The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Encyclopedia
The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975) is a piano composition by American
composer Frederic Rzewski
.
an song "¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
" by Sergio Ortega
and Quilapayún
, and received its world premiere on February 7, 1976, played by Ursula Oppens
as part of the Bi-Centennial Piano Series at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Concert Hall. Rzewski dedicated the composition to Oppens, who had commissioned it as a companion piece to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations
, and who recorded it in 1979; her recording was named "Record of the Year" in that year by Record World
, and received a Grammy nomination.
government. Rzewski composed the variations in September and October 1975, as a tribute to the struggle of the Chilean people against a newly imposed repressive regime; indeed the work contains allusions to other leftist struggles of the same and immediately preceding time, such as quotations from the Italian traditional socialist
song "Bandiera Rossa
" and the Bertolt Brecht
-Hanns Eisler
"Solidarity Song."
In general, the variations are short, and build up to climaxes of considerable force. The 36 variations, following the 36 bars of the tune, are in six groups of six. The pianist, in addition to needing a virtuoso technique, is required to whistle, slam the piano lid, and catch the after-vibrations of a loud attack as harmonics: all of these are "extended" techniques in 20th-century piano writing. Much of the work uses the language of 19th-century romanticism, but mixes this language with pandiatonic tonality, modal writing, and even serial
techniques.
As in the Goldberg Variations
by Johann Sebastian Bach
, the final variation is a direct restatement of the original theme, intended to be heard with new significance after the long journey through the variations.
The score essentially breaks down into 39 parts, one of which is an optional improvisation. The sections are labeled in the score as follows:
A performance of the composition takes about 50 minutes, and longer if the performer chooses to improvise.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
composer Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
.
History
The People United is a set of 36 variations on the ChileChile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an song "¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!
El pueblo unido jamás será vencido
"¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!" is one of the most internationally renowned songs of the Nueva Cancion Chilena movement. The music of the song was composed by Sergio Ortega and the text written by Quilapayún...
" by Sergio Ortega
Sergio Ortega
Sergio Ortega was a Chilean composer and pianist.- Biography :Ortega was born in Antofagasta, Chile. He studied composition with Roberto Falabella and with Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt in the National Conservatory at the Universidad de Chile...
and Quilapayún
Quilapayún
Quilapayún are an instrumental and vocal folk music group from Chile and among the longest lasting and most influential exponents of the Nueva Canción Chilena movement. Formed in Chile during the mid-1960s, the group became inseparable with the revolution that occurred in the popular music of the...
, and received its world premiere on February 7, 1976, played by Ursula Oppens
Ursula Oppens
Ursula Oppens is an American classical pianist.-Biography:After earning her master's degree from the Juilliard School of Music, Oppens won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1968. This win led to her New York City debut at Carnegie Hall in 1969...
as part of the Bi-Centennial Piano Series at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
Concert Hall. Rzewski dedicated the composition to Oppens, who had commissioned it as a companion piece to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations
Diabelli Variations
The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli...
, and who recorded it in 1979; her recording was named "Record of the Year" in that year by Record World
Record World
Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both...
, and received a Grammy nomination.
Analysis
The song on which the variations is based is one of many that emerged from the Unidad Popular coalition in Chile between 1969 and 1973, prior to the overthrow of the Salvador AllendeSalvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
government. Rzewski composed the variations in September and October 1975, as a tribute to the struggle of the Chilean people against a newly imposed repressive regime; indeed the work contains allusions to other leftist struggles of the same and immediately preceding time, such as quotations from the Italian traditional socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
song "Bandiera Rossa
Bandiera Rossa
"Bandiera Rossa" , often also called Avanti Popolo for its first lines, is one of the most famous songs of the Italian labour movement. It glorifies the red flag, symbol of the socialist and later communist movement...
" and the Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
-Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler
Hanns Eisler was an Austrian composer.-Family background:Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy...
"Solidarity Song."
In general, the variations are short, and build up to climaxes of considerable force. The 36 variations, following the 36 bars of the tune, are in six groups of six. The pianist, in addition to needing a virtuoso technique, is required to whistle, slam the piano lid, and catch the after-vibrations of a loud attack as harmonics: all of these are "extended" techniques in 20th-century piano writing. Much of the work uses the language of 19th-century romanticism, but mixes this language with pandiatonic tonality, modal writing, and even serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
techniques.
As in the Goldberg Variations
Goldberg Variations
The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a work for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations. First published in 1741, the work is considered to be one of the most important examples of variation form...
by Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
, the final variation is a direct restatement of the original theme, intended to be heard with new significance after the long journey through the variations.
The score essentially breaks down into 39 parts, one of which is an optional improvisation. The sections are labeled in the score as follows:
- Thema "With determination"
- Variation 1 "Weaving: delicate but firm"
- Variation 2 "With firmness"
- Variation 3 "Slightly slower, with expressive nuances"
- Variation 4 "Marcato"
- Variation 5 "Dreamlike, frozen"
- Variation 6 "Same tempo as beginning"
- Variation 7 "Lightly, impatiently"
- Variation 8 "With agility; not too much pedal; crisp"
- Variation 9 "Evenly"
- Variation 10 "Comodo, recklessly"
- Variation 11 "Tempo I, like fragments of an absent melody — in strict time."
- Variation 12
- Variation 13
- Variation 14 "A bit faster, optimistically"
- Variation 15 "Flexible, like an improvisation"
- Variation 16 "Same tempo as preceding, with fluctuations; much pedal / Expansive, with a victorious feeling"
- Variation 17 "L.H. strictly: R.H. freely, roughly in space"
- Variation 18
- Variation 19 "With energy"
- Variation 20 "Crisp, precise"
- Variation 21 "Relentless, uncompromising"
- Variation 22 "very expressionate"
- Variation 23 "As fast as possible, with some rubato"
- Variation 24
- Variation 25
- Variation 26 "In a militant manner"
- Variation 27 "Tenderly, with a hopeful expression: cadenza"
- Variation 28
- Variation 29
- Variation 30
- Variation 31
- Variation 32
- Variation 33
- Variation 34
- Variation 35
- Variation 36
- Optional Improvisation
- Thema: (reprise)
A performance of the composition takes about 50 minutes, and longer if the performer chooses to improvise.
Further reading
- Bhagwati, SandeepSandeep BhagwatiSandeep Bhagwati is an Indian composer of western classical music and an academic teacher.Sandeep Bhagwati was born in Bombay, now Mumbai, as the son of a German mother and an Indian father. He has lived in Germany since age five...
. 1992. "Von der Schönheit der Vielfalt in der Einheit: Notizen zu Frederic Rzewskis 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated'—36 Variationen über ein chilenisches Volkslied". Melos: Jahrbuch für zeitgenössische Musik 51:130–71. - Sherr, Larry. 1985. "Vereinigung der Vielfalt: 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated!' von Frederic Rzewski". MusikTexte: Zeitschrift für Neue Musik, no. 11:38–48.
- Wason, Robert. 1988. "Tonality and Atonality in Frederic Rzewski's Variations on 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated'". Perspctives of New Music 26, no. 1 (Winter): 108–43.
Recordings
- Frederic Rzewski (composer and piano), The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, recorded 1986, published 1990 by HAT HUT RECORDS LTD., Switzerland, hat ART CD 6066
- Frederic Rzewski, The People United Will Never Be Defeated, 36 Variations on a Chilean Song. Ursula Oppens, piano. Vanguard Classics CD, OVC 8056
- Frederic Rzewski, The People United Will Never Be Defeated, 36 Variations on a Chilean Song. Marc-André HamelinMarc-André HamelinMarc-André Hamelin, OC, CQ, is a French Canadian virtuoso pianist and composer.Born in Montreal, Quebec, Marc-André Hamelin began his piano studies at the age of five. His father, a pharmacist by trade who was also a pianist, introduced him to the works of Alkan, Godowsky, and Sorabji when he was...
, Hyperion Records CDA67077 (GRAMOPHONE EDITOR'S CHOICE). - Frederic Rzewski, The People United Will Never Be Defeated, 36 Variations on a Chilean Song. Stephen DruryStephen DruryStephen Drury is an American pianist, conductor and electronic musician.Drury has performed and recorded a range of compositions by classical and contemporary composers including Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives, John Cage, Frederic Rzewski, and John Zorn...
, piano. New Albion NA063. More info. - Frederic Rzewski Plays Rzewski VAI DVD 4440, Video recording from the 2007 Miami International Piano Festival more info.
- Frederic Rzewski, The People United Will Never Be Defeated, 36 Variations on "¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!". Kai Schumacher, piano. Wergo WER67302. (fono forum magazine, pick of the month) More info.
External links
- Zen-On Music Company Ltd publishes the score to The People United Will Never Be Defeated.