Rzewski - Night Crossing - Works For One And Two Pianos

$19.99
Label
Music and Arts Programs of America
Release Date
January 27, 2010
Format
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    Featuring ⌄
    • PERFORMER
      Frederic, Ursula, Rzewski, Oppens
    Product Details ⌄
    • RELEASE DATE
      January 27, 2010
    • UPC
      017685098826
    • CATALOG NUMBER
      MUA 988
    • LABEL
      Music and Arts Programs of America
    • NUMBER OF DISCS
      1
    • GENRE
      Instrumental
    Works ⌄

    1. Night

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens

    2. Crossing

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens

    3. Fisherman

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens

    4. No. 1. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    5. No. 2. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    6. No. 3. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    7. No. 4. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    8. No. 5. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    9. No. 6. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    10. No. 7. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    11. No. 8. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    12. No. 9. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    13. No. 10. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    14. No. 11. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    15. No. 12. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    16. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (version for 2 pianos)

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski, Ursula Oppens

    17. No. 13. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    18. No. 14. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    19. No. 15. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    20. No. 16. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    21. No. 17. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    22. No. 18. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    23. No. 19. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    24. No. 20. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    25. No. 21. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    26. No. 22. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    27. No. 23. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski

    28. No. 24. —

      Composer: Frederic Rzewski

      Performer: Frederic Rzewski


Because it's the most immediately accessible of the piano disc's works, let's begin with this two-piano version of Rzewski's hard-driving, viscerally affecting Winnshoro Cotton Mill Blues of 1980. (For the original, spectacularly recorded solo assault, see hatART 6089, North American Ballads & Squares, Frederic Rzewski performing.) The piece pictures its subject, a cotton mill at full tilt, as handily as any tone poem I can think of, working itself thence into a neat transition to the eponymous job-lament dating from the 1930s ("Old man Sargent, sittin' at his desk I The damned old fool won't give us a rest I He'd take the nickels offa dead man's eyes . . . ").

Night Crossing with Fisherman (1994), for two pianos (Ursula Oppens is the dedicatee), isn't quite as thematically coherent as its title suggests. The work divides into three parts, "Night," a moody introspection for piano solo; the aptly titled "Crossing," for two pianos in intense conversation; and "Fisherman," for piano solo and Rzewski's recitation of a passage from the Arabian Nights (politically relevant, of course) about a fisherman who labors through the night for a man asleep. (Presumably it is Oppens who takes the "Night" solo.)

Winnshoro Cotton Mill Blues makes its mark by kicking subtlety out the door. By contrast, Ludes I and 2, of 12 short pieces each (the longest, 1:41, the shortest, 0:38), insinuate themselves into one's affections, playful, will-o'-the-wisp creatures that they are, by degree. Rzewski does an excellent, often fascinating job of explaining his music's background and form. So I won't trouble to summarize his "how these delights came about." Suffice that they range widely in substance and mood, happily short of Rzewski's affection for maul-driven social panaceas.

-- Mike Silverton, FANFARE