Roger Wright plays Rzewski's Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues

[Jiaal]

For a while, it didn't even sound like a piano. This is amazing.

[komponis]

check frogpeak.org for the score to this piece.

[marcohorowitz8]

how did he do in the Van Cliburn competition??

[elinaskarpathioti]

AMAZING PERFORMANCE!!!! GONGRATS!!!!!

[elinaskarpathioti]

AMAZING PERFORMANCE!!!! GONGRATS!!!!!

[MuseDuCafe]

What a tremendous piece and performance. I'm happy to have missed the 'talk about the Gershwinisms.' I hear a direct bit of blues, truer in style (and content) than anything Gershwin ever made. I think the Rachmaninoff quote is about as respectful here as the Tristan und Isoude quote in Debussy's Golliwog's cake-walk, i.e. taking the piss outta..... So happy this young pianist took the chance.

[newfreshreview]

@MuseDuCafe "Truer in style"? Forgive me, but didn't Gershwin rent a shack on Catfish Row just to absorb the music of the African Americans there? Did Rzewski do likewise? If you mean Gershwin is not guilty of out-and-out quotation, than so be it.

[Atttacca]

4:41.  WOW! through this whole piece...Wright does a great job

[leandrobern]

By 4:50 I remember the style of Villa-Lobos.

[Vesivian]

WOW! Sounded like the rolling thunder in the beginning and cause my volume was maxed out i actually thought that the thunder was real and went out and checked until i noticed my mistake xD

[OrangeSodaKing]

WOW!

[Sportulas]

haha opening of rach 2 @ 3:00

[shakuhachi]

this is a spectacular performance!!!!!

[starrynte]

Love the moment at 8:38

[WillyHill74]

Did anyone else catch the direct Rachmaninov quote at @3:00 ? And people talk about the Gershwinisms, but I don't think they're there to evoke Gerhswin as much as the bluesy feel. I mean, this is called "Cotton Mill Blues."

[John11inch]

The chord structure there has absolutely nothing to do with Rachmaninov.

[lflagr]

@John11inch those are the opening chords for Rach 2nd concerto.

[John11inch]

@lflagr

No. Only one of them is, and that's only if you're discounting the LH part in the Rachmaninov. They have nothing to do with each other. Whenever I hear a Bb, I don't go asking what a piece has to do with Schubert D960.

[lflagr]

@John11inch that's because a single B-flat could remind one of Schubert 960, or Mozart K333, Beethoven 2nd, and so on. However, here it's striking that the same exact chords from the Rachmaninoff is used (and the same bell-toll rhythm as well).

[John11inch]

@lflagr

They are *not* the "same, exact chords," as I previously mentioned. Rach chord progression: C-Ab-F-C, C-Ab-F-Db-C, C-Ab-F-D-C, C-Ab-F-Eb-C, C-A-F-Eb-C, C-Ab-F-Eb-C, C-Ab-F-D-C, C-Ab-F-Db-C. Rzewski chord progression: C-Ab-F-Db, C-Ab-F-D, C-Ab-F-D#, C-Ab-F-D (repeat x 3). There is no such thing as a "bell-toll rhythm." They are just in a static, even rhythm in both cases. In Rzewski, the chords are based off of "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," an old slave song. So go yell at slaves.

[John11inch]

@John11inch

Because I'm sure that the slaves were listening to Rachmaninov with their time machines.

[Fenizrael]

Nothing strikes me as this piece being particularly brilliant. I'm sorry.

[jaZZjaZZ54]

Then again cotton caused a lot of blues amongst the black folks, and Gershwin epitomized and preserved black musical heritage.

[jaZZjaZZ54]

The Gershwin revivalist part is nice, but I don't see the relationship to the cotton mill. Eli Whitney early 19th century; Gershwin early 20th.

[TweIveTone]

How incredibly difficult this must be to perform accurately. Amazing job, Roger! Very cool piece of music.

[wthomaswells]

Just heard Roger play this today in concert in Houston. If you don't already realize, he is a phenomenal talent. His playing is what music is all about.

[DontFearArt]

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[4848drew]

Roger Wright is a phenomenal pianist. He ought to be much better known on the international concert stage.

[Erica0240]

He's awesome! amazing...

I learn it now.. difficult!

[vysehrad]

Wow!! I want to learn this!

[daniel15671]

I heard Ursula Oppens play this, but you take the cake. hot, hot Hot!

[Epogdous]

Somehow it reminds me of Prokofiev's Toccata

[Personificationful]

that was incredible. I am so in awe.

[darnmat]

Because of this... I will learn it....

[bullitosaladino]

It is tough to play this peice - I learned it, have played it around houston and am performing it next semester on my Sr. Recital. This is definitely one of the most difficult pieces I have learned but also one of the most "worth it" pieces I've performed.

[SomeDuckInASuit]

Hes like the chior piano teacher at my school to or something.

[Lliffe]

Roger Wright is the accompanist at my high school right now. :D

[jackquerido]

when you watch this live, you get to hear all the overtones in the grand pause, but, live or on the internet, this piece is marvellous

[darnmat]

hahahaha... that was hot...

[rvn10rvn17]

i thought this is just crap but actually this is beautiful

[lensherr82]

Insane! I love it!

[robbiethemann]

making a piano sound like a cotton mill is harder than it looks :P

[iaddenfoeb]

Interessante connubio tra blues e musica contemporanea. Ha dei clusters spaventosi questo pezzo, è quasi tutto così. Forse un pò ripetitivo e tetro per i miei gusti, ma comunque bell'esperimento.

[AHN5D]

Can you ever keep listening boring music? I can't. This music is interesting, ...very...Beauty, artistry, technic, philosophy, ...all good things. But first of all I can not sit and get bored. In that way, this is a pretty good music.

[aldebussy]

I heard this live. It was intense. I loved it.

[wengboy]

This piece revived my love for contemporary music! Lovely! =)

[sshuck]

Fantastic. I've heard this piece before but I didn't get it. Now I get it. Industry has alienated the modern worker.

For those people who don't like the way this piece sounds, imagine listening to it 12 hrs a day, seven days a week for 5 cents an hour.

[LagWulf]

A good comment, if it wasnt that sad, i would have laughed about. If you watch the video van Raat palyed this piece you have an above-view of the piano, so you can see the hammer and you´ve got a good association to the stultifying work in a cotton mill...

[loboris1995]

@sshuck I 'ill be riche then :P

[neno525]

Obviously a classical pianist.

[IAMLISZT]

er as opposed to what?

[kitsune11888]

blues?

[IAMLISZT]

i suppose but the piece just has blues references in it but maybe im misunderstanding the connotation of this guys comment

[pkjpiano]

quite so

[nmitchell076]

@kitsune11888

The piece directly quotes the traditional tune "Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues," near the end its not an attempt to say that it simply quotes bluesy elements (although it does) or anything else. It is simply referring to the tune it is transcribing for the piano.

[sherpes]

the sound of the hammering as background and the occasional higher pitch sound injection was inspired by the movie "Norma Rae", the scene with the textile factory with rows and rows of machines producing machine sound, and the workers communicating by yelling short messages over the background sound.

[pianopera]

I really love it how at 5:36 after the Ligetian tumult suddenly the ghostlike echo of a blues appears...

[crowdmaker]

Amazing! I loved it! Although a bit different - the score says to add no accents in the rhythmic machinery bit in the beginning, but he'd accent the beginning of phrases which I've never heard any other performer do. Sounded a bit weird. But he also did things I've never heard before too that blew me away.

[ScissorsMacG]

THRILLING performance of a great piece of music. Thanks very much for this.

[Alvarordonez]

Wow! This is one of my favorites videos. It's a great work by Rzewski. I would like to find this some day.............

You are the first pianist I've heard playing this piece.

Congratulations!!

[bboylawson]

This is....amazing.

[aesthetic1950]

Tremendous investment of time, energy and talent into complex piece.

[gavril07]

magnifico!

[qtpipi]

Nice to see some Rzewski on youtube.

[Verified1]

Wow for the composition and wow for the performance.

[amishan92]

This - is really really good.

[ii0x0ii]

super!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jre58591]

this is great! thank you very much for posting.

[quixxxotic]

this piece always blows me away. You should get Rzewski to hear how you play it....bet he would love it. Great playing!