Ictus & Tarek Halaby: Frederic Rzewski, Coming Together / Attica

Frederic Rzewski (1938–2021) created with this 1975 diptych one of the most striking works with narrator in modern music. The piece draws on the Attica prison uprising (New York, 1971), where inmates demanded to be treated as human beings. The crackdown left more than forty people dead. Rzewski builds on a letter by Sam Melville, one of the prisoners who was killed. In a sharp mix of exhaustion, resilience, and irony, he describes how self-discipline helped him reclaim his dignity. Set over a modal bass line, the work unfolds in a strict structure based on the number 7 and 49. Rzewski “locks” the text in place — against which the music’s unstoppable energy pushes back.