Composers

Frederic Rzewski

Piano
Voice
Violin
Cello
Flute
Viola
Saxophone
Orchestra
Clarinet
Trombone
Piece
Song
Sonata
Étude
Canon
Concerto
Variation
Ballades
Trio
Symphony
by popularity

#

10 War Songs for Piano13 Studies for Instruments16 Sneakers3 Piano Pieces3 Pieces6 Movements8 Nocturnes96

A

A Dog's LifeA LifeA Long Time ManA MachineAerial TartsAgesAndante con motoAntigone Legend

B

Ballade No.5Ballade No.6BlahBring Them HomeBrussels DiaryBumps

C

Chain of ThoughtChainsComing TogetherCrusoe

D

De ProfundisDear DiaryDemonsDreamsDust

E

Egyptian SongsEtude

F

Falling MusicFamily ScenesFantasiaFlowers 1Flowers 2FortuneFougues

H

Happy BirthdayHard Cuts for piano and any accompanying instrumentsHistoriesHolesHonk

I

Introduction and Sonata

J

JeffersonJohnny Has Gone for a Soldier

K

Knight, Death, and Devil

L

Last JudgementLe silence des espaces infinisLes Moutons de PanurgeLogiqueLost and FoundLove SongLudes

M

Main DragMary's DreamMayakovskyMayn YingeleMichael Bakunin, RentierMollitudeMoonrise With Memories

N

Nano Sonatas, Book 1Nano Sonatas, Book 2Nano Sonatas, Book 3Nano Sonatas, Book 4Nano Sonatas, Book 5Nano Sonatas, Book 6Nano Sonatas, Book 7Nano Sonatas, Book 8Natural ThingsNight Crossing with FishermenNo More WarNo Place to Go but AroundNotasonata for Violin and PianoNothing Changes

O

Ode to the Deserter

P

PennywhistlersPfiPiano ConcertoPiano TrioPocket SymphonyPoem

R

ReedsRequiemRosesRubinstein in Berlin

S

Saints and SinnersSatiresSchtickScratch SymphonySecond HandSnacksSnapsSnippets No.1Snippets No.2SonataSong and DanceSongs of InsurrectionSpellsSpiritusSpoilsSpotsSteptangleStop the TestingString QuartetStudy IStudy II

T

TabakrauchThe Fall of the EmpireThe LiarThe Lost MelodyThe Love of MoneyThe Price of OilThe RoadThe Triumph of DeathThe Turtle and the CraneThe WavesTinkleberriesTo His Coy MistressTo the EarthTrio for Trumpet, Flute, and Pianoforte

U

Una breve storia d'estate

W

WailsWhangdoodlesWhen the Wind BlowsWinnsboro Cotton Mill BluesWinter NightsWords

Z

Zoologischer Garten
Wikipedia
Frederic Anthony Rzewski (/ˈʒɛfski/ ZHEF-skee; born April 13, 1938) is an American composer and virtuoso pianist. His major compositions, which often incorporate social and political themes, include the minimalist Coming Together and the piano variations The People United Will Never Be Defeated!
Rzewski was born in Westfield, Massachusetts, and 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. In 1960, he went to Italy, a trip which was formative in his future musical development. In addition to studying with Luigi Dallapiccola, he began a career as a performer of new piano music, often with an improvisatory element. A few years later he co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum. Musica Elettronica Viva conceived music as a collective, collaborative process, with improvisation and live electronic instruments prominently featured. In 1971, he returned to New York.
In 1977, Rzewski became Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium, then directed by Henri Pousseur. Occasionally he teaches for short periods at schools and universities throughout the U.S. and Europe, including Yale University, the University of Cincinnati, the California Institute of the Arts, the University of California, San Diego, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, and Trinity College of Music, London.
Many of Rzewski's works are inspired by secular and socio-historical themes, show a deep political conscience and feature improvisational elements. Some of his better-known works include The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (36 variations on the Sergio Ortega song El pueblo unido jamás será vencido), a set of virtuosic piano variations written as a companion piece to Beethoven's Diabelli Variations; Coming Together, a setting of letters from Sam Melville, an inmate at Attica State Prison, at the time of the famous riots there (1971); North American Ballads (I. Dreadful Memories; II. Which Side Are You On?; III. Down by the Riverside; IV. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues) (1979); Night Crossing with Fisherman; Fougues; Fantasia and Sonata; The Price of Oil, and Le Silence des Espaces Infinis, both of which use graphical notation; Les Moutons de Panurge; and the Antigone-Legend, which features a principled opposition to the policies of the State, and which was premiered on the night the United States bombed Libya in April 1986. Rzewski's recent compositions include Nanosonatas (2006~2010) and Cadenza con o senza Beethoven (2003), written for Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto. Rzewski played the solo part in the world premiere of his piano concerto at the 2013 BBC Proms.
Nicolas Slonimsky (1993) says of Rzewski in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians: "He is furthermore a granitically overpowering piano technician, capable of depositing huge boulders of sonoristic material across the keyboard without actually wrecking the instrument." Michael Schell has called him "the most important living composer of piano music, and surely one of the dozen or so most important living American composers."
In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau reviewed Coming Together/Attica/Moutons de Panurge, an album recorded with vocals by performance artist Steve ben Israel and released in 1973 by Opus One Records. "The design of 'Coming Together' is simple, even minimal", Christgau said. "Steve ben Israel reads and rereads one of Sam Melville's letters from Attica over a jazzy, repetitious vamp. Yet the result is political art as expressive and accessible as Guernica. In ben Israel's interpretation, Melville's prison years have made him both visionary and mad, and the torment of his incarceration is rendered more vivid by the nagging intensity of the music. The [LP's] other side features a less inspiring political piece and a percussion composition, each likable but not compelling, but that's a cavil. 'Coming Together' is amazing."