Rzewski: Unite! (Piano Works) Benyamin Nuss

• Frederic Rzewski (1938 - 2021): The People United Will Never Be Defeated:
• 1Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Thema01:33
• 2Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 1 - Weaving, Delicate but Firm01:00
• 3Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 2 - With Firmness01:00
• 4Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3 - Slightly Slower, with Expressive Nuances01:16
• 5Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 4 - Marcato01:06
• 6Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 5 - Dreamlike, Frozen01:32
• 7Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 6 - Same Tempo as Beginning01:12
• 8Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 7 - Tempo (Lightly, Impatiently)01:01
• 9Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 8 - With Agility, Not Too Much Pedal, Crisp01:26
• 10Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 9 - Evenly01:02
• 11Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 10 - Comodo, Recklessly01:10
• 12Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 11 - Tempo I. Like Fragments of an Absent Melody - In Strict Time00:52
• 13Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 1201:19
• 14Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 1301:55
• 15Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 14 - A Bit Faster, Optimistically01:21
• 16Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 15 - Flexible, Like an Improvisation01:31
• 17Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 16 - Same Tempo as Preceding, with Fluctuations, Much Pedal01:56
• 18Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 17 - Left Hand Strictly. Right Hand Freely, Roughly in Space01:21
• 19Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 1801:38
• 20Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 19 - With Energy00:43
• 21Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 20 - Crisp, Precise00:42
• 22Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 21 - Relentless, Uncompromising00:57
• 23Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 2200:47
• 24Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 23 - As Fast as Possible, with Some Rubato00:25
• 25Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 2403:16
• 26Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 2502:15
• 27Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 26 - In a Militant Manner01:14
• 28Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 27 - Tenderly, with a Hopeful Expression - Cadenza05:58
• 29Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 2801:25
• 30Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 2900:42
• 31Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3002:31
• 32Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3101:01
• 33Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3201:01
• 34Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3301:08
• 35Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3401:06
• 36Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3501:13
• 37Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Variation 3601:43
• 38Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Improvisation03:45
• 39Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Thema. Tempo I03:00
• 40Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Improvisation II02:28
• 41Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated: Improvisation III03:59
• North American Ballads:
• 42Rzewski: North American Ballads: I. Dreadful Memories (After Aunt Molly Jackson)04:20
• 43Rzewski: North American Ballads: II. Which Side Are You On? (After Florence Reese)11:42
• 44Rzewski: North American Ballads: III. Down by the Riverside09:03
• 45Rzewski: North American Ballads: IV. Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues10:28
• Mayn Yingele:
• 46Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Thema. Variation 1 - Espressivo. Variation 201:15
• 47Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 3 - Espressivo, in Un Tempo Flessibile. Variation 4 - Tempo Giusto. Variation 501:25
• 48Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 6 - Faster. Variation 7 - Tempo I - Tenderly00:57
• 49Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 8 - Pp Sempre E Staccato. Variation 9. Variation 10 - Meno Mosso, Espressivo01:35
• 50Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 11 - Ancora Meno Mosso00:34
• 51Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 12 - Piu Mosso. Legato, Sussurrato. Variation 13 - Sempre Legato. Mormorando01:01
• 52Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 14 - Sempre Legato, Ma Piu Agitato. Variation 15 - Marcato, Eccitato. Variation 16 - Piu Mosso01:07
• 53Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 17. Variation 1801:18
• 54Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 19 - Piu Mosso. Variation 20 - Ancora Piu Mosso00:44
• 55Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 21 - Meno Mosso00:36
• 56Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 22 - Meno Mosso04:30
• 57Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 23 - Free Tempo, Espressivo01:04
• 58Rzewski: Mayn Yingele: Variation 24 - Each Bar Different in Duration from the Preceding One, but Becoming Generally Progressively Longer01:15
• Total Runtime01:59:24

Info for Rzewski: Unite! (Piano Works)

Frederic Rzewski was one of the essential contemporary US composers whose death anniversary is approaching for the first time. The German pianist Benyamin Nuss presents three of the most famous works on his new album "UNITE!". Nuss starts the album with the four movements of the "North American Ballads" and takes you directly into the composer's sound universe. These pieces tell of the nation's workers, the downtrodden and oppressed, and illustrate Rzewski's view of the United States of his time.

The second work of the double album, "Mayn Yingele", was written on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Reich Pogrom Night and expressed the pain of a shift worker of that time. Rzewksi's best-known work, "The People United Will Never Be Defeated," closes the album with 36 variations on a Chilean resistance song. Throughout the album, Nuss impressively demonstrates the technical precision and dedication with which he has fully immersed himself in Rzewski's works, making "Unite!" one of the most challenging recordings of his entire discography.

Benyamin Nuss, piano

Benyamin Nuss
Born in 1989, Benyamin Nuss lives his passion for music. Inspired and encouraged by his father Ludwig Nuss and his uncle Hubert, both renowned jazz musicians and composers, Benyamin not only grew up within the tense area between classical music and jazz, but also completely turned the two genres into his passions.

Even as a ten-year-old, he began engaging himself with the works of Debussy and Ravel. It was above all the Impressionists who at first fascinated him with their tones and harmonies, then he found himself drawn more and more to the Romantics; Rachmaninoff, Liszt and Chopin are today among his favourite composers.

How deeply Benyamin internalized their music is also demonstrated by his first prizes at the national Jugend musiziert (Young Musicians) in the Steinway Competition (2005) and the international Prix d'Amadeo de Piano competition (2006), as well as a grant from the Hochbegabtenstiftung (Foundation for the Gifted) Best of NRW. Since 2008, he has studied at the Cologne/Aachen University of Music. His debut album Nuss plays Uematsu (2010, Deutsche Grammophon) contains video game music in a classical context and went straight into the classical charts. This was followed in 2012 by another solo album Exotica (Deutsche Grammophon), featuring works by Debussy, Balakirev, Milhaud, Villa-Lobos and Ginastera, as well as his own compositions. At home and abroad, Benyamin has performed as a soloist with several leading orchestras in Cologne, Stockholm, Tokyo, Chicago and London.

On this present production Masashi Hamauzu (Mons Records), he plays in a trio for the first time with Lisa Schumann (violin) and Kana Shirao (cello), as well as solo piano on the compositions of the Japanese Masashi Hamauzu. These two exceptional musicians are not only connected by a shared musical passion, but also by amazing biographical parallels.

Masashi Hamauzu
The Japanese Masashi Hamauzu is a composer of classical music. His work is inspired by Impressionists such as Debussy and Ravel, and yet at the same time he is compared to the works of "Les Six", a group of six French composers united in their reaction against romantic Impressionism, and who celebrated a change towards contemporary forms of popular music.

Caught between these stylistic divergences, Hamauzu has managed a remarkable career.

His musical repertoire encompasses both large orchestral works, and intimate chamber music concerts and compositions for solo piano, in equal measure. A completed course in vocal studies encouraged the widening of his views on structurally experimental possibilities, and enabled him to confidently transcend and expand the horizons of the classical music traditions.

After completing his studies, Masashi Hamauzu established his career as a staff composer at Square Enix, a leading developer of video games that included the Final Fantasy series. His dramatic compositional approach, coupled with his pioneering use of choral methods, modern harmonies and orchestration, let him break free from established forms and helped video game music attain an unprecedented level of status. With the soundtracks for Final Fantasy XIII, SaGa Frontier 2, Final Fantasy X, Unlimited Saga and Sigma Harmonics, to name just a few, he attracted worldwide attention and unreserved approval far beyond the boundaries of the game-playing community. His compositions are performed around the world in both a variety of orchestral settings and as solo piano concerts.

This album contains no booklet.