Duration: 48:46

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5

I fixed the performance of the technique introduced with the striking chords in variation five to sound more accurate. I did not change the video, however, as I thought it would be interesting to have the long duration represent the resonance of the notes. I also fixed the way the melody is played at the end of variation 27, where there is a rising figure of sixteenth notes up to the 6th degree of the b minor scale in both hands and a melody overlapping the same notes.

Link to Logical.ly's musescore: https://musescore.com/logically
Great thanks to Logical.ly for creating such a beautiful midi and for being gracious enough to allow me to use it for this video. I added the whistling using Sibelius (I would have tried to whistle myself, but I can't hit the correct notes consistently). I also added the piano lid slamming instructed in the score using my actual piano. I also painstakingly separated the hands where needed. There are mistakes, but I do not think it diminishes the experience.

This piece by the American composer Frederic Rzewski is a set of 36 variations on a song from the Nueva Canción Chilena movement, composed by Sergio Ortega and lyrics by Quilapayún. This song, in Spanish, was called, "¡El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será Vencido!" whose name was derived from a popular phrase during protests in Chile in the 60s and 70s.

Rzewski's variations immediatly begin hiding the melody in many inventive ways, but does at times clearly restate it amongst the slew of dissonance and arpeggiation figures. He also makes reference to two other songs representing the leftist struggle, being "Bandiera Rossa" and Bertolt Brecht-Hanns Eisler "Solidarity Song." This piece may seem chaotic upon first listening, but the more times you listen to it, you feel what Rzewski was trying to depict. The piece carries such a complexity, that words fail me when trying to describe it. Even the overall structure of the piece was crafted very meticulously, with each sixth variation acting as a summary of the five variations before it and the last five summarizing the first through fifth variation in each group respectively. The final variation is a summary of the entire piece, which shows a striking level of composition and integration. The piece ends with a restatement of the original theme, which in my opinion, takes on a more melancholy tone than the first time and carries a much heavier significance thanks to the voyage that came before it.