EINSPRUCH | MUSIKALISCHE (R)EVOLUTIONEN UM '68

PROTEST
MUSICAL (R)EVOLUTIONS AROUND '68


FREDERIC RZEWSKI
plays
36 Variations on "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!"


(Akademie der Künste, Berlin. 28.6.2008)










(apologies for this shortened version, i only started recording a few variations in... )

Christian Wolff, "Accompaniments"

-- Liner Notes --

ACCOMPANIMENTS
Frederic Rzewski, piano

ACCOMPANIMENTS, for pianist who is also required to sing or chant and play percussion with his feet (drum with pedal and high hat), was written for Frederic Rzewski in the late summer of 1972. This piece marks a break from what preceded, due partly to a growing impatience with what seemed to me the overly introverted feeling in much of my earlier music, with a sense of contradiction between the situation of its players - social, cooperative as well as calling on great individual alertness - and the way the resulting music seemed to affect its audienceas something remote, abstract and "pure." At the same time my interest in social and political questions had intensified and taken a more specific direction, and so I decided to attempt to make a more explicit connection between it and my music.

ACCOMPANIMENTS began that attempt, including a political text and using musical material of a more direct character. The text is from Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle's book China: The Revolution Continued. It is part of an account of a veterinarian and a midwife, in their own words, of their experiences in a village in the area of Yenan during and after the Cultural Revolution. It was chosen both for its concreteness and for its illustration of the principle of applying a revolutionary political orientation to immediate and practical problems, indicating that these can only be understood and dealt with within such a political framework.

The music is in four parts. In the first, one chord or single note drawn out of a chord accompanies each syllable of the text. The text is sung freely (no pitches are specified), and the rhythm is free but tends to be shaped by the movement of the words of the text. The text is musically formalized by allowing optional repetitions of segments of it. The chords come in sequences of sixteen which make a kind of harmonic progression (though a full sequence may not often occur). In the second and third parts, single llne keyboard figures are intended to have a propulsive feeling and accompany freelycombined percussion phrases (the drum and cymbals were practical in combination with kevboard and here partly suggested by their appearance in China during mass assemblies and marches). The addition of singing and percussion playing to the pianist's tasks is to extend one player's sound resources and to combine his professional competence with non-professional capacities - which we all have - in using one's voice and making percussive sounds. The fourth part of the piece requires only the use of the piano, and comes as something of a release.

CHRISTIAN WOLFF (b. 1934, Nice, France) has lived in the United States since 1941. He started composing in 1949 and a couple of years later met John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor and Earle Brown and through association with them found the initial direction of his musical activity. He has also been helped immeasurably, at various times, by work with (among others) David Behrman, Frederic Rzewski, Kurt Schwertsik, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, John Tilbury, Garrett List, Jon Gibson, Cornelius Cardew; the groups AMM and Musica Elettronica Viva; and Merce Cunningham and his dance company. Wolff acquired a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard in 1963 and taught there, in the Classics department, between 1962-1970. Since 1971 he has been teaching at Dartmouth College in the departments of Classics, Comparative Literature and Music. He was composer-lecturer at the Internationale Ferienkurse, Darmstadt, in 1972 and 1974, and Composer-in-residence in Berlin under the visiting artists program of the DAAD, 1974. In 1975 he won the Music Award from the National Institute/American Academy of Arts and Letters that made this recording possible.

Among his recent compositions are: CHANGING THE SYSTEM (chamber music with text 1972-3), EXERCISES (any number of instruments, 1973-4), STRING QUARTET EXERCISES OUT OF SONGS (1974-6), WOBBLY MUSIC (chorus with instruments, 1975-6).

FREDERIC RZEWSKI is a pianist and composer known both in the U.S. and abroad for his work in widely varying areas of experimental music. As a pianist, he has performed and recorded works by Carter, Cage, Braxton, Stockhausen, Boulez and others. He is a co-founder of MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva), a member of the Musicians Action Collective in New York City, and is affiliated with the Creative Music Foundation of Woodstock, N.Y.

This recording of LINES was made while the composer was in residence at Mills College under a grant which also supported a recording project. NATHAN RUBIN, member of the music faculty and distinguished for his performances of contemporary music, organized and coordinated the performance; the other players are known in the Bay area for their work with new music.

Text from CHINA: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUED

My mother is very old now. I asked for leave of absence to go and see her. In such cases we're always granted leave. Obviously. There are some who call looking after sick animals dirty work. But Chairman Mao has taught us not to be afraid of filth and excrement. And that's right. Chairman Mao has pointed out how necessary it is to develop stockbreeding.

And that's why we are getting ourselves more and more animals, and why I'm studying all the time.

We've been successful in our work. Now the new-born babies don't die any more. Formerly sixty per cent of all new-born infants died. The old way of giving birth to children was unhygienic. Dangerous, both for mother and child. To begin with it was necessary to spread a great deal of information. But now there are no more problems over childbirth. Now the women understand why hygiene is important. Today I deliver all the women in the village.

Formerly many women were always pregnant. Most now understand that this is bad. But we must go on spreading information. There used to be some men who spoke against contraceptives. It was easier to convince the women. But now even none of the men are against them. Now everyone says they agree. But some families are thoughtless. And of course there are accidents too. Other things are more problematic. There are so many bad old customs which must be combatted. There are those who aren't careful enough about their food. Not everyone looks after their latrines properly. Dry earth must be used for covering them. There must be no flies. We have got quite a long way with our hygienic work, but not the whole way. That is why unremitting propaganda is needed against the bad old habits. Not to look after latrines properly, that's one such bad habit. Hygiene is a political question. The old bad habits are deep-rooted, but we're fighting them all the time, and things are getting better every year that goes by. This work we do during study meetings. To study and apply Mao Tse-Tung Thought is a good method.

Text from CHINA: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUED, by Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, translated by Paul Britten Austin. @ 1970 by Random House. Inc. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
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Every year the National InstitutelAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters singles out four composers for awards for distinguished achievement. Christian Wolff was a 1975 winner, and this recording is part of his award.

Produced by Carter Harman
Art direction: Judith Lerner
Cover photo by Dong Kingman, Jr.
Lines recorded by Maggi Payne at Mills College, March 1973
Accompaniments recorded by Frank Laico, March 15, 1976
LINES - C.F. Peters (BMI) - 22'45"
ACCOMPANIMENTS - C.F. Peters (BMI) - 21'10"
LC#: 76-750454
Composers Recordings. Inc.
THIS IS A COMPOSER-SUPERVISED RECORDING

Christian Wolff, "Burdocks"

-- Liner Notes --

Burdocks, written in the summers of 1970 and 1971, first played August, 1971, by the performers on this record, at Royalton, Vermont, is an orchestral piece in ten parts, each different in some distinct way. These include specific notations on staves; notations indicating only durations, often depending on other sounds a player hears; and various verbal directions both explicit and suggestive.

Various numbers of performers (no upward limit) can play, using any means of making sounds. Any number of the ten parts can be played simultaneously or overlapped. The performance on this recording consists of versions of parts II ('chords'), V ('wheels'), VI ('melody and accompaniment'), VIII ('100 bits') and IX ('quicksand'), played in succession. Instruments used include violin (Nash), viola, melodion, whistles (Behrman), horn, harmonica (Mumma), piano, percussion (Rzewski), bandoneon, organ (Tudor), bass gultar, flute (Wolff).

The piece offers a various, somewhat unruly, if not sticky, quantity of material, whose character is, however, still intended to allow clear articulations and transparency, both a festive, busy feeling and a more quiet one.

On the present recording the unruly aspect is partially reflected by the absence of a pure studio sound. Incidental noises--players' movements, shifting of instruments, preparations for playing--are not avoided but allowed to mix with the various noises which are part of the performed music.

This recording is dedicated to its engineers, David Behrman and Gordon Murnma.

All selections are B. M. I. and published by C. F. Peters, New York & Frankfurt.

The recordings were made August, 1971 at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.

David Behrman is a composer, performer of new music and member of the Sonic Arts Union, a group of composer-performers of live electronic music who have toured extensively in the past several years in the U. S. and Europe. [He has produced recordings for Columbia records and the "Music of our Time" series on Odyssey records, and has been technical director and artistic advisor for the Intermedia Institute in New York.]

Gordon Mumma is a composer and performing musician with the Merce Cunningham Dance company and the Sonic Arts Union. He has designed electronic music equipment for EXPO 70 in Osaka and was one of the directors of the ONCE festival. [He performs widely with John Cage and David Tudor.]

John Nash has performed in new music concerts in the U. S. and England and has been a member of the Scratcfi Orrhestra of London.

Frederic Rzewski has performed and recorded extensively throughout Europe. He has given first performances of piano works of Bussotti, Kagel, Pousseur, Lucier and Stockhausen. Active also as a composer, he is a founder of M. E. V. Musica Elettronica Viva) and has worked particularly in group improvisation.

David Tudor has been devoted to performing contemporary music, both instrumental and electronic, since 1948. He has played countless new works, many written espeqlly for him, in concerts throughout the world. More recently y has turned particularly to the performance and making of "live" electronic music, including in his work Bandoneon! and in his contributions at EXPO 70 both audio and visual material.

Christian Wolff (born 1934, Nice, France, living in the U. S. since 1941) began composing in 1949, met John Cage, David Tudor and Morton Feldmann in 1950-1, and by association with them his musical activity took form and was given free scope. He has composed for piano(s), various chamber groups, magnetic tape, unspecified numbers of players and sound sources, and, with Burdocks, orchestra. [He has been especially interested in allowing performers flexibility and ranges of freedom at the actual time of a piece's playing, and has in this connection devised various new notations.] He has written on new music in Die Reihe, Collage, VH 101, and Audience. Together with the performers on this record, as well as Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury, Kurt Schwertsik and Alvin Lucier, he has performed in and organized concerts of new music. Between 1963 and 1970 he taught Classics at Harvard. Currently he is teaching Classics and Music at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. -- Christian Wolff