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Noszferatu play Frederic Rzewski and Howard Skempton

 

FREDERIC RZEWSKI - FLOWERS (World Premiere)
HOWARD SKEMPTON - IN TANDEM; THIS WAY UP; DEEPLY SHADED; AIR MELODY; SIRENS
FREDERIC RZEWSKI - COMING TOGETHER; ATTICA

Finn Peters: Sax and Flute James Allsopp: Bass Clarinet Tom Allan: Trumpet Oren Marshall: Tuba
Rose Redgrave: Viola Clare O'Connell: Cello
Dave Price: Percussion Ivo de Greef: Piano
Howard Skempton: Voice and Accordion
Joe Cutler: Creative Associate

Café Oto Dalston, London 20 November 2010

 

 

This programme brought together the usually dissimilar musics of Rzewski and Skempton.

Rzewski's music is immensely various, as we learnt during a festival of his music in London, 2006. He came from his home in Brussels to attend this event in an increasingly important London venue for new and experimental music.

A lot of Frédéric Rzewski's music has a radical/political substratum, represented in this concert by the famous Coming Together, a 'minimalist masterpiece' which pulverises you into submission by repetition, in this case of words by Sam Melville, one of the organizers of the Attica, New York prison riots (1971), relentlessly repeated again and again:
I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It's six months now, and I can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed so quickly. I am in excellent physical and emotional health. There are doubtless subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure and ready...

The writer was killed in the rioting.

Its effect in the unique informal atmosphere of Café Oto, the antithesis of London's regular concert halls, was particulary strong. Howard Skempton's own little pieces were minimal to near vanishing, and Rzewski's new Flowers for the group sounded surprisingly like some of Skempton's, but the collaboration of these two composers in concert was vindicated by Coming Together, the high spot of Noszferatu's unusual programme, with Skempton's powerful and rhythmically accurate narration of its text [Photo above].

A word about presentation; there was none! Some people got sheets with the titles of the items and biogs of the composers & the group. Nothing was said from the platform to introduce and give a context to important works such as Rzewski's Coming Together highlighted above. We had experienced a similar casualness on a previous visit to Café Oto.
[Also, N.B. Both concerts were billed for 8 p.m., but that proved to be doors open time, with a queue outside; actual starts c. 8.30.]

Peter Grahame Woolf

Watch Rzewski himself playing the end of his huge
The People United Will Never Be Defeated
from the VAI DVD Rzewski plays Rzewski

Further reading; some more Rzewski links :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch
http://www.musicalpointers.co.uk/TrinityFestivals.htm
http://www.musicalpointers.co.uk/generaltopics/NonsequitursBook.html http://www.musicalpointers.co.uk/reviews//bmiccuttingedge2005.htm#rzw ComingTogether

http://icking-music-archive.org/scores/rzewski/trio.mp3
http://www.composers21.com/compdocs/rzewskif.htm
http://www.google.co.uk/Rzewski+Musical+Pointers