording of Stockhausen's Klavierstück 10 which is supposed to be quite great.

In any case, I think calling Rzewski one of the best living composers leans towards overstatement; his piano writing seems quite inventive, yes, but when I compare him with somebody like Elliott Carter; well..., there's really no comparison. Although verily he's light-years ahead of Philip Glass or John Adams.

Best,

Ryan

[ahinton]

I really like Hamelin's Rzewski album (featuring The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

Or, as someone rather despairingly expressed it in the rather different context of the current perpetrators of the global econonic crisis:
The People Benighted Will Never Be Unseated

OK - joke over and all due apologies. That particular work has a lot going for it and Hamelin's performance does much for it, I think; quite courageous for a composer to write a big, bold set of piano variations on a theme as he did, when he did...

Best,

Alistair

[Petter]

I listened to a pianist called Ralph von Raat play "The People United will never be Defeated" recently on naxos. I really liked it with the blend of all different styles. I really admire the programmatic idea and the purpose it was composed for.  

[retrouvailles]

Ralph van Raat is a great Dutch pianist who has spent a lot of time recording some great modern piano works for Naxos. His interpretation of Rzewski's People United Vars is up there with Oppens and Hamelin, if you ask me. I can't say I enjoyed his Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues as much, but it was still a decent recording. Definitely recommended if you don't want to shell out all the money for the Hyperion recording.

[Petter]

He seem to be sympathetic person as well, after what I read from his artistic vision.

[ryguillian]

Or, as someone rather deapairignly expressed it in the rather different context of the current perpetrators of the global econonic crisis:
The People Benighted Will Never Be Unseated

Not to get too far off topic (although I'm sure Rzewski has an interest in hegemonic bankers), but the Rothschilds and the Medici Bank were eventually unseated, but it did take a century in the case of the former and a few centuries in the case of the later... Did somebody actually say this?

Best,

Ryan

[ryguillian]

I listened to a pianist called Ralph von Raat play "The People United will never be Defeated" recently on naxos. I really liked it with the blend of all different styles. I really admire the programmatic idea and the purpose it was composed for.  

I certainly agree with you that the contrast in the variations is stunning. At times the piece is lyrical, expansive and flowing (without sounding too anachronistic or deliberately romantic) and at others points in the piece it sounds like Rzewski is channelling Stockhausen or Bussotti in all their telegraphically-compressed and cryptic density.

As far as the "programmatic idea", this really shouldn't matter. In fact, this is my main point of contention with Rzewski's aesthetics. I really don't like the idea of "political music" regardless of execution. Call it a prejudice? Thankfully, he's a good composer so his technique can overcome some of the shortcomings of what I consider poor inception. I guess I have a problem with the idea of "overtly political" music; it seems too worldly and incidental. I think music should be a translation and filtering of emotions, not a direct expression of them. I think Einstein said something like "No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception." But maybe Rzewski is able to sublimate his impetus sufficiently? As I said above, I haven't listened to enough of his work...

Sorry if that was haphazard.

Best,

Ryan

[communist]

I agree he is a good composer but not in my opinion the best living.

[ryguillian]

Ralph van Raat is a great Dutch pianist who has spent a lot of time recording some great modern piano works for Naxos.

If one tries to forget the fact that he recorded John Adams's complete piano works... 

Best,

Ryan

[retrouvailles]

If one tries to forget the fact that he recorded John Adams's complete piano works... 

Best,

Ryan

If you ask me it never happened.

[indutrial]

I know that, some time after the completion of The Road, the entirety of that 10-hour work was performed by a number of pianists (including the composer and Ian Pace) over the course of one day. It would be nice if a recording of this event (if one exists) would find it's way toward becoming available, like the composer's scores did last year.

Though I certainly agree that sociopolitical matters add little to music, his leftist ideas and values are likely behind the widespread availability of his 'copyleft'ed scores, which I'm sure many here know is freely distributed through Werner-Icking's online library. Looking at the bottom of his list there, it appears that he's added quite a few new works in the past two years. Has anyone here tried playing his books of 'Nanosonatas' or any other recent works? A third batch of them recently became available, the last of which is dated as being composed earlier this month.

https://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Rzewski.php

I don't know much of his playing aside from some discs I have where he plays his own works (including some of 'The Road'). Fans of his should check out Belgian composer Walter Hus, a friend of Rzewski's who's composed several interesting works for keyboard and a lot of other works I've not heard. Of specific note is his series of 24 preludes/fugues that is split into four books amounting to some 300 pages of music. The latter three books of this cycle are for two pianos and Rzewski played second piano alongside the composer in premiering the 2nd and 3rd books. Akin to the complete 'The Road', no recordings of those performances have yet come to the surface.

[Petter]

If one tries to forget the fact that he recorded John Adams's complete piano works... 

Best,

Ryan

"As a human being and a musician I have the great advantage of living in the world of today. Above all, never before has a greater diversity of music been audible globally. One grows up in a society where he or she is constantly and involuntarily – not in the least sense because of all the media – brought into contact with many musical forms and styles. Not only Western classical music, but also jazz, pop and non-Western art such as Indian music are heard. Right because of this constant contact, I have frequently wondered how it is possible for people to limit their musical language and personality to just one sole type or style of music. After all, every piece of music, regardless its style, highlights only an aspect of the human personality"

Said by Ralph van Raat and I agree to two billion %.
 As for music being autonomous from everything else I don´t think it´s possible. In this particular case I subscribe to the composers socialist views. I guess you don´t. But you all probably know more about this then me.
 Glad we can all enjoy the music 

[ahinton]

I certainly agree with you that the contrast in the variations is stunning. At times the piece is lyrical, expansive and flowing (without sounding too anachronistic or deliberately romantic) and at others points in the piece it sounds like Rzewski is channelling Stockhausen or Bussotti in all their telegraphically-compressed and cryptic density.

As far as the "programmatic idea", this really shouldn't matter. In fact, this is my main point of contention with Rzewski's aesthetics. I really don't like the idea of "political music" regardless of execution. Call it a prejudice? Thankfully, he's a good composer so his technique can overcome some of the shortcomings of what I consider poor inception. I guess I have a problem with the idea of "overtly political" music; it seems too worldly and incidental. I think music should be a translation and filtering of emotions, not a direct expression of them. I think Einstein said something like "No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception." But maybe Rzewski is able to sublimate his impetus sufficiently? As I said above, I haven't listened to enough of his work...

Sorry if that was haphazard.

Best,

Ryan

It doesn't come across as haphazard to me. Some may not agree with you in some or all particulars here, but I have to admit that I simply cannot bring myself deliberately and wilfully to engage in the ignoble art of forcing music to try directly to represent such worldly things - which is not at all to seek to pretend any kind of superior attitude but merely to confess that I see little if any point in trying to make something do what it seems to me it was neither intended to do nor is capable of doing.

In a typically excellent centenary tribute to Elliott Carter at
https://groups.google.com/group/rec.music.classical.recordings/msg/d38dadb75bced81f?&q=%22elliott+carter%22
Charles Rosen quotes from a 1959 letter from Carter (albeit not to him personally):
"Certainly my music has sought mainly two things—to deal with vertical and horizontal dimensions in a more varied way than is usually done—I try to find continuities that gain meaning, change, and operate in time on a level of interest that is parallel to our present experience of living. Thus there are textures and shifts of character that feature very contrasting musical behaviors, simultaneously or one after the other, but linked together by phrasing. The other aspect is an attempt to use the performing situation, the instrument, its player, and the combination of instruments as a means of individualization. To find the special music, so to speak, that needs the 'cello and the piano—which don't go together very well. To bring out their differences and make a virtue of that, even a means of
expression."
The reason that I requote this passage in extenso here is because of its core focus in that phrase "our present experience of living". Now whilst Elliott Carter's is a largely and consciously urban one (and that is not, of course, every composer's principal experience), he is writing about the notion of music reacting to and engaging with such phenomena rather than seeking literally to reflcet or represent them in the way that was once said of Richard Strauss's alleged quest for the means of making it possible to represent a knife or fork in music. Sorabji also writes about this factor in terms of the sound of a stream and Ravel's orchestration in a section of Daphnis et Chloé (which I won't take up space by quoting here), in that the art of the suggestive is at work in that passage rather than it being possible for any real stream (other, perhaps, than a stream of cousciousness, but he didn't say that!) to sound like this music. Music cannot be wholly aloof or divorced from human experience if it to possess any value for the humans that make and listen to it, but that is a very different thing to the idea that it should be - and be seen to be - some kind of direct expression of this or that in human life, be it politics or anything else; "a translation and filtering of emotions, not a direct expression of them" is, I think, a most apt phrase to encapsulate this; it is therefore no surprise to me to find that the most consistent characteristic of Carter's music is its humanity and - to return (at last! - sorry) to the subject - why the political context of the original theme that Rzewski chose for this monumental set of piano variations seems (to my ears, at least) to become an almost immediate irrelevance when the variations themselves begin - and that variety of expression between those variations that you rightly mention serves only to endorse and emphasise that independence from the theme's contextual origin (much the same might be said of the Grieg theme on which my own large-ish set of piano variations is fashioned - the variations depart from its original context immediately, though not for the purpose of, or with a view to, hiding - let alone undermining - anything, in that my choice of theme had nothing to do with making any statement about Grieg as a Norwegian composer writing incidental music for a Norwegian play but simply because it had struck me as having immense potential scope for variation treatment).

Alan Bush (1900-95), the English composer, would doubtless have taken a widely divergent view of these issues and he was a long-term member of the British Communist party, yet some of his more important purely instrumental works (Dialectic, for string quartet - Concert Piece, for cello & piano - Three Concert Studies for piano trio - Violin Concerto, etc.) can be well appreciated without the slightest recourse to his political philosophies, despite the extent to which he seemed to seek to incorporate a sense of them in so much of what he composed; his four major stage works are another matter, of course, to the extent that he chose on each occasion tales with a vital socialist input and impetus yet, even here, a musician as politically distant from Bush as Sorabji was nevertheless found much to admire in all of them, most especially the last, Joe Hill: The Man Who Never Died. Bush's fine large-scale Piano Concerto seems to me to be marred appallingly by the inclusion in its finale of a setting of a pseudo-socialistic text by Randall Swingler that seems at best sickeningly childish, yet the music somehow contrives to transcend even this otherwise gross aberration (I am expressly not commenting on the particular politics of the text here, merely on its gut-wrenchingly doggerel-like nature).

Rzewski, like Bush, is a man who makes no effort to hide his political beliefs and that is, of course, his prerogative just as it was Bush's; however, the extent to which is it possible, let alone desirable, somehow to contrive to "express" such things in music is, I fear, either a lost cause or a cause unworthy of pursuit in the first place.

Best,

Alistair

[thracozaag]

As far as the "programmatic idea", this really shouldn't matter. In fact, this is my main point of contention with Rzewski's aesthetics. I really don't like the idea of "political music" regardless of execution. Call it a prejudice? Thankfully, he's a good composer so his technique can overcome some of the shortcomings of what I consider poor inception. I guess I have a problem with the idea of "overtly political" music; it seems too worldly and incidental. I think music should be a translation and filtering of emotions, not a direct expression of them. I think Einstein said something like "No worthy problem is ever solved within the plane of its original conception." But maybe Rzewski is able to sublimate his impetus sufficiently? As I said above, I haven't listened to enough of his work...

Interestingly enough, Rzewski himself agrees with you.  On several occasions, I've seen him visibly bristle at the thought that his music represents anything "political", and dismissed these notions completely when asked.  Whether he was being sincere, facetious, or simply cantankerous (or perhaps all three--he's a complicated guy), I cannot say.

[ryguillian]

Interestingly enough, Rzewski himself agrees with you.

Good.

B.,

Ry.

[ryguillian]

"As a human being and a musician I have the great advantage of living in the world of today. Above all, never before has a greater diversity of music been audible globally. One grows up in a society where he or she is constantly and involuntarily – not in the least sense because of all the media – brought into contact with many musical forms and styles. Not only Western classical music, but also jazz, pop and non-Western art such as Indian music are heard. Right because of this constant contact, I have frequently wondered how it is possible for people to limit their musical language and personality to just one sole type or style of music. After all, every piece of music, regardless its style, highlights only an aspect of the human personality"

Said by Ralph van Raat and I agree to two billion %.
 As for music being autonomous from everything else I don´t think it´s possible. In this particular case I subscribe to the composers socialist views. I guess you don´t. But you all probably know more about this then me.
 Glad we can all enjoy the music 

I'm not sure that I understand the connection between what you wrote and what you quote of what I wrote, but in any case I hardly think recording Adams's wares constitutes some sort of paradigm-shifting musico-cultural edification.

Best,

Ryan

[ahinton]

"As a human being and a musician I have the great advantage of living in the world of today. Above all, never before has a greater diversity of music been audible globally. One grows up in a society where he or she is constantly and involuntarily – not in the least sense because of all the media – brought into contact with many musical forms and styles. Not only Western classical music, but also jazz, pop and non-Western art such as Indian music are heard. Right because of this constant contact, I have frequently wondered how it is possible for people to limit their musical language and personality to just one sole type or style of music. After all, every piece of music, regardless its style, highlights only an aspect of the human personality"

Said by Ralph van Raat and I agree to two billion %.
As for music being autonomous from everything else I don't think it's possible. In this particular case I subscribe to the composers socialist views. I guess you don't. But you all probably know more about this then me.
 Glad we can all enjoy the music 

I realise, of course, that your remarks here were directed principally towards Ryan, to whom you were responding, but if he implied that music can or should be "autonomous" in the way that you suggest, I completely failed to notice it; my own remarks on the subject should clarify where I stand on this issue. Furthermore, I have no idea what Ryan's political views are but, since I am also unaware that he expressed or even referred to them in what he wrote, I'm unsure that it's helpful for you to make an assumption about them, especially when the political views of any of us, whatever they may be and however they may differ, are not what count in the far broader context of whether music can or should be pressed into service directly as part of some kind of political propaganda exercise; the very fact that Sorabji could appreciate the music of Alan Bush surely helps to illustrate the extent to which music goes beyond such immediate considerations, even though at the same time its composers will not, of course, have been unaware or uncaring of what may have been going on politically at the time they composed (or also, as in the case of Bush, of events in political history).

Best,

Alistair

[Petter]

To ahinton.
I was compelled by the title of the piece and it´s idea so I listened to it and I liked it.  What I meant was simply that you (I) judge all music on previous experiences, where a title suggesting something of course makes you relate to it on some level which in this case was appealing to me. This Friday I was at a concert and heard a piece by Florent Schmitt who was a Vichy government supporter. I thought it was a stunning piece but I could not disregard the fact that he was presented as an antisemitic composer who fell into obscurity mostly because of his political views. Maybe the fact that he was pro-german even triggered my expectations of the music...
  If you´re aiming towards music worth on it´s on merits, which perhaps would be idealistic, I just think it´s hard, personally, to disregard from whatever trivias,  "facts" that surrounds the music, or the prejudices and lived experiences that shape your listening experience. Otherwise I´m missing the point. My native language is not English.

To rygullian and retrouvailles
 I looked up the pianist and was impressed by his urge to give lecture-recitals about 20th century music to expand peoples music taste and felt it was unjust to criticize him based on his repertoire when his goal and aim clearly is to share his knowledge about 20th century art music and classical music to those willing to hear him out. Something I would certainly aim for myself if my resources as a musicologist and pianist was as vast as his. If you yourself pursuit such a quest I beg for your eternal forgiveness.

Best,

Petter

[ahinton]

To ahinton.
I was compelled by the title of the piece and it´s idea so I listened to it and I liked it.  What I meant was simply that you (I) judge all music on previous experiences, where a title suggesting something of course makes you relate to it on some level which in this case was appealing to me. This Friday I was at a concert and heard a piece by Florent Schmitt who was a Vichy government supporter. I thought it was a stunning piece but I could not disregard the fact that he was presented as an antisemitic composer who fell into obscurity mostly because of his political views. Maybe the fact that he was pro-german even triggered my expectations of the music...

Thank you very much for your kind words about my work. As to Schmitt, I do not know which work of his that you heard (perhaps you might care to tell us) but, as a composer, he was in no sense anti-Semitic (just listen to the opening of one of his greatest works which happens also to be one of the major masterpieces of French chamber music - his Piano Quintet and tell me that this is the music of an anti-Semite!) Also, don't forget that his almost namesake Franz Schmidt, the truly German composer, was almost hailed as a hero by the Third Reich following one of the greatest pieces he ever wrote, Das Buch mit Sieben Siegeln and he was commissioned as a consequence to write an heroic oratorio in celebration of the achievements of the Reich - a commission that he accepted in the full and certain knowledge that, as he was dying at the time, he would never write the piece.

Best,

Alistair

[Petter]

Oh my this is a bit awkward, I was refering to the piece by Rzewski. I´ve been looking for your contrasaxaphone piece though, it seems really exciting. I don´t suppose there are any records of your work on Naxos? Maybe it´s possible to find through spotify...
 Anyway, about Schmitt I heard La tragédie de Salome. The presenter of the evening gave us a brief introduction of how Schmitt inspired Stravinsky but that Schmitt was a antisemitic lunatic and no one liked him anymore. But the music was beautiful, lots of woodwind, and some solo English horn or oboe.

[ahinton]

Oh my this is a bit awkward, I was refering to the piece by Rzewski. I´ve been looking for your contrasaxaphone piece though, it seems really exciting. I don´t suppose there are any records of your work on Naxos? Maybe it´s possible to find through spotify...
 Anyway, about Schmitt I heard La tragédie de Salome. The presenter of the evening gave us a brief introduction of how Schmitt inspired Stravinsky but that Schmitt was a antisemitic lunatic and no one liked him anymore. But the music was beautiful, lots of woodwind, and some solo English horn or oboe.

Schmitt is one of a handful of seriously underappreciated French composers who had something really important to say (Roussel and Magnard are two others). For those members who reside in or near UK, there happens to be a broadcast of Schmitt's La Tragédie de Salomé on BBC Radio 3 next week.

My piece involving contrabass saxophone (Concerto for 22 Instruments) is sadly unavailable at present in any form other than a paper copy of the full score directly from The Sorabji Archive; there are no recordings of my work on the Naxos label and those recordings that are available are on the Altarus label as detailed on their website at www.altarusrecords.com and on the Sorabji Archive website at www.sorabji-archive.co.uk. For any further information, please contact sorabji-archive@lineone.net.

Best,

Alistair

[argerichfan]

Also, don't forget that his almost namesake Franz Schmidt, the truly German composer...

So 'truly German' encompasses Austrians, also?  I thought there was a bit of a fine distinction there...

But I agree about the merits of Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln.  A very wonderful composition.

[pies]

nevermind

[ahinton]

So 'truly German' encompasses Austrians, also?  I thought there was a bit of a fine distinction there...

Of course it doesn't and of course there is! In addition to a "fine distinction", there was an intentional joke there which has (perhaps deservedly) backfired but which was along the lines that certain powers-that-be within the Reich conveniently decided that this distinction was an irrelevance when commissioning him to write that celebratory oratorio that he never ended up writing. SPeaking of that distinction, I shudder to imagine quite what Schönberg would have thought had Schmidt actually completed that commission...

But I agree about the merits of Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln.  A very wonderful composition.

Indeed; I am somewhat puzzled by brief moments near the beginning and end that sound as though they were (rather bizarrely) appropriated from Walton, but that aside I think it to be the crowning glory of Schmidt's achievement.

Best,

Alistair

[wolff]

I've had the night free so I've spent some time on youtube.  I came across this: 

.  Sounds like it would be fun to play!

[wolff]

I know that, some time after the completion of The Road, the entirety of that 10-hour work was performed by a number of pianists (including the composer and Ian Pace) over the course of one day. It would be nice if a recording of this event (if one exists) would find it's way toward becoming available, like the composer's scores did last year.

Though I certainly agree that sociopolitical matters add little to music, his leftist ideas and values are likely behind the widespread availability of his 'copyleft'ed scores, which I'm sure many here know is freely distributed through Werner-Icking's online library. Looking at the bottom of his list there, it appears that he's added quite a few new works in the past two years. Has anyone here tried playing his books of 'Nanosonatas' or any other recent works? A third batch of them recently became available, the last of which is dated as being composed earlier this month.

https://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Rzewski.php

I don't know much of his playing aside from some discs I have where he plays his own works (including some of 'The Road'). Fans of his should check out Belgian composer Walter Hus, a friend of Rzewski's who's composed several interesting works for keyboard and a lot of other works I've not heard. Of specific note is his series of 24 preludes/fugues that is split into four books amounting to some 300 pages of music. The latter three books of this cycle are for two pianos and Rzewski played second piano alongside the composer in premiering the 2nd and 3rd books. Akin to the complete 'The Road', no recordings of those performances have yet come to the surface.

I would like to point out that the Rzewski page to which indutrial linked has been updated with lots of new material, some for piano, some not. 

Are there any other notable contemporary composers that make their scores freely available like this?