Frederic Rzewski (1938-Present)

Introduction
Rzewski is an American composer and pianist born in Massachusetts in 1938. Many of his pieces incorporate social and political themes.

Work Analysis
I chose to analyze Coming Together by Rzewski. This piece starts off like a modern day rap song. It’s almost a spoken word piece put over music. This could be a precursor to modern rap because Rzewski is known for talking about political and social themes in his music. The music behind him adds a flair to his voice and compliments his voice and story throughout the piece.

Comparisons
This song reminded me of the Velvet Underground song Heroin. The voice tells a story while the music behind the voice adds to the mood. The song Heroin is almost the same way where the band adds to the story that Lou Reed is telling through speaking and not really singing.

Observations
I am not the biggest fan of this piece for a few reasons. The first reason is that I am not a fan of spoken word over music. It isn’t something I would go out of my way to listen to. The next reason is that I feel the vocalist sounds like he is running out of breath every single time he speaks (not for effect in my opinion).