Eighth Blackbird plays Rzewski

Rzewski's music has been something that I have made a point to avoid ever since I first heard about it. I was a teenager when browsing through a library I came across the score to his monumental set of variations on the Unidad Popular song, ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido! I was immediately repulsed by it. Not the music so much, though I didn't care for its baroque excesses back then, but it was his ideological stance that disgusted me. Being the son of Chilean immigrants, I long had heard all the stories of the Allende era. The food and basic supply shortages, the violence, the groaning of a nation teetering on the brink of civil war. Today the knee-jerk answer is that the US was singularly responsible for this and many other things and that they, together with Pinochet's junta, had framed Allende, as it were, for these disasters. Much is made of the fact that Allende was popularly elected. Little is ever heard that Allende's win was not the popular mandate it has retrospectively been made out to be; a razor thin margin of dubious circumstance comparable to that of George W. Bush's in 2000. Pinochet was a crook, no question about that, but Allende was just as criminal and violent in repressing his detractors, something that's easily forgotten these days. The fact that in death he has been made a saint is disgusting. All this and more swirled through my head as I sight read that Rzewski score. I closed it and dismissed Rzewski's music and his ideology outright. Thanks, but no thanks.

Years later I came across this CD in a cut out bin. I was doubly curious because I had yet to hear a recording by Eighth Blackbird (they spell their name in all lowercase letters--how cute). At a bargain price, I thought it wouldn't hurt to try it out. I have to say--it's pretty good. Well, some of it.

Pocket Symphony leads things off. Initially I thought this was going to be some take off of Brian Wilson's Good Vibrations, famously referred to by Derek Taylor as a "pocket symphony". Well, Rzewski is no Brian Wilson, but this is still pretty good. The first movement has a "pop" sensibility makes it approachable although the piece becomes darker as it progresses. But make no mistake, this is serious music and very well crafted-- a major work. The orchestration in this chamber symphony is very effective. I haven't heard this much jew's harp in awhile (maybe this is a tip of the hat to Brian Wilson after all?).

The rest of this album is less enjoyable. Les Moutons de Panurge, inspired by Rabelais, is a musical game where a group of musicians play a 65 note melody. To quote the liner notes: "Players start with the first note and keep adding notes until the melody is complete. At that point, they begin to get rid of the notes, one at a time, until all that remains is the last note." If a player happens to make a mistake along the way, they are to continue along their own way conituning to the 65th note and back, rather than try to "catch up" with the "herd". It must be a fun piece to play, but it just sounds like bland noodling to this listener.

The soap box climbing, politicking Rzewski comes to the fore in Coming Together. Setting to music a letter by Attica inmate Sam Melville, I found this work's pseudo profundities and passe theatrics to be excruciating and embarrassing. As bad as the music is, Eighth Blackbird's performance is worse. Don't misunderstand me. Musically they play wonderfully and are in total command of Rzewski's language. The problem is that Coming Together requires the musicians to declaim Melville's text over and over again. The delivery of the text by the members of Eighth Blackbird is grating in the extreme and I had to shut this off mid way through my second listen lest I toss my stereo out into the street. It may be harsh or "judgmental" of me to say this, but this last work is junk. Someday perhaps I shall, Hanslick-like, be proven wrong by posterity. But I'm betting the Vegas odds that this work will find a comfortable spot on the dung heap of musical history.

I usually don't include scans of liner notes in my posts and while you may regret this most of the time, you'll thank me now. The liner notes are pure--and there is no better word for this--crap. I've read some crapulent liner and program notes in my time, but these are among the worst. They consist of three fey interviews with Rzewski conducted by the Eighth Blackbirds. Good musicians the lot of them, but they just sound so annoying. Better to have condensed the interviews into a single essay. Irritating too are some of the "fun facts" that you can find in bullet point inside the booklet. Did you know that Eighth Blackbird "likes wine and cheese" and "looks good for their age" or that Rzewski "makes excellent oatmeal" or that Cedille Records "kick ass"? Well, goooooolly!

This is worth listening to for the Pocket Symphony. I look forward to hearing more of Rzewski's music.