Inventive guitarist Marc Ribot and his new combo perform songs associated with legendary Cuban composer and big band leader Arsenio Rodriguez.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: CD
Artist: RIBOT,MARC
Title: MARC RIBOT Y LOS CUBANOS POSTI
Street Release Date: 06/09/1998
Domestic
Genre: JAZZ

Frederic Rzewski's homage to Latin American liberation struggles is well represented, with stunning interpretations by such luminaries as Stephen Drury and Ursula Oppens prior to this version by Marc-André Hamelin. Drury's version might well be the high-water mark, in part because New Albion Records wisely included a rousing 1975 live version of the original Sergio Ortega liberation anthem with Quilapayun and thousands of singers to give the piano performance context.

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

It is hard to envisage a more enticing prospect: Shostakovich's densely woven String Quartet No.2 and his deceptively backward-looking Piano Quintet, performed by the stellar Takacs Quartet and Marc-Andre Hamelin, generously notated by David Fanning, and lovingly recorded by Hyperion's Simon Eadon and Andrew Keener team. Seventy minutes of post-Revolutionary Russian ecstasy.

For over 40 years Martha Argerich's recordings on Deutsche Grammophon have remained in the catalog and many are still best sellers. This 8-CD collection presents re-issues of eight solo LP recitals made between 1960 and 1983. The recordings have been remastered and are presented in chronological order, as originally programmed, with the original LP cover art on the individual sleeves. In addition, a booklet with new program notes and rare photos is included with the set. These performances are essential listening and constitute some of the greatest recordings of solo piano music available.