Rzewski F. The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Theme and variations for piano)

東京 (Tokyo): Zen-On Music Company Ltd, 1979. — 94 p. With bookmarks.The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975) is a set of 36 variations for piano, based on the Chilean song "¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!", composed by the American composer Frederic Rzewski (1838-20210). Rzewski died last Saturday (June 26).Like the Godowsky studies (see file.file/2563530/), most of these variations are unplayable for ordinary human beings. But listening to the music, it is useful to have the sheet music at hand. There are several (complete) performances on youtube, including by Rzewski himself and by the Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin.Rzewski:
Hamelin: From newmusicconnoisseur.org: The People United theme emerged from the United Popular Coalition in Chile (1969-1973) before the overthrow of the Salvador Allende government. Frederic Rzewski composed the piece (September to October 1975) as a tribute to the Chilean people.
According to the composer’s program notes, “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 also being the freest), and the sixth recapitulates, in such a way that the first stage is a summary of all 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 Chiliean fascism; and Hans Eisler’s 1932 antifascist Solidaritätslied, a reminder that “parallels to present threats exist in the past and that it is important to learn from them.”From naxos.com: Frederic Rzewski's work "The People United Will Never Be Defeated" is based on the Chilean protest song, "?El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!," written by Sergio Ortega a few months before Pinochet's military coup in September of 1973. Frederic Rzewski came to Europe as a young man, lived in Cologne and Rome, and created a sensation as an avant-garde pianist with his premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Klavierstuck X". He worked with the leading composers of the time and was himself a composer. Parallel to the increasing politicization of his work, he distanced himself from the then-current stylistic dogmas on the musical level, seeking instead "a form in which all existing musical languages could be brought together."The most impressive result of this search is the variation cycle "The People United Will Never Be Defeated".For more than an hour, influences from jazz, minimal music, and folk music merge with the techniques of the avant-garde; tonality, atonality, and experimental, improvised passages are combined to form an ideological and compositional manifesto. All this entirely in the tradition of the pianist-composers of the 19th century, demanding the highest level of pianistic virtuosity...
If there has been a general opinion that musical modernism of the twentieth century has led a priori to inaccessibility of its compositions for a wide audience, then it is the composer and pianist Frederic Rzewski who has provided one of the strongest testimonies against this belief. A landmark in American piano literature, and perhaps one of the most important variation sets ever written, The People United Will Never Be Defeated! has a strong programmatic thread which is able to carry the listener through some very complex music in a natural way...From hyperion-records.co.uk: To the uninitiated it is hard to describe the musical world of the American composer Frederic Rzewski. A pianist himself, Rzewski initially made a name for himself as a champion of the avant-garde, performing everything from Cage to Boulez. In the '70s his own music took a much more populist turn as his political beliefs drove him to find a much more approachable language, basically tonal and incorporating much quotation from popular music. It is music of this period that is recorded here.
The People United Will Never Be Defeated! 36 Variations on a Chilean protest song, has been likened to a twentieth-century 'Diabelli' Variations. This lengthy work is a tour de force of compositional and keyboard virtuosity, exhilarating and emotionally all-encompassing in its effect. Marc-André Hamelin has been playing the work for many years and has become one of its greatest champions, though the fact that many other pianists have also taken it up confirms that the piece is becoming a twentieth-century classic.Thema (with determination)
1. Weaving, delicate but firm
2. With firmness
3. Slightly slower, with expressive nuances
4. Marcato
5. Dreamlike, frozen
6. Same tempo as beginning
7. Tempo (Lightly, impatiently)
8. With agility (not too much pedal, crisp)
9. Evenly
10. Comodo, recklessly
11. Tempo I. Like fragments of an absent melody – in strict time
12 No tempo indication
13. 𝅘𝅥 = 72
14. A bit faster, optimistically
15. Flexible, like an improvisation
16. Same tempo as preceding, with fluctuations; much pedal
17. LH strictly 𝅗𝅥=36
18. 𝅘𝅥 = 72
19. With energy
20. Crisp, precise
21. Relentless, uncompromising
22. 𝅘𝅥 = 132
23. As fast as possible, with some rubato
24. 𝅘𝅥 = 72
25. c 𝅘𝅥 = ca. 84, with fluctuations
26. In a militant manner
27. Tenderly, and with a hopeful expression
28. 𝅘𝅥 = 160
29. 𝅘𝅥 = 144-152
30. 𝅘𝅥 = 84
31. 𝅘𝅥 = 160
32 – 36. No tempo indications
Optional improvisation, may last anywhere up to 5 minutes or so
Thema Tempo I