Frederic Rzewski - De Profundis (1994)
For speaking pianist. As with any coupled text and music (including any lieder or opera) a great deal of the appeal comes from seeing how the music complements the text (or when it doesn't), but more relevently this is Rzewski- you get his typical delight in mixing up modernist composition, Bach pastiches, and his favored extended techniques of finger percussion, hand slapping and playing a comedic "harpo horn" at one point.
Text is also excellent, a curated selection of Oscar Wilde's writings while jailed for "sodomy" - like a lot of Rzewski this was political, and written for the AIDS crisis around that time.
Text is also excellent, a curated selection of Oscar Wilde's writings while jailed for "sodomy" - like a lot of Rzewski this was political, and written for the AIDS crisis around that time.
