MiV Home
Alix Goolden Performance Hall
March 30, 2008
On September 11, 1973 the democratically-elected Chilean government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in Augusto Pinochet's CIA-backed military coup, the beginning of a decade-and-a-half of murder, torture and "disappearances".
Sergio Ortega, composer and member of Allende's Unidad Popular, had written "¡El Pueblo Unido Jamás Será vencido!" a few months earlier; it rapidly became a symbol of the resistance to Pinochet.
Frederic Rzewski's The People United is a set of variations on Ortega's song which, like Bach's "Goldberg" Variations or Beethoven's "Diabelli" Variations, finds unexpected depths in the original theme.
But, unlike Bach and Beethoven, Rzewski has a political agenda and any successful performance must convey that feeling; a bloodless reading may hit all the notes, but it will ultimately fail.
Corey Hamm's performance on Sunday afternoon was a superb one, technically very fine but also emotionally committed; it held the (embarrassingly small) audience transfixed for its duration of almost an hour. And when the theme finally returns (as per the "Goldbergs" and the variation movement of Beethoven's Op.109) we could now hear in it the potential which was previously the preserve of the composer; and the coruscating chords with which Rzewski clothes the melody were such as to "stiffen the sinews and summon the blood".
Perhaps we were not all prepared at the close to pour out into the streets shouting out "Down with Harper, the Running Dog Lackey of the Bushoisie", but I imagine one could probably have amassed a small cadre for the task.
But possibly the most remarkable aspect of Hamm's performance is that he played it using just nine fingers, having damaged his right index finger some weeks ago and having thus had to re-finger the entire work. This music is challenging enough for the ten-fingered and, while there were a few minor blemishes I suspect had their roots in this particular cause - occasionally the left hand dominated, sometime the right hand passages were a little smeared - these were probably only noticed by those familiar with the work; I imagine the rest of the audience were far too busy being bowled over by the music and Hamm's playing.
I waited over fifteen years for this performance - and it was worth the wait. Superb.
MiV Home