The piece War Songs, composed in 2008, weaves together six war and anti-war melodies from the last seven centuries in a contrapuntal fashion.
Composer Biography
Rzewski co-founded Musica Elettronica Viva in Rome in 1966, an ensemble that conceived music as a collective, collaborative process featuring improvisation and live electronic instruments.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Frederic Rzewski intended his Winter Nights to help with insomnia, similar to how Bach's Goldberg Variations were supposed to, despite their very different, darker moods.
Performer Biography
Bobby Mitchell, the American pianist on this album, is known for crossing traditional boundaries in programming and performance, performing on both modern and historical instruments, and engaging in improvisation and composition.
Composer Biography
Frederic Rzewski, the composer, was considered one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time, often incorporating social and political themes into his major compositions.
Composition History
The three Winter Nights were composed for the album's performer, Bobby Mitchell, in 2015, and he gave their world premiere performance in New York City in 2016.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The themes in Frederic Rzewski's late piano works, as in his entire body of work, are universal, oscillating between ideas of destruction, hope, war, isolation, and hypocrisy.
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