Frederic Rzewski: Songs of Insurrection

Chronique

Frederic Rzewski composed Songs of Insurrection in 2016, as he approached his ninth decade. His musical language, though flexible, has been in many respects consistent, and Songs of Insurrection follows Rzewski's classic and gigantic The People United Will Never Be Defeated. As in the earlier work, Rzewski takes up popular material of a directly political tinge -- melodies of seven songs from different countries here, as opposed to the single Chilean revolutionary song of the earlier work -- and puts it through stylistically eclectic and often extremely virtuosic piano treatment. The styles range from blues to atonality to Stravinskian neo-Baroque sounds. There are several differences here as compared with The People United Will Never Be Defeated, beginning with the fact that Songs of Insurrection is a less monumental, more manageable work. It's also a bit freer. Rzewski's elaborations are not variations in a set but fantasy-like treatments, and at some junctures, there are options for improvisations of which pianist Thomas Kotcheff appears to have taken advantage. His performance is very strong, handling the still-considerable technical challenges while leaving room for reflection on what seems to be a deeper theme in Rzewski's work, namely a consideration of what these songs of insurrection have in common. The physical album comes with three essays that approach the work from different directions and situates the recording in the unrest of the year 2020 when it was released. This release shows definitively that Rzewski's relevance, nearly 50 years on from his heyday, remains undiminished.

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