Hamelin: Rzewski – The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (FLAC)

Performer: Marc-André Hamelin
Composer: Frederic Rzewski
Audio CD
SPARS Code: DDD
Number of Discs: 1
Format: FLAC (image+cue)
Label: Hyperion
Size: 277 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes

# The People United Will Never Be Defeated (El pueblo unido jamás será vencido), 36 Variations on a Chilean Song, for piano
Composed by Frederic Rzewski
with Marc-Andre Hamelin

# North American Ballads (4) for piano: No. 3, Down by the Riverside
Composed by Frederic Rzewski
with Marc-Andre Hamelin

# North American Ballads (4) for piano: No. 4, Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues
Composed by Frederic Rzewski
with Marc-Andre Hamelin

01. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Thema: With Determination
02. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 1: Weaving; Delicate But Firm
03. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 2: With Firmness
04. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 3: Slightly Slower, With Expressive Nuances
05. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 4: Marcato
06. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 5: Dreamlike, Frozen
07. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 6: Same Tempo As Beginning
08. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 7: Tempo (Lightly, Impatiently)
09. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 8: With Agility; Not Too Much Pedal; Crisp
10. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 9: Evenly
11. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 10: Comodo, Recklessly
12. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 11: Temp I. Like Fragments Of An Absent Melody – In Strict Time
13. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 12
14. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 13: Tempo = 72
15. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 14: A Bit Faster, Optimistically
16. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 15: Flexible, Like An Improvisation
17. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 16: Same Tempo As Preceding, With Fuctuations; Much Pedal
18. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 17: LH Strictly – RH Freely, Roughly As In Space
19. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 18
20. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 19: With Energy
21. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 20: Crisp, Precise
22. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 21: Relentless, Uncompromising
23. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 22
24. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 23: As Fast As Possible With Some Rubato
25. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 24
26. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 25: With Tempo Fluctuations
27. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 26: In A Militant Manner
28. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 27: Tenderly, And With A Hopeful Expression
29. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 28
30. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 29
31. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 30
32. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 31
33. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 32
34. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 33
35. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 34
36. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 35
37. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Variation 36
38. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Cadenza (Optional Improvisation)
39. The People United Will Never Be Defeated!: Thema: Tempo I
40. Down by the Riverside
41. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues

Superb performance of a masterpiece

During the 1970s, the inspiring pianist Ursula Oppens commissioned Rzewski to write a set of variations that she would perform at Carnegie Hall together with Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. The result was a masterpiece of 20th century Romanticism, continuing the clear line from Beethoven through Brahms that faltered with the deaths of McDowell, Medtner, and Rachmaninov in the first half of the 20th century. Rzewski takes a catchy tune, a Chilean protest song, and pulls it apart in a multitude of ways, each subset of variations teasing the listener with increasingly remote references to the original melody. From time to time the effect verges on noise, only to be relieved by a lyrical or passionate return to harmony and tunefulness. As a set of variations, this piece deserves to be classed with the Diabelli Variations and Mendelssohn’s equally outstanding Variations Serieuses.

While Oppens’s performance of Rzewski’s “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” was a justifiably famous landmark, doing full justice to the formidable challenge of bringing coherence to a work of such complexity, Marc Andre Hamelin offers something very special in this recording — a transcendental technique in the original sense of Liszt’s term, namely the ability to play difficult passages with such limpid clarity and evenness that the listener’s attention is not diverted from the music by an awareness of effort.