Just downloaded from iTunes, Rzewski's The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, 36 variations for piano on the original song El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido!, played by Stephen Drury. I confess I had never heard the original, not being a hard-core demo-goer (or even a demo-goer of any kind), but it is beautiful, and poignant, since of course it expresses a wish rather than states a fact. And in 36 variations we hear this theme lost, rediscovered, obsessed over ... a vision of lost solidarity, which is perhaps as good an ultimate end as salvation or enlightenment.
I saw Rzewski (and heard of his work for the first time) at the Open Ears Festival, at the Registry Theatre, where he played a piece called "Stop the War!" and a setting of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis and something else (I can't find the program), and as an encore something he called a nano-sonata, one of many.
Isabella also saw a talk given him where he said something like music should be free and if it isn't, then steal it!
So glad I was introduced to this amazing composer. Thanks, Open Ears.
