Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated & 4 Hands Ursula Oppens & Jerome Lowenthal

• 1 Theme: With determination 01:20
• 2 Variation 1: Weaving: delicate but firm 00:50
• 3 Variation 2: With firmness 00:52
• 4 Variation 3: Slightly slower, with expressive nuances (quarter note = ca. 88) 01:09
• 5 Variation 4: Marcato - With determination 00:59
• 6 Variation 5: Dreamlike, frozen 01:02
• 7 Variation 6: Same tempo as beginning 01:07
• 8 Variation 7: Tempo (Lightly, impatiently) 00:58
• 9 Variation 8: With agility; not too much pedal; crisp 01:08
• 10 Variation 9: half note = 48, Evenly 01:00
• 11 Variation 10: Comodo, recklessly (quarter note = 96) 01:00
• 12 Variation 11: Tempo I (quarter note = 106) 00:58
• 13 Variation 12 01:09
• 14 Variation 13: quarter note = 72 or slightly faster 01:34
• 15 Variation 14: A bit faster, optimistically 01:34
• 16 Variation 15: Flexible, like an improvisation 01:14
• 17 Variation 16 01:21
• 18 Variation 17: L.H. strictly half note = 36, R.H. freely, roughly as in space 01:00
• 19 Variation 18: quarter note = 72 01:26
• 20 Variation 19: dotted quarter note = 144, With energy 00:37
• 21 Variation 20: Crisp, precise, quarter note = 144 00:35
• 22 Variation 21: quarter note = 108, Relentless, uncompromising 00:53
• 23 Variation 22: quarter note = 132 00:48
• 24 Variation 23: As fast as possible, with some rubato 00:28
• 25 Variation 24: quarter note = 72 02:00
• 26 Variation 25: quarter note = ca. 84, with fluctuations 01:55
• 27 Variation 26: quarter note = 168, In a militant manner 01:09
• 28 Variation 27: (quarter note = 72) Tenderly, and with a hopeful expression 04:46
• 29 Variation 28: quarter note = 160 01:22
• 30 Variation 29: quarter note = 144-152 00:32
• 31 Variation 30: (quarter note = 84) 02:18
• 32 Variation 31: (quarter note = 106) 00:55
• 33 Variation 32 00:57
• 34 Variation 33 00:58
• 35 Variation 34 01:02
• 36 Variation 35 01:03
• 37 Variation 36 01:22
• 38 Cadenza 02:38
• 39 Thema: Tempo I 02:40
• 40 I. quarter note = 96-104 06:06
• 41 II. senza misura (ca. 30 seconds per line) 03:14
• 42 III. quarter note = 72 01:28
• 43 IV. quarter note = 96 05:05
• Total Runtime 01:06:32

Info zu Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated & 4 Hands

New-music icon Ursula Oppens, who commissioned, premiered, and made the first- recording of maverick American composer Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, a remarkable, monumental set of solo piano variations, has re-recorded that landmark 1975 work to mark its 40th anniversary. This riveting, audience-pleasing tour-de-force is a nearly hour-long set of 36 variations on a popular Chilean protest song from the era of Augusto Pinochet’s repressive right-wing military dictatorship. AllMusic.com applauds it as a work “of bewildering and amazing variety, ranging from serialism to jazz to romanticism to the further reaches of the avant-garde and back” and culminating in “a superbly emotional climax.”

Oppens’s world-premiere recording of The People United Will Never Be Defeated! was released in 1978 by Vanguard on analog LP and later reissued on CD. This new recording offers the advantages of Cedille’s 21st-century audiophile production values and an interpretation that benefits from Oppens’s four-decade association with the work. Another bonus is the world-premiere recording of a new Rzewski work, Four Hands, a duet commissioned by and written for Oppens and pianist Jerome Lowenthal, her duet partner on the recording. Fiercely challenging to perform, it leaves the listener “absorbed and exhilarated” (New York Times). Grove Music Online notes that Oppens “is known particularly for the intelligence, technical skill, and warmth she brings to her performances and recordings of contemporary music.” The Washington Post declared, “her rigorous, unforced performances again prove that few pianists of any era can claim a hold on contemporary piano music as she does.” When she performed The People United Will Never Be Defeated! at a 2011 Boston concert, the Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote, “the power and grace of Oppens’s performance was lost on very few.”

The album was produced and engineered by multiple Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. Oppens’s Cedille Records discography includes two Grammy nominees, Oppens plays Carter and Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano, and a recording of duo-piano music by Messiaen and Debussy with Jerome Lowenthal.

Ursula Oppens, piano
Jerome Lowenthal, piano

Recorded: December 11, 12, 13, and 15, 2014, at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
Engineered by Judith Sherman
Produced by Judith Sherman

Ursula Oppens
has long been recognized as the leading champion of contemporary American piano music. In addition her original and perceptive readings of other music, old and new, have earned her a place among the elect of today’s performing musicians.

This season Ms. Oppens has performed twice at New York’s Bargemusic, first in Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor with the Cassatt Quartet—repeated at Music Mountain—and again in the “Here and Now” contemporary series as part of the Winter Festival at Bargemusic. In the fall she appeared in a highly successful recital on the Music of Our Time series in Brighton, England, and, in November she participated in a birthday celebration concert for composer Meredith Monk at Le Poisson Rouge, where she was joined by Bruce Brubaker to perform works from the recently released recording of “Piano Songs” by Meredith Monk on the ECM label. Recent releases also include a collaboration with pianist Robert Levin in a recording of the noted British composer Bernard Rands’s selected piano works on Bridge records. In addition, Ms. Oppens will perform Frederic Rzewski’s legendary “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” in Winnipeg, Canada, and at Florida State University College of Music’s 17th annual New Music Festival, as well as participating in the Young Concert Artists Composer’s Concert at the Kaufman Center’s Merkin Hall in New York City.

Ms. Oppens has been nominated four times for a Grammy Award; most recently in the coveted category of “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” for the highly praised album “Winging It: Piano Music of John Corigliano,” released on Cedille Records. The disc featured the world premiere recording of John Corigliano’s work by the same name, which had its debut performance by Ms. Oppens at New York’s Symphony Space in May 2009.

Earlier Grammy nominations were for “Oppens Plays Carter” a recording of the complete piano works of Elliott Carter for Cedille Records (which also was named a “Best of the Year” selection by The New York Times long-time music critic Allan Kozinn), her “Piano Music of Our Time” featuring compositions by John Adams, Elliott Carter, Julius Hemphill, and Conlon Nancarrow for the Music and Arts label, and her legendary cult classic “The People United Will Never Be Defeated,” by Frederic Rzewski on Vanguard.

Ms. Oppens has performed with virtually all of the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the American Composers Orchestra, and the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Milwaukee. Abroad, she has appeared with such ensembles as the Berlin Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Deutsche Symphonie, the Scottish BBC, and the London Philharmonic Orchestras. Ms. Oppens is an avid chamber musician and has performed with the Arditti, Cassatt, JACK, Juilliard, and Pacifica quartets, among others.

Ursula Oppens is a Distinguished Professor of Music at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. From 1994 through the end of the 2007-08 academic year she served as John Evans Distinguished Professor of Music at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Ms. Oppens lives in New York City.

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