Search - Rzewski, Oppens :: People United Will Never Be Defeated

Sheer power every register in rung in solidarity

04/04/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This piece is like a monument to a marriage not everyone is pleased with. When you engage a directly political subject you ruffle a lot of feathers. So what, feathers need to be ruffled otherwise art would never exist. Mao-tse tung once said if you want an omelette you need to crack some eggs. Rzewski doesn't quite crack all the eggs he needs to, but he was on the right track. The piece ultimately is a way of introducing political solidarity into the concert hall venue. Unlike Cornelius Cardew who was a more engaged activist than Rzewski will ever be, designed his music to be played at worker functions and at community town hall gatherings. I don't see Ursula Oppens ever playing this in a grimy smoke infested hall somewhere in the north of London. This work works best then as an abstraction, indeed a powerful one that scours the entire twentieth century repertoire for its musical language. The theme written by Sergio Ortega is like a international anthem that sends shivers threw the spines of the IMF or the Trilateral commission. Rzewski's music comes from his own experiences at improvisation. And he has no equal in this. As admirable as Ms Oppens playing is, you need someday to hear Rzewski. He has a ferocious technique that never quits, that can move at fever pitch velocity at any point in the piano and nose-dive into any region to ponder a more serious dimension. Each variation visits the twentieth century. The first a Webern-almost like shifing delicately registers, pulling the spellbinding melody out of itself into a child-like innocence. There are bows to minimalist repetitiveness here as well and Prokovievian motoric,even Boulez of the Second Sonata raises its ugly head."