Rzewski

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.

Le Dernier Caravansérail

Found this at Twelfth Night in Waterloo. A film adaptation of Théâtre du Soleil's Le Dernier Caravansérail, directed by Ariane Mnouchkine, in a 2-DVD set with a booklet. Published by Bel Air Classiques and distributed by Harmonia Mundi. ISBN 2-240-02543-3.

Four and half hours in length cut down from the six hour performance. Interesting doc included showing how scenes in the film looked on stage (but "stage" doesn't really do justice to La Cartoucherie, a former munitions factory.)

It is based on stories gathered from refugees principally from the Sangatte refugee camp near Calais which was shut down in 2002. Episodic with recurring characters but no protagonist as such. The Taliban when they appear are like demons tormenting the damned; the pimps and other human traffickers only a little less so.