"I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It's six months now, and I can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed so quickly. I am in excellent physical and emotional health. There are doubtless subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure and ready. As lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis, so am I dealing with my environment. In the indifferent brutality, the incessant noise, the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings of lost hysterical men, I can act with clarity and meaning. I am deliberate, sometimes even calculating, seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. I read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life."
at the time this came out, time stood still and simultaneously accelerated. Music became music....and freed us all from the "45" records which was only about 2 minutes, 30 seconds long, designed for those with ADD. Rzweski, Zappa, Steven Reich, Philip Glass asked us all, "What Is Music?"....the meditative state to listening to everything........even one's heart beat.
For the people who don't know what this piece is about. Google fredrick Rzewski coming together meaning? It's one of Sam Melville's last letters before he was killed in the Attica prison riots in 1971. The best version I've ever heard was at huddersfield town hall and I think fredrick Rzewski did the dialogue.
Actually it is not Frederic - it just sounds allot like him - but someone else posted this here:"voiced by the great Steve Ben Israel, anarchist pacifist comedian and performer with the Living Theatre who died in NYC in 2012"
this is a fair attempt. but seems perhaps the producer has made the singer hold back; finding the narrator's conviction within the ryhthm only settles in organically in the final phrases. Rzewski's more powerfully passionate, vocally unhinged performance with the Dutch group Hoketus was recorded at Huddersfield Hall; a radio broadcast, date unknown. Likely one of the Pacifica Radio Archives (LA or Berkeley factions) still holds that recording. there's more to learn from great composers than sentimental politics
an Obama sermon!? Frederic Rzekski howled these words with convicted compassionate wrath when he performed it. more critically a strange convention ignores Rzewski contrived no unmusical stop-&-start, or gaping gasps for his narrator. FR narrated with natural rhythm; just as he notates Coming Together narration as **metrical** beyond rhythm. narrators employing this consistent "no-upbeat" stuttering, approach a pedantic interpretation of a text printed horizontally, 100% non-rhythmically, simply beginning above downbeats - just as FR performed it, with natural English meter and energy, inserting spaces only where meaning or breath requires; elongating & contracting the indigenous English rhythms (as in slow chant and popular song); employing the meter's inexorable effect as if he were carefully wading through a comrade's curious manifesto... which then gradually- eventually- deeply upsets him- until he is raving frustrated, threatening to become vocally unhinged in his commanding volume, wrathfully breaking the spectacle's walls by the end as each re-reading emphasizes the dangerous friend's time is already ended ... all with free natural rhythmic tempos within the generally respected bar lines-- the merest of metric essentials
"I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It's six months now, and I can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed so quickly. I am in excellent physical and emotional health. There are doubtless subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure and ready. As lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis, so am I dealing with my environment. In the indifferent brutality, the incessant noise, the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings of lost hysterical men, I can act with clarity and meaning. I am deliberate, sometimes even calculating, seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. I read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life."
RIP Frederic Rzewski
This work has suddenly become even more relevant.
This is unspeakably brilliant.
at the time this came out, time stood still and simultaneously accelerated. Music became music....and freed us all from the "45" records which was only about 2 minutes, 30 seconds long, designed for those with ADD.
Rzweski, Zappa, Steven Reich, Philip Glass asked us all, "What Is Music?"....the meditative state to listening to everything........even one's heart beat.
i am performing this tonight! such an awesome music!
For the people who don't know what this piece is about. Google fredrick Rzewski coming together meaning? It's one of Sam Melville's last letters before he was killed in the Attica prison riots in 1971.
The best version I've ever heard was at huddersfield town hall and I think fredrick Rzewski did the dialogue.
This is Frederic, I think, speaking here but let me check all of this.
Actually it is not Frederic - it just sounds allot like him - but someone else posted this here:"voiced by the great Steve Ben Israel, anarchist pacifist comedian and performer with the Living Theatre who died in NYC in 2012"
@@elianelust6358
It is Steve Ben Israel.
RIP Frederick🙏❤️
Amazing words with organic ritm.
Farewell maestro. And I only discovered your work on hearing of your death. Thank you for your music.
Wow, yah!
TERRIFIC!
I saw this on stage with the Spanish National Ballet directed (and dancing) by Nacto Duato, back in the 90's.
Never forget.
el bolero de Ravel de la angustia. Buenisimo
...
but I feel
secure
and ready
as lovers
will contrast
their emotions
in times
of crisis
...
so amazing!
all solidarity with all incarcerated comrades and all people resisting state oppression
-The experimental chemistry of food.
WOW
beautiful
Ugly to listen to
voiced by the great Steve Ben Israel, anarchist pacifist comedian and performer with the Living Theatre who died in NYC in 2012.
Hell must be like that
Heaven on earth begins like this
BIG TROUBLE
Great payoff at the end of the song. Well worth the listen.
La vida moderna... jejeje
Bey brought me here
this is a fair attempt. but seems perhaps the producer has made the singer hold back; finding the narrator's conviction within the ryhthm only settles in organically in the final phrases. Rzewski's more powerfully passionate, vocally unhinged performance with the Dutch group Hoketus was recorded at Huddersfield Hall; a radio broadcast, date unknown. Likely one of the Pacifica Radio Archives (LA or Berkeley factions) still holds that recording. there's more to learn from great composers than sentimental politics
@
an Obama sermon!? Frederic Rzekski howled these words with convicted compassionate wrath when he performed it. more critically a strange convention ignores Rzewski contrived no unmusical stop-&-start, or gaping gasps for his narrator. FR narrated with natural rhythm; just as he notates Coming Together narration as **metrical** beyond rhythm. narrators employing this consistent "no-upbeat" stuttering, approach a pedantic interpretation of a text printed horizontally, 100% non-rhythmically, simply beginning above downbeats - just as FR performed it, with natural English meter and energy, inserting spaces only where meaning or breath requires; elongating & contracting the indigenous English rhythms (as in slow chant and popular song); employing the meter's inexorable effect as if he were carefully wading through a comrade's curious manifesto... which then gradually- eventually- deeply upsets him- until he is raving frustrated, threatening to become vocally unhinged in his commanding volume, wrathfully breaking the spectacle's walls by the end as each re-reading emphasizes the dangerous friend's time is already ended ... all with free natural rhythmic tempos within the generally respected bar lines-- the merest of metric essentials