SETS
1. Beethoven meets Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski — The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975)
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
ca. 90′
Variation as argument: two summits of the same principle — the radical American and the radical German, each answering the other across a century and a half.
1b. Beethoven meets Rzewski — Diabelli option
Frederic Rzewski — The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (1975)
Ludwig van Beethoven — Thirty-Three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120
ca. 110′
Two monumental variation sets: the waltz and the song, each transformed through every register — irony, fury, meditation, transcendence — until the theme is left behind entirely.
2. Op. 111 — the Second Viennese School
Anton Webern — Variations, Op. 27
Arnold Schönberg — Six Little Pieces, Op. 19
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
ca. 35′, no interval
From the aphorism to the transfiguration: the fragment, the gesture, then the Arietta — one continuous dissolution, heard from both ends.
3. C minor
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata in C minor, Op. 13 "Pathétique"
Johann Sebastian Bach — Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV 826
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Fantasia in C minor, K. 475
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata in C minor, Op. 111
ca. 70′
Beethoven's most concentrated key, prepared by its two great C minor ancestors — the same tonality as temperament, dramatic inheritance, and destination.
4. Letzte Sonaten
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata n° 30 in E Major, op. 109
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata n° 31 in A flat Major, op. 110
Ludwig van Beethoven — Sonata in C minor, Op. 111
ca. 70′, no interval
Beethoven's final three sonatas: a single arc from song to storm to silence.
REPERTOIRE
Béla Bartók, Sergei Prokofiev, Galina Ustvolskaya, György Ligeti, Philippe Boesmans, Joanna Bailie, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Stefan Prins, Morton Feldman, Frederic Rzewski, Julius Eastman, Nina C. Young, Matthew Shlomowitz, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Unsuk Chin, Arnold Schönberg
Adams, Andriessen, Armstrong, Babbit, Bach, Bailie, Baltakas, Bartók, Beach, Beethoven, Beil, Berg, Berio, Bernstein, Boesmans, Bolcom, Boneh, Bosse, Boulez, Brewaeys, Brahms, Bruch, Burgess, Bussotti, Cage, Carter, Chin, Copland, Cowell, Crane, Crumb, Dalibert, Dallapiccola, Debussy, Defoort, Defrise, De Putter, Dohnannyi, Duchamp, Eastman, Eötvös, Fafchamps, Feldman, Fiorini, Foccroulle, Gerswhin, Glass, Hall, Haydn, Harvey, Hindemith, Ives, Janáček, Johnson, Jongen, Kodaly, Krenek, Kurtág, Kusterer, Lachenmann, Leach, Libert, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Mainz, Monk, Monk Feldman, Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, Mernier, Mochizuki, Mosolov, Mozart, Murail, Mussorgsky, Ornstein, Pisaro, Poulenc, Pousseur, Prins, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Ravel, Reich, Reger, Rihm, Riley, Ristic, Rzewski, Sarhan, Scelsi, Schönberg, Schroeder, Schubert, Schumann, Shlomowitz, Shostakovich, Schulhoff, Stockhausen, Scriabin, R. Strauss, Takahashi, Tanaka, Tenney, Toub, Ullmann, Ustvolskaya, Verrières, Volans, Wagner, Waller, Webern, Weill, Wolpe, Wuorinen, Wyschnegardsky, Young, Zappa, B. A. Zimmermann, etc.