New Albion Records, Inc.
  • Home
  • About
  • Catalog
  • Licensing
  • Performance
  • Contact
  • Home
  • About
  • Catalog
  • Licensing
  • Performance
  • Contact
Search

Frederic Rzewski       The People United Will Never Be Defeated!

4/5/1998

 
Picture
The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Stephen Drury, piano; Quilapayun
 
A spectacular performance.
--The New York Times

 
"The People United" is a series of 6 cycles, each of which consists of 6 stages, in which different musical relationships appear in order: (1) simple events; (2) rhythms; (3) melodies; (4) counterpoints; (5) harmonies; (6) combinations of all these. Each of the larger cycles develops a character suggested by the individual stage to which it corresponds, so that the third cycle is lyrical, the fourth tends toward conflict, the fifth toward simultaneity (the fifth is also the freest), and the sixth recapitulates, in such a way that the first stage is a summary of all of the preceding first stages, the second a summary of the second stages, and so on. Two songs, aside from the theme itself, appear at various points: the Italian revolutionary song "Bandiera Rossa", in reference to the Italian people who in the seventies opened their doors to so many refugees from Chilean fascism, and Hanns Eisler's 1932 antifascist "Solidaritatslied", a reminder that parallels to present threats exist in the past and that it is important to learn from them. After the sixth cycle the pianist is offered the option of improvising a cadenza, which Stephen Drury chooses not to exercise on this recording; but in compensation we are offered a remarkable recording of Sergio Ortega's great song. The extended length of the composition may be an allusion to the idea that the unification of people is a long story and that nothing worth winning is acquired without effort.
--Frederic Rzewski, January 1994
 
One day in June, 1973, three months before the bombing by Pinochet's military coup, I was walking through the plaza in front of the Palace of Finance in Santiago, Chile, and saw a street singer shouting, "The people united will never be defeated" - a well known Chilean chant for social change. I couldn't stop, and continued across the square, but his incessant chanting followed me and stuck in my mind.
On the following Sunday, after the broadcast of the show "Chile Says No to Civil War", which I directed for Channel 9, we went with a few artists to eat at my house outside Santiago. Upon arrival I sat down at my piano and thought about the experience in the plaza and the events at large. When I reproduced the chant of the people in my head, the chant that could not be restrained, the entire melody exploded from me: I saw it complete and played it in its entirety at once. The text unfurled itself quickly and fell, like falling rocks, upon the melody. In their enthusiasm some of my guests made suggestions that were too rational for the situation I was composing in. Out of courtesy I pretended to accept, but arranged myself to leave the text in its symptomatic landscape.
The song was performed in public two days later by the group Quilapayun in a heavily attended concert in the Alameda.
--Sergio Ortega, on El Pueble Unido


Available here:  iTunes 

Stefano Scodanibbio    Voyage That Never Ends (NA101cd)

4/1/1998

 
Picture
Voyage That Never Ends
A 46 minute work for solo bass

For solo contrabass
 
I haven't heard better double bass playing than Scodanibbio's. I was just amazed. And I think everyone who heard him was amazed. He is really extraordinary. His performance was absolutely magic.
--John Cage, in Musicage

 
Scodanibbio travels the world with his double bass and performs for spell-struck audiences. He is recognized as the leading proponent of his instrument for contemporary composition and was for many years the colleague and collaborator of Giacinto Scelsi and Luigi Nono. Dozens of works have been written for him by such composers as Bussotti, Donatoni, Estrada, Xenakis, et al. He has written over 30 works for strings, and his quartet was recorded by the Arditti for Auvidis Montaigne. He tours extensively with Terry Riley and is equally at home in classical and improvised music. This disc represents a suite of compositions that he has been performing for ten years, and it will redefine what people consider to be the double bass.
This recording was made direct to two track on November 18-19, 1997 in Modena, Italy.


​Available here: iTunes   HDtracks

    New Albion Records, Inc.

    Archives

    October 2010
    January 2009
    July 2008
    April 2008
    February 2008
    April 2007
    February 2007
    July 2006
    March 2006
    October 2005
    October 2004
    October 2003
    September 2003
    May 2003
    November 2002
    October 2002
    May 2002
    March 2002
    February 2002
    October 2001
    June 2001
    March 2001
    February 2001
    September 2000
    March 2000
    January 2000
    December 1999
    November 1999
    August 1999
    May 1999
    April 1999
    March 1999
    February 1999
    January 1999
    October 1998
    September 1998
    May 1998
    April 1998
    March 1998
    December 1997
    November 1997
    October 1997
    September 1997
    July 1997
    June 1997
    May 1997
    April 1997
    March 1997
    February 1997
    January 1997
    October 1996
    September 1996
    August 1996
    July 1996
    June 1996
    May 1996
    March 1996
    February 1996
    January 1996
    December 1995
    October 1995
    June 1995
    May 1995
    March 1995
    February 1995
    November 1994
    October 1994
    September 1994
    July 1994
    June 1994
    March 1994
    November 1993
    July 1993
    June 1993
    May 1993
    April 1993
    February 1993
    September 1992
    June 1992
    April 1992
    December 1991
    June 1991
    March 1990
    March 1988

Picture
Home
About
Contact

The triangle and the spiral, a compound symbol of strength and motion, of pitch and time, of being here and going there... Once we created an imaginary road  sign that we painted and drove to Rte. 50 in the middle of Nevada.  There it became our postcard, our place, our mooring.
  • Home
  • About
  • Catalog
  • Licensing
  • Performance
  • Contact