Program Notes
Based on the seminal set of piano variations by Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021), “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” (1975), “United Populace,” for brass quintet, pays homage to the late composer’s work by continuing to vary its lively central motif, this time using the bold timbres of the brass family. The core melody, which is heard throughout both the original piece and this piece, is taken from a Chilean protest anthem by Sergio Ortega and Quilapayún, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!” This anthem was originally written during Salvador Allende’s socialist revolution as a rallying cry for the mass mobilization of people, but it was popularized and took on a new meaning during Augusto Pinochet’s U.S.-backed 1973 coup d’état, in which Allende was killed, a military junta was installed, and thousands of Chilean leftists were disappeared, tortured, and murdered. Since then, the anthem and its translated versions have been used in human-rights, anti-dictatorship, and anti-fascist protests all around the world, such as during the Arab Spring rebellions and the 2019-2020 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
Throughout “United Populace,” the powerful original theme reappears time and time again, in both its original, unaltered form and variations on it, as well as “in spirit” through accompanying parts that in some way resemble it. Other themes appear alongside it as well, some of which are derived from the original theme, and others that are derived from different parts of Rzewski’s variations, other protest anthems from around the world, and completely new themes that were devised just for this version. Meant to represent the fighting spirit of a mobilized populace, the work goes through several different phases representative of the phases of enacting change through rebellion, including courageous rallying cries, frantic dances, steady marches, periods of tense watching-and-waiting, and calamitous outbursts of spirited revolution. These “variations” are strung together in one continuous flow, with some being slowly transitioned in, and others interrupting the flow and asserting themselves within the texture, embodying the flow of a populist revolution.
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