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November 7, 2006
Don't Laugh, This is Serious
I've had a head cold for more than a week and it has further limited my already limited attention span. Research has ground to a halt. I hope I will have something of value to share in the next day or two. In the meantime, I will report on how Shirley and I spent last Sunday evening. I was feeling some better and wanted to get out of the house, so we decided to go to a piano concert at Pomona College. Before we got to the concert hall we knew nothing of the program except that it would feature a guest pianist. Indeed, it did, Frederic Rzewski performing his own works.
I didn't know Rzewski but I think had heard of one of his works, one of those he performed Sunday evening, "The People United Will Never be Defeated!" Shirley and I are debating whether or not we had ever heard it before. I say we heard an orchestra perform it. She says we didn't. She could be right and what we actually heard was Ortega and Quilapayún's "¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!" on which Rzewski's work is based.
Before I get into the particulars of the performance, let me say that this man can play the piano. He presented an energetic virtuoso performance lasting near two hours with only one extremely short break. It's hard to believe that he wasn't completely exhausted after the performance. Rzewski plays the whole piano and not some limited part of it.
Anyway, the evening began with Rzewski's 2003 "Dust." Like all three (four counting the encore) numbers Rzewski played, "Dust" is a little hard to describe, so I'll just repeat what Rzewski said of it in the program.
It is constructed in five large sections, each of which consists of twenty-four episodes of six seconds each. Some times these episodes seem to succeed each other in a linear and orderly way; sometimes they appear out of the blue. Sometimes the music sounds deep; sometimes it is superficial. Sometimes it is exciting; sometimes nothing happens.
Both of us found this number a little hard to get through. And if we hadn't been sitting near the front and had there been an appropriate break after it, we might have gone home. In addition to our difficulties with the music, my nose was draining and I was having problems suppressing a cough. I was also having some trouble suppressing laughter. This was no doubt caused by my weakened condition but more than one unusual thing happened during the piece that toyed with my weakness. During one of the "six second episodes," Rzewski slapped the piano sharply just above the keyboard with his right hand. I had always heard that the piano was a percussion instrument but this was a little more than I expected. I had barely recovered from the startling sound of the slap when I noticed that the music abruptly stopped, he reached up, quite deliberately turned a page of his score, looked at it, played one single note, and then turned to the next page continuing with whatever had been previously going on. I almost lost it. It's a good thing Shirley and I avoided eye contact.
The truth is that the next two numbers, his 2003 "Cadenza" and his 50 minute nonstop "The People United Will Never be Defeated!" were far more enjoyable. A throat lozenge that Shirley gave me began to take affect and I was better able to control myself. If I have any complaint about the last two numbers it is that "The People United Will Never be Defeated!" is about 20 minutes too long for my taste. These numbers not only featured amazing skill at the piano, both seemed to be technically very difficult, they also featured further physical assaults against the instrument (another right hand slap above the keyboard and a two hand slap under the keyboard), a couple of foot stomps as well as a shout and an occasional lengthy monotone whistle in the background. At first, I couldn't figure out how that last sound was produced. It soon became clear that Rzewski was whistling. "Cadenza" featured several segments that the program says are "improvisations." I must say that I couldn't tell them from the set score.
For those musically inclined, I have a couple of related questions about the sheet music for these pieces. First, how do you indicate a slap above the keyboard or below it for that matter? How do you indicate improvisation? Does the score simply say, "You're on your own for the next two pages?" And then there is the matter of the shout, the foot stomp and the whistle, how do you indicate these musical elements in a piano score?
The encore was truly amazing. I have no idea what it is called. It was energetic and wonderful, the best part of the evening. He carried an interesting and somewhat complex theme from the top of the keyboard to the bottom and back to the top. I don't think he missed a single key. Much of his music has rests of considerable length and the encore was no exception. At one point, I would have sworn that he looked at his wristwatch to make sure he had waited in silence the requisite length of time.
The truth is, I'm glad we stayed. The program was very entertaining, if a little long, and I was able to control myself in a civilized manner after the initial piece. One thing that Shirley noted and I also found true was Rzewski's ability to articulate a sometimes delicate theme in a way that rendered it recognizable even when combined with a series of fortissimo cords. If you get a chance, go hear Rzewski. Perhaps you will want to arrive about 20 minutes late and take along a throat lozenge or two.
Posted by Duane Smith at November 7, 2006 4:13 PM | Read more on Odds and Ends |
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