Frederic Rzewski, a formidable composer and pianist who wrote and performed music that was at once stylistically eclectic and politically committed, died on Saturday at his summer home in Montiano, Italy.
Mr. Rzewski’s anti-establishment thinking stood at the center of his music-making throughout his life.
“It’s pointillistic and minimalistic and really quite varied.” At the same time, she noted, Mr. Rzewski’s mastery of traditional counterpoint was a major draw for pianists.
“The People United” has captured the imagination of virtuosos including Marc-André Hamelin and, more recently, younger pianists like Igor Levit and Conrad Tao.
Frederic Anthony Rzewski was born on April 13, 1938, in Westfield, Mass., to Anthony Rzewski, a Polish émigré, and Emma Buynicki, who were both pharmacists.
In 1960 and 1961, he studied with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence on a Fulbright scholarship.
In 1966, he and the composer Alvin Curran assembled a group of musicians, including the electronic composer Richard Teitelbaum, to perform in the crypt of a church in Rome.
As students agitated, the group joined in, inviting audiences to play with them in anarchic improvisations — a kind of avant-garde Summer of Love.
“The most important thing was the connection of community and the political,” the composer and scholar George E.
“It is fairly clear that the storms of the ’60s have momentarily subsided, giving way to a period of reflection,” he wrote that year.
Then came “Coming Together,” in which a speaker recites a letter written by Sam Melville, a leader of the 1971 Attica prison uprising, over a chugging, minimalist bass line as instrumentalists contribute quasi-improvised interjections.
He was soon drawn to the song “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,” which had become an anthem for the Chilean resistance through performances by the exiled group Inti-Illimani.
“People always say, ‘Well, how can music be political if it has no text?’ Mr. Rzewski told an interviewer that year.
After his death was announced, several musicians noted on Twitter that he had a reputation for inappropriate flirtation and sexual innuendo toward younger women.
Survivors include six children, Alexis, Daniel, Jan, Noemi, Esther and Noam, and five grandchildren.
Wary of the present, Mr. Rzewski also refused to dwell in nostalgia.