Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski was among the major figures of the American musical avant-garde to emerge in the 1960s, and he was highly influential as a composer and performer. Rzewski's music helped define postwar American new music. He consistently gave exuberant boyish pleasures of a composer like Copland within the rigorously experimental framework of a composer like Cage. Often unapologetically tonal and fun, Rzewski's music cuts right through the frequent churlishness of avant-garde music. He was also an important educator.
Rzewski was born on April 13, 1938 in Westfield, Massachusetts. He earned his B.A. in music at Harvard and later received an M.F.A. from Princeton, where he had the privilege of studying with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbit. A Fulbright scholarship allowed him to travel to Florence in 1960 to study for a year with Luigi Dallapiccola. Except for a five-year period in the 1970s, he mainly lived in Europe. He first came to public attention as a performer of new piano music, having participated in the premieres of such monumental works as Stockhausen's Klavierstück X (1962). In 1966, with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum, he founded the famous ensemble Musica Electronica Viva (MEV). MEV combined free improvisation with written music and electronics. These experimentations led directly to the creation of Rzewski's first important compositions, pieces such as Les moutons de Panurge, a so-called "process piece," which also combined elements of spontaneous improvisation with notated material and instructions.
Rzewski's improv-classical hybrids are some of the most successful of the kind ever produced, thanks to the fervent energy at the core of his music. During the 1970s, his music continued to develop along these lines, but as his socialist proclivities began to direct his artistic course, he developed new structures for instrumental music that used text elements and musical style as structuring features. Attica, which includes the recitation of a prison letter, and The People United Will Never Be Defeated, a virtuosic set of piano variations, are his most well-known works of the period. In 1977, Rzewski was made professor of composition at the Royal Conservatory of Liège, Belgium, teaching there until his death. He also spent time teaching at Yale, the California Institute of the Arts, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and elsewhere.
During the 1980s, Rzewski produced a number of surprising twelve-tone compositions that helped provide fresh ideas of what could be done with serial systems. The 1990s saw him revisiting, via scored music, some highly spontaneous approaches to composition that recall his inspired experiments of the late 1960s. Rzewski continued composing into the 21st century, and in 2001, he made his scores available to download for free online. From 2006 until 2010, he composed a series of 56 Nanosonatas and dedicated many of them to friends, such as Hideyuki Arata and Pete Seeger, and on commission for Milton Schlosser. In 2016, Rzewski wrote Songs of Insurrection, a sequel to his popular The People United Will Never Be Defeated, which was heard on a recording by Thomas Kotcheff in 2021. That year, the Imani Winds featured Rzewski's Sometimes, for speaker, soprano, and winds, on its album Bruits. Rzewski died on June 26, 2021, in Montiano, Italy.
© Donato Mancini & Keith Finke /TiVo
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Diskografie
17 Album, -en • Geordnet nach Bestseller
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The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Klassik - Erschienen bei hat ART CD am 01.01.1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Frederic Rzewski: De Profundis
Klassik - Erschienen bei hat ART CD am 28.01.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Aquarius-memorial
Frederic Rzewski, Beethoven Akademie
Klassik - Erschienen bei Cypres am 01.01.2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
North American Ballads & Squares
Modern Jazz - Erschienen bei hat ART CD am 25.01.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
MEV 40 (1967-2007)
Alvin Curran, Frederic Rzewski, Richard Teitelbaum, Steve Lacy
Klassik - Erschienen bei New World Records am 01.01.2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Speaking Rzewski (Pieces for Speaking Pianist Performed by Stephane Ginsburgh)
Alternativ und Indie - Erschienen bei Sub rosa am 10.01.2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Main Drag
Frederic Rzewski, Marco Passarani, Alter Ego, Frankie Hi NRG
Klassik - Erschienen bei Stradivarius am 01.01.2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
New Works by Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski, David Abel, Julie Steinberg, William Winant
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music and Arts Programs of America am 01.01.1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rzewski: Four Pieces, Which Side Are You On?
Klassik - Erschienen bei Vanguard Classics am 20.08.2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Parkins, Rzewski & Tenney: Music for String Quartet & Percussion
The Eclipse Quartet, William Winant
Kammermusik - Erschienen bei New World Records am 04.06.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rzewski: Night Crossing
Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens
Klassik - Erschienen bei Music and Arts Programs of America am 01.01.1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pousseur: La Guirlande de Pierre
Marianne Pousseur, Vincent Bouchot, Frederic Rzewski
Klassik - Erschienen bei Cypres am 07.06.1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Robert Satterlee Plays Rzewski & Albright
Klassik - Erschienen bei Blue Griffin Recording, Inc. am 15.12.2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dragon
William Perconti, Alloy Saxophone Quartet
Kammermusik - Erschienen bei Albany Records am 01.10.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dragon
William Perconti, Alloy Saxophone Quartet, Gary Gemberling
Kammermusik - Erschienen bei Albany Records am 01.10.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Frederic Rzewski: Antigone-Legend; Jefferson
Klassik - Erschienen bei NWCRI am 01.01.1987
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stockhausen: Zyklus / Klavierstück X
Christoph Caskel, Max Neuhaus, Frederic Rzewski
Klassik - Erschienen bei wergo am 24.09.2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo