But comparing two versions of these 36 variations on the song's theme is fraught, given Rzewski's heavily improvisational performance instructions (e.g., to play variation 11 "like fragments of an absent melody--in strict time," variation 27 "Tenderly, and with a hopeful expression"). Hamelin takes the piece more strictly and in more clearly virtuosic terms than Drury, just as he's taken Scriabin and Medtner. He starts off stronger and paces himself differently, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but always more deliberately. People is a work prone to radically different interpretations, and while it's easy to compare Hamelin and Drury, it's musically better to take each on its own. It's folksy, rootsy music that gets microtonal in fragments and deconstructs the melody so thoroughly that it'll be 36 times lovelier when you're done listening. The added bonus of Hamelin's version is the inclusion of the warm "Down by the Riverside" and "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," both given the theme-restatement-improvisation processing treatment that marks Rzewski's unparalleled work in traditional folk musics. --Andrew Bartlett Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated! Track Listing:
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