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Ursula Oppens - Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated & 4 Hands (2015)

Ursula Oppens - Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated & 4 Hands (2015)

BAND/ARTIST: Ursula Oppens

  • Title: Frederic Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated & 4 Hands
  • Year Of Release: 2015
  • Label: Cedille
  • Genre: Classical
  • Quality: FLAC (tracks)
  • Total Time: 64:53
  • Total Size: 248 MB
  • WebSite:
Tracklist

01. Theme: With determination
02. Variation 1: Weaving: delicate but firm
03. Variation 2: With firmness
04. Variation 3: Slightly slower, with expressive nuances (quarter note = ca. 88)
05. Variation 4: Marcato-With determination
06. Variation 5: Dreamlike, frozen
07. Variation 6: Same tempo as beginning
08. Variation 7: Tempo (Lightly, impatiently)
09. Variation 8: With agili
10. Variation 9: half note = 48, Evenly
11. Variation 10: Comodo, recklessly (quarter note = 96)
12. Variation 11: Tempo I (quarter note = 106)
13. Variation 12
14. Variation 13: quarter note = 72 or slightly faster
15. Variation 14: A bit faster, optimistically
16. Variation 15: Flexible, like an improvisation
17. Variation 16
18. Variation 17: L.H. strictly half note = 36, R.H. freely, roughly as in space
19. Variation 18: quarter note = 72
20. Variation 19: dotted quarter note = 144, With energy
21. Variation 20: Crisp, precise, quarter note = 144
22. Variation 21: quarter note = 108, Relentless, uncompromising
23. Variation 22: quarter note = 132
24. Variation 23: As fast as possible, with some rubato
25. Variation 24: quarter note = 72
26. Variation 25: quarter note = ca. 84, with fluctuations
27. Variation 26: quarter note = 168, In a militant manner
28. Variation 27: (quarter note = 72) Tenderly, and with a hopeful expression
29. Variation 28: quarter note = 160
30. Variation 29: quarter note = 144-152
31. Variation 30: (quarter note = 84)
32. Variation 31: (quarter note = 106)
33. Variation 32
34. Variation 33
35. Variation 34
36. Variation 35
37. Variation 36
38. Cadenza
39. Thema: Tempo I
40. 4 Hands: I. quarter note = 96-104
41. 4 Hands: II. senza misura (ca. 30 seconds per line)
42. 4 Hands: III. quarter note = 72
43. 4 Hands: IV. quarter note = 96

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.


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