Music of the 20th century - Concert No5 to perform online

The fifth concert featuring world-famous compositions from the 20th and 21st centuries will be broadcast live via Facebook by Goethe-Institut Hanoi at 7pm on July 12.

Audiences who join the online performance will have a chance to listen to renowned compositions by two big names of the 20th century who recently passed away, Frederic Rzewski (1938- June 2021) and Louis Andriessen (1939- July 2021). 

The poster of the music performance provided by Goethe Institut in Hanoi.

According to the organizer, the music performance will be a stage of unlimited creativity, rich and extremely diverse developments of different musical colors, and composition techniques. The performers are soloists and lecturers at the music academy and at the Inspirito School of Music.

The program features To the Earth (1985), A Life (1992), and Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1980) by Frederic Rzewski, and Workers Union (1975) by Louis Andriessen.

Artists joining the performance are including percussionist Kyle Acuncius from South Korea, Vietnamese pianists Le Duc Anh, Luu Duc Anh, and Pho Duc Hoang; cellist Phan Do Phuc, cembalist Nguyen Phu Son, Vietnamese trumpeter Hoanh Pham, and Japanese trumpeter Yuki Urushihara, among others.  

Rzewski is a renowned American composer and performer who has exposed another spectrum of music to the world over his 60-year career. Much of his music pieces is inspired by socio-historical and political events.

Japanese trumpeter Yuki Urushihara. Photo: Sun Symphony Orchestra

Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues is the last piece of the music set entitled Down by the Riverside, and it is based on a traditional blues song in Winnsboro, North Carolina, in the 1930s. It describes the poor working environment of the textile workers and the noise of machines in a southern textile mill. This work was later arranged for two pianos.

Dutch composer Louis Andriessen was one of the most influential composers of the past half-century. He was largely responsible for introducing minimalism to Europe, though he later expanded his palette to works of great color and complexity.

Among the best pieces of Andriessen, Workers Union was originally written for the orchestra De Volharding (Perseverance).

This piece is a combination of individual freedom and severe discipline: its rhythm is exactly fixed; the pitch, on the other hand, is indicated only approximately, on a single-lined stave. It is difficult to play in an ensemble and to remain in step, sort of thing like organizing and carrying on political action.

The fifth music concert is among the series of music programs featuring music pieces of composers, living or deceased, from the 20th and 21st centuries that have not performed much in Vietnam yet.