De Profundis by Frederic Rzewski for piano and voice (Oscar Wilde, Lisa Moore)
20100228 at 23:36 
Frederic RzewskiI suspect the microphone you see in front of Lisa isn’t turned on, as the voice part is barely audible.
My discovery of Rzewski’s (zheff-skee) music is thanks to Sarah Cahill’s radio program Then and Now on KALW. I’ve included my own archive recording of this piece because the video above has improperly recorded audio, and I consider this work to be very important. It is a piece by a living composer, played by a wonderful performer, incorporating passages of a work of tragic literature by a noted historical figure.
Demands on the pianist include speaking, whistling, laughing, humming, sighing, moaning, whispering, snapping, slapping, and the use of a bicycle horn. Present in the work is a fluency in many genres and techniques — including fugue, impressionism, post-romanticism and poly-tonality — all serving to illustrate and highlight the text. Also quite effective is the combination of finger drumming on the keyboard lid, shaking and hitting the piano, and whispering, during passages where Wilde addresses his vivid memories of time spent with “Bosie.”
Lisa Moore
Oscar Wilde
video | tagged classical music, composition, live performance, piano, voice 
