This seven disc set chronicles the music composed for
piano over a quarter of a century by a true American original. Frederic
Rzewski has managed simultaneously to extend the maverick lineage established
by Ives and Cowell while maintaining a pianistic, virtuosic allegiance
which owes just as much to composers like Grainger or even Liszt(!),
in the ability to take simple folk/popular materials and build something
truly magnificent out of them, as it does to the avant-garde exemplified
by John Cage. Little wonder then that some of the better known examples
of Rzewski's art included here (The People United…, for example)
have previously been championed by the likes of such luminaries as Marc-André
Hamelin. The package, as assembled by Nonesuch, in much the same manner
as the John Adams Earbox set and a similar Reich collection,
is beautifully chosen, annotated and put together. The discs are carried
in slimline jewel cases within a sturdy outer card sleeve, with superb
and apt photography illustrations throughout. The booklet notes include
much salient detail from the composer/pianist himself and also an illuminating
essay by Christian Wolff and, along with the music, give a great insight
into the creative/political crucible of the 1960s that seems to have
been the catalyst for much of this music. I am in no doubt that the
composer's splendid and powerful performances of his own music demonstrate
absolutely Rzewski's integrity and commitment to what he believes in
(justice, equality, the rights of the downtrodden etc.). It stands,
in these times, to this listener at least, in diametric opposition to
the hollow-eyed and sickly "moral" posturings now so prevalent among
the world’s ‘leaders’. It is contemporary but timeless. It doesn't need
a "cause" to be enjoyed but equally and admirably lends itself to one.
The first disc includes the North American Ballads
(for ballads read "protest songs"), where Pete Seeger is as large a
presence as anyone. Dreadful memories, Which Side Are You
On? And Down By The Riverside are powerful evocations in
their own right but treated relatively traditionally/moderately
in terms of the way the variations evolve. The concluding Winnsboro'
Cotton Mill Blues is much more relentless. The CD ends with the
much calmer Housewife's Lament, a beautiful set of variations
on a 19th century song, quite British sounding (Irish?).
To my mind this disc is the highlight of the set and amply illustrates
one of the best things about the whole package (other than the music),
i.e. that the lyrics from the original songs on which this music is
based are included. This is very instructive and engenders an even greater
empathy with the music than may already exist.
Disc 2 includes a piece based on a highly poignant
Jewish folk tune/song (Mayn Yingele) which again illustrates
both Rzewski's gift for taking and transforming this type of material
while remaining true to its original significance and meaning. A
Life follows and is a tribute to John Cage on his death. The concluding
Fougues and the Fantasia and Sonata on disc three
find Rzewski approximating most closely to classical antecedents, if
not so much in style as loosely, at least in form or intention. It is
here, perhaps, that my attention started to wander. It is unsurprising
in a set of this size that there are going to be, for want of a better
term, longueurs, and discs three, four and five contain most
of them. However, even in the Sonata we are reminded of Rzewski's
main inspirations with the appearance of the traditional bugle call,
Taps.
Discs four and five are given over to the first four
parts of an unfinished (eight part) musical "novel" The Road.
At times it is very inspired and inspiring, at others it meanders rather
aimlessly and pointlessly, just like the highways which gave it its
title, I suppose. The four parts included here are designated "Tracks",
"Turns", "Tramps" and "Stops". Again, the inspirations are familiar
- "a piano arrangement of a choral piece protesting French nuclear tests
in the South Pacific", a railroad blues from the 1930s, a US army chant
("Sound off" etc.) - except for the use of Gogol's The Nose at
the very end of Part IV (linking back to the idea of it being a novel?).
The 36 Variations on The People United…is probably
Rzewski's best known piece. The composer's account of how he and pianist
Ursula Oppens (the dedicatee of this and other Rzewski pieces) first
encountered the original song at a concert by Chilean group Inti-Illimani
(British readers may remember their wonderfully atmospheric music for
The Flight of the Condor) is quite moving. This transformation
of the song also quotes the Italian revolutionary song Bandiera Rossa
(Alan Rawsthorne did the same in a quite different piece) and one of
Eisler's anti-fascist utterances. It makes for a spell-binding listen,
one moment fervent, the next delicate; as powerful in the composer's
own hands as in those of Hamelin.
The final disc, again one which I was more ambivalent
about, is the shortest in the set and includes a text recital based
around Oscar Wilde's imprisonment in Reading Gaol. It is certainly an
interesting piece first time around but I am not sure how often the
majority of listeners would be likely to indulge in repeat listenings.
Whatever way you care to look at it, this is a major
achievement for Rzewski. It showcases a great deal of ambitious but
not "difficult" music, music that has a great moral and social imperative
lying behind its undoubted appeal as "just music". It is a source of
some comfort to me that corporate America, in the form of Warners/Nonesuch,
is prepared to release this kind of document at a time when the caveman
element/mentality (if it moves bomb it, if it doesn't bomb it anyway,
just in case!) seems to have captured the zeitgeist for its own
in that country.
Neil Horner
Frederic Rzewski, piano