The Composition Characteristics And Performance Analysis Of “North American Ballads” By Frederic Rzewski

“North American Ballads” is one of the classic piano works of American modernist pianist and composer Frederic Rzewski.The tune of his creation comes from American folk songs.It consists of four pieces of music,the first one "Dreadful Memories",the second one "Which side are you on?",the third one "Down by the Riverside" and the fourth one " Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues",and each piece vividly reflects the exquisite composition techniques and advanced performance techniques.In his creations,Rzewski extensively uses the polyphonic technique to intersperse the theme of the original song into various voices,and combines the musical styles of blues,Banjo music,improvisation,romanticism and minimalism.Meanwhile,he utilizes special musical forms to imitate the sounds of various scenes and machines,showing unique creative approaches and artistic charm,making great contributions to the creation of music in the 20 th century.Since the theme melody of each piece of music is originated from the folk songs of the public,the "North American Ballads" profoundly reflects the social problems and political beliefs at that time,indicating the tragic social status and poor living conditions of the American working class.Rzewski conveys the pain,shouting and indomitable protest spirit of the working class through his music,which makes the music full of political atmosphere and revolutionary spirit,and contains incisive artistic conception and strong power of infection.This article contains three chapters.Initially,the first chapter starts from the introduction of Rzewski and background of the creation of "North American Ballads",to discover the tonal origins of each piece.Then,the second chapter analyzes the characteristics and distribution of motivation materials of the musical theme of each piece respectively in detail,to explore it characteristics of creation and style.Lastly the third chapter make an in-depth study of music features and performance techniques,to summarize the key points and techniques of performance.The author hopes to help the performers to better perform this piece through the study of the characteristics of the music creation style and performance of Rzewski.The author hopes to help the performers to better perform this piece through the study of the characteristics of the music creation style and performance of Rzewski,wishes that this article will allow readers to learn and get contact more with the piano works of Rzewski and learn more about the unique style of music of the 20 th century.