Three pieces for speaking pianist by the American avant-garde musician, politically committed composer and virtuoso pianist Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021), performed by Stephane Ginsburgh (for whom two of the pieces were composed).
"This album is the result of years of work and friendship with the composer. It started with De Profundis, a piece which has had a deep impact on me as a musician and a person, and ended with it. Frederic attended many of my performances of the piece, the last one during our last public concert together in early 2020 in Brussels. In the meantime, he wrote Dear Diary (2014) and America: A Poem (2020) for me which were both premiered at ARS MUSICA festival. I am very happy to present these pieces to you on this new and special album coming out on Sub Rosa."
—Stéphane Ginsburgh
A tireless surveyor of the repertoire but also explorer of new combinations including voice, percussion, performance or electronics, Stephane Ginsburgh (born 1969) performs as a soloist in many international festivals such as Ars Musica (Brussels), Quincena Musical (San Sebastian), ZKM Imatronic (Karksruhe), Agora (Paris), Bach Academie Brugge, Ultima Oslo, Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse, Gaida (Vilnius), Warsaw Autumn, Klara Festival (Brussels), Festival Forum (Moscow) and Musica Strasbourg. He has collaborated with many contemporary composers such as Frederic Rzewski,
James Tenney, Philippe Boesmans,
Jean-Luc Fafchamps,
Stefan Prins or Matthew Shlomowitz as well as with choreographers such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (Rosas) and visual artists such as
Peter Downsbrough and Kurt Ralske. Ginsburgh has recorded for Sub Rosa, Naxos, Cypres, Kairos and World Edition. He likes immersive programs offering integrals: Prokofiev's Sonatas, Beethoven's last Sonatas, Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux. Ginsburgh holds a Masters in Music and studied piano with Paul Badura-Skoda, Jerome Lowenthal, Vitaly Margulis and Claude Helffer. He also holds a Bachelor in Philosophy of Science from U.L.B. and a Doctorate in Arts from V.U.B.
Frederic Rzewski was born in 1938 in Westfield (Massachusetts). He had his first piano lessons at the age of three and began composing music at a very early age. He initially studied piano with Charles Mackey in Springfield and went on to study composition with Walter Piston (orchestration) and Randall Thompson at Harvard University and with Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt at Princeton University, where he also took courses in philosophy and Greek. A Fulbright-Scholarship enabled him to study with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence in 1960/61. His musical collaboration with Dallapiccola marked the beginning of his career as a pianist for contemporary piano music. His friendship with
Christian Wolff and David Behrman and his acquaintance with
John Cage and David Tudor influenced his development, both as a composer and as a pianist. During the 1960s, Rzewski taught and took part in the first performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's "Klavierstück X" (1962) and "Plus Minus" (1964). From 1977 to 2003, he was a professor for composition at the Conservatoire Royal in Liège (Belgium). He also taught at various other universities, among them Yale University, the California Institute of the Arts and the Berlin University of the Arts. Through the live electronics ensemble
Musica Elettronica Viva, founded by Rzewski together with
Alvin Curran and
Richard Teitelbaum in Rome in 1966, he was introduced to politically active colleagues and jazz musicians. The music of the ensemble is distinguished by elements of improvisation and the use of electronic live instruments. The aim was to revolutionise contemporary thinking about classical composition and performance. These musical experiences with the ensemble are reflected in Rzewski's compositions of the late 1960s and the 1970s. They combine elements both from improvised and composed music. After his return to New York in the early 1970s, his politically outspoken compositions probably made it difficult for him to obtain a long-term teaching position in the US. Since 1976, he has been living mainly in Rome and Brussels. During the 1970s, he continued to experiment with forms that treat style and language as structural elements. His best-known work from the 1970s is "The People United Will Never Be Defeated!", a 50-minute-long composition featuring 36 piano variations on a song by Chilean composer Sergio Ortega.
Frederic Rzewski lived and worked in Brussels. He passed away on June 24, 2021 in his Italian home in Montiano.
