Piano and Combinatorial Inspiration: Fred Rzewski

B    esides his composerly skill, Rzewski is—] a granitically overpowering piano technician, capable of depositing huge boulders of sonoristic material across the keyboard without actually wrecking the instrument.”
  —  Nicolas Slonimsky, Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians.

T    hose who have been criticizing contemporary music for lacking true melodic lines, may be consoled to learn that some composers now are very much concerned with melody. I don’t mean that they are writing romantic melodies, or popular melodies, or any other familiar kind of melodies, but they are certainly writing melodies. I heard two very good new pieces of this sort last week. One was Frederic Rzewski’s ‘Coming Together’.”
  —  Tom Johnson, Village Voice, 13-APR-1972.

T  he piano music of Frederic Rzewski kept me company during the wee hours this morning.


    [50-sec clip, David Jalbert, Fred Rzewski, ‘North American Ballads, No. 2, Which Side Are You On’, 1.6MB MP3]

F  red’s music... often exhibits a chromatic background that intercalates with a diatonic contrapuntal background. Chromatic events are initiated by dyadic conflicts in the foreground—the interactions of chromatic and diatonic species. In his piano works he often manipulates a single pitch-class so as to bring about large-scale harmonic motions. Henry Burnett’s and Roy Nitzberg’s analyses resonate deeply, based on the evidence in Rzewski's writing. Which leads me to wonder whether Fred would feel that Henry’s and Roy's characterization of the compositional process rings true. My guess is yes.

I  do not have the score (yet), so I rock the MP3 of Jalbert’s recording back and forth and pick off the notes, transcribe some of the figures...

  H₀ + T_t I H₀ = A, for some t

where the hexachord H has a subscript denoting the order number associated with the hexachord’s first element, I is the inversion (permutation) operator, and T is the transposition operator with subscript t denoting the transposition number, any odd integer.


L  acking 2s and 6s (whole-tones and tritones), the ‘6-20’ hexachord has a high degree of symmetry—and Rzewski resorts to it, maybe in part because of its mathematical/structural beauty and diverse possibilities. It [‘6-20’] is paradoxically ‘malleable/slippery’ and ‘crystalline/interlocked/solid’ at the same time. According to John Rahn’s calculations, ‘6-20’ maps into itself 3 times under transposition and 3 times under inversion: the prime form (0 1 4 5 8 9) duplicates itself under transposition at 0, 4, and 8; under inversion at 1, 4, and 9. In pitch-class content, there are only 4 distinct forms of ‘6-20’; only the whole-tone hexachord ‘6-35’ is more redundant. Under transposition or inversion it yields sets that are either completely identical or nonidentical—whence comes the slippery crystallinity of it.

S  everal segments are F# minor, the Dominant of home key B minor. Patterns of transposition levels are generated either 2 semitones or multiples of 2 semitones apart—except for one, I think. The transposition levels convolve as modulo-2 multiples of semitones, in contrary motion within octaves. The distance between each transposition becomes smaller and smaller until it meets the middle of the octave, the tritone.

J  albert’s account of the ‘North American Ballads’ adheres nicely to the political agenda set forth by Fred—not ‘Leftist’ so much as ‘Ethical-Humanist-Concerned-with-Justice’.

W  hich side are you on’ is basically asking ‘Are you for war or against it?’ There are minimalist idioms in the middle section, with obsessive repetitions of the rhythms with slowly proliferating deviations/convergences, noted above. These reinforce the obstinacy of the political question, which demands to be answered. It won’t go away by ignoring it. But the majority of the piece is melodic, wry, playful, lyrical Rzewski.

O  f course, besides these ‘North American Ballads’ (1978-9) many of Rzewski’s works over the years have been inspired by social and political themes—for example, ‘The People United Will Never Be Defeated!’; ‘Coming Together’, a setting of the letters of an inmate who was murdered at the State Prison at Attica at the time of the riots in 1971; ‘The Price of Oil’ and its questions about the legitimacy of societies’ priorities; ‘Les Moutons de Panurge’, about aggression and mutual destruction; ‘Antigone-Legend’, a meditation on principled opposition to the policies of the State; ‘Struggle’, whose text is taken from a letter written by Frederic Douglass in 1849, about the constant struggle necessary to achieve social reforms.

S  tudied at Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton. Studied under Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston, Milton Babbitt, and Luigi Dallapiccola. Professor of Composition at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Liège, Belgium, since 1977. Politically active always; honest as a matter of conscience and constitution. Belovèd in Boston and everywhere. Delightful sense of humor and irony, humane, wonderful teacher. I learn quite a lot before dawn, taking his music apart, putting it back together.

• Rzewski page at BMOP
  
• Rzewski page at New Albion
  
• Rzewski page at Wikipedia
  
• 'The People United Will Never Be Defeated!' page at Wikipedia
  
• Composition Dept at Conservatoire Royal de Musique, Liège
  
• Jalbert D. Corigliano & Rzewski: Ballads & Fantasies. (Endeavour, 2003.)
  
• David Jalbert website
  
• Arciuli E. Rzewski: Four Pieces. (Stradivarius, 2006.)
  
• Bell L, Olmstead A. Musica reservata in Frederic Rzewski's 'North American Ballads'. Musical Quarterly 1986; 72:449-57.
  
• Burnett H, Nitzberg R. Composition, Chromaticism and the Developmental Process. Ashgate, 2007.
  
• Henry Burnett page at Aaron Copland School of Music, CUNY.
  
• Roy Nitzberg page at Aaron Copland School of Music, CUNY.
  
• Adorno T. Philosophy of New Music. Univ Minnesota, 2006.
  
• eighth blackbird. Fred. (Cedille, 2005.)
  
• Hamelin M-A. Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Hyperion, 1999.)
  
• Hatta R. Frederic Rzewski at the Chapel. SpiralCage blog, 03-MAR-2008.
  
• Pollack H. Harvard Composers: Walter Piston and His Students, from Elliot Carter to Frederic Rzewski. Scarecrow, 1992.
  
• van Raat R. Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Naxos, 2008.)
  
• Rzewski F. Rzewski Plays Rzewski. (VideoArtists, 2008.)
  
• Rzewski F. Nonsequiturs: Writings & Lectures on Improvisation, Composition, and Interpretation. Edition Musiktexte, 2007.
  
• Rzewski F. Tom Johnson: An Hour for Piano. (Lovely, 2001.)
  
• van den Toorn P. Music, Politics, and the Academy. Univ California, 1996.
  
• Varela D. Perfect sound forever: Interview with Frederic Rzewski. Furious, MAR-2003.
  
• Wason R. Tonality and atonality in Frederic Rzewski’s variations on ‘The People United Will Never Be Defeated’. Perspect New Music 1988; 26:108-43. [Forte’s set-class ‘6-20’ hexachord]
  
• Robert Wason page at Eastman School of Music