American composer and piano virtuoso Frederic Rzewski absorbed fertile ideas from teachers such as Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt and Luigi Dallapiccola.

Taking this inspiration he found his true voice with a series of works inspired by social and political concerns, famously so in his set of 36 variations on the Chilean song The People United will never be Defeated. Igor Levit prefaces the UK première of Rzewski’s Dreams II with Thälmann Variations by another politically motivated composer, Cornelius Cardew.