Frederic Rzewski - The People United Will Never Be Defeated (Hamelin)

Rest in Peace, Frederic Rzewski (April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) I was so sad to hear about Rzewski’s recent death that I almost felt the urge to make a score video as a tribute to him. He was such an incredible figure, not singularly as a composer or as a pianist-virtuoso but as both; among the most important contemporary figures of the pianist-composers of America, he managed to merge innovative techniques with creative counterpoint, improvisatory elements, and political topics in his music, showing a deep coscience of socio-historical themes. “The People United will never be Defeated!“ (1975) based on Sergio Ortega’s chilean protest song “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!“, is today considered a modern classic of piano literature, and is sometimes even regarded as the most important set of variations since Bach’s Goldberg and Beethoven’s Diabelli. The structure of the piece is incredibly ingenious: 36 Variations, some lyrical and