Rzewski, Frederic (1938-2021)

[Mandryka]

That's a very nice recording of Coming Together, but note that the speaking part is taken by soprano Roberta Alexander rather than by FR himself and with a quite different (much more "dramatic") approach, no less powerful, indeed perhaps more so.

Yes, I came back to say I just started to listen and thought "this isn't a man's voice!" and then checked. So is there no commercial recording with the voice of the composer?

[Bryn]

[Mandryka]

My first "proper job" after leaving university was based on Longacre. There was a girl who worked in the sales department who came from a real cockney family, her father and father's father had been traders in the old Covent Garden market. Anyway, she knew all the secret haunts of that part of London, and had access to a special drinking club on Endell Street for local residents, no tourists allowed, lots of people who worked on Berwick Street market. It was fabulous! There was an old upright in the corner, occasionally someone would use it for things like Gershwin, or a bit of Chopin, the first movement of the Waldstein was another favourite.

Anyway, seeing Rzewski in the fish market made the memory come flooding back.

[Richard Barrett]

seeing Rzewski in the fish market

Not someone to turn his nose up at playing an upright in what was probably not such a flattering acoustic.

His recording of Stockhausen's Klavierstück X still amazes me. Not one for the fish market I guess. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lIHEvTPlDo