Recorded in 2002 by American contemporary composer and pianist, Frederic Rzewski, We Sing For The Future & Thalmann Variations are two compositions from English composer Cornelius Cardew's Marxist-influenced 'People's Liberation Music' period. Rzewski came to prominence in the mid-sixties in Rome as a founding member of the MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva) improvisation group (along with Alvin Curran and Richard Teitelbaum), which shared a vision with groups like Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra of the same period. However, like Cardew, in the 1970s Rzewski also became interested in Communism and the power of music to express the will of the people, so it is fitting that Rzewski should chose to revisit these two compositions. 1974's 'Thalmann Variations' was written to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of Ernst Thalmann, the Secretary General of the German Communist Party, and is based on a popular German Worker's Movement song (1934's 'Thalmann Song'), while 'We Sing For the Future' is a solo piano piece meant to convey the struggle of young people in an imperialist world. It was written in 1981, the year Cardew - who by this time was an active member of the Communist Party - was mysteriously killed in a hit and run accident in London
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