(b Winchcombe, 7 May 1936; d London, 13 Dec 1981). English composer. He studied at the RAM (1953-7) and in Cologne (1957-8), where he became Stockhausen's assistant in the scoring of Carré (1958-60). In 1961 he returned to London, where he worked as a graphic artist (and used the talent in his 193-page graphic score Treatise, 1967). The increasing freedom of his music (he had moved from post-Boulez to post-Cage in Germany) led naturally to his participation in the improvisation group AMM from 1966 and to his work with the Scratch Orchestra (of trained and untrained musicians) from 1969; in 1970 he completed The Great Learning. In 1971 he began seeking ways to make his music serve revolutionary struggle, writing protest songs and concert works and working with socialist groups. He died in a road accident.
Born in Winchcombe, England, on May 7, 1936; died on December 13, 1981, in London, England. Education: Royal Academy of Music, 1953-57; further studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Goffredo Petrassi.
Began performing work by contemporary composers and writing series of "indeterminate" compositions, 1960s; joined AMM collective, 1963; composed first graphic score, Treatise, 1963-68; appointed professor of composition, Royal Academy of Music, 1967; composed The Great Learning, 1968-70; helped form Scratch Orchestra, 1969; published essay collection, Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, 1974.
Composer, pianist, guitarist
Cornelius Cardew's reputation is staked as much on his political beliefs as on his innovative compositions. His graphic scores were based on writings by the Chinese philosopher Confucius and on the views of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong. That, as well as his participatory approach to composition and performance, reflected a deep concern with pro-working class, Communist principles that, at one point in his career, led him to renounce his early work. Cardew's evolution as a composer, musician, and political thinker was cut short by his suspicious untimely death at the hands of a hit-and-run driver in 1981. He was 45.
Cardew was born in Winchcombe, England, on May 7, 1936. His father, Michael Cardew, was a highly regarded potter who worked at the renowned Winchcombe Pottery in the 1930s. Cornelius Cardew began his musical education as a member of the chorus at Canterbury Cathedral, joining in 1946 and continuing through 1950. In 1953, at the age of 17, he entered the Royal Academy of Music in London. There he studied composition with Howard Ferguson and piano with Percy Waller, and developed an interest in electronic music. After his graduation from the academy in 1957, Cardew studied in Cologne, Germany, with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, known for his electronic compositions. He continued on as Stockhausen's assistant from 1958-60, and the two collaborated on Stockhausen's multi-orchestral composition, Carré.
While in Cologne, Cardew attended concerts given by American avant-garde composer/pianists John Cage and David Tudor. These spurred his interest in experimental composition techniques, and he began writing a series of "indeterminate" pieces, including Autumn '60, Octet for Jasper Johns, Solo with Accompaniment, and Memories of You. In these pieces Cardew, like Cage before him, disregarded traditional musical notation in favor of indicating rhythms and providing directions to performers on approximate pitch. The scores did not extend complete freedom to the performers, but rather served as guides that left room for their own interpretations. "Speaking as a performer in many of Cardew's early works, it must be said that the experience was totally rewarding," wrote composer David Bedford, as quoted on the website for the London-based Contemporary Music-making for Amateurs. "Our creativity was constantly being challenged, and the empathy of the performers, channelled into producing a coherent piece of music despite sometimes sketchy and sometimes paradoxical instructions, was often remarkable." During this time, Cardew also performed regularly, focusing on works by noted American avantgarde composers, including Cage and Christian Wolff. He also learned to play guitar, and performed on that instrument in a 1957 London concert featuring Pierre Boulez's Le marteau sans maître.
Cardew returned to London in 1961 and studied graphic design, a field in which he worked intermittently for the rest of his life. He studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome in 1964, supported by a scholarship from the Italian government. Beginning in 1963 Cardew began to compose graphic scores, which used visual representations in place of traditional notation. Often Cardew offered little or no explanation of these graphic elements, leaving interpretation of the pieces to the broad discretion of the performers. Between 1963 and 1968, he composed his monumental graphic score Treatise, a 193-page document inspired by the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractus. Cardew was named a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 1966 and appointed a professor there the following year.
During this time he also joined the minimalist improvisational group AMM, which also featured drummer Eddie Prévost, saxophonist Lou Gare, and guitarist Keith Rowe, all jazz musicians. Cellist Rohan de Saram and pianist John Tilbury played with the group occasionally as well. Cardew helped form the Scratch Orchestra in 1969. The collective grew out of a composition class he taught at Morley College in London, and contained a large, rotating group of performers both professional and amateur, including members of AMM. "Anyone could join, provided they were enthusiastic," orchestra member Michael Parsons, a member of Cardew's Morley class, recalled in a 2002 interview with the Birmingham Post. "A lot were visual artists. The art schools were breaking down barriers, and they were often more receptive to new ideas." The group splintered in 1971 due to disparate political views, with a faction led by Cardew, Tilbury, and Rowe maintaining
the name and following Marxist-Leninist political theories. Cardew's work began to show a growing political consciousness, based on Communist fundamentals, during this time. Between 1968 and 1970 he composed The Great Learning, a combined traditional and graphic score containing blocks of text based on poet Ezra Pound's translation of writings by the Chinese philosopher Confucius.
By 1974, as his adherence to Marxist thought and its emphasis on the struggles and ultimate rise of the working class deepened, Cardew immersed himself in the writings of Karl Marx and Mao Zedong. He renounced his early indeterminate scores and outlined his views in a 1974 collection of essays, Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. He began to compose works that he believed spoke of the struggles of the working class. He continued to perform in elite venues such as concert halls, but often accompanied performances of early works with disclaimers. "I have discontinued composing music in an avant garde idiom for a number of reasons: the exclusiveness of the avant garde, its fragmentation, its indifference to the real situation of the world today, its individualistic outlook and not least its class character (the other characteristics are virtually products of this)," Cardew wrote in the program notes to the score of Piano Album in 1973, as quoted in a 1998 article by Timothy D. Taylor in Music and Letters. The notes went on to say, "At a time when the ruling class has become vicious and corrupt, as it must in its final decay, it becomes urgent for conscious artists to develop ways of opposing the ideas of the ruling class and reflecting in their art the vital struggles of the oppressed classes and peoples in their upsurge to seize political power."
Piano Album contained arrangements of music from China, whose socialist government Cardew admired, and Ireland, where revolutionaries fought for freedom from British rule. Inspired by Mao Zedong's belief that works of art not serving the masses can be changed to do so, Cardew revised the text, though not the music, of The Great Learning in 1974. Later, however, he criticized the revision, and accompanied any performances of the piece with his own commentary, which, as quoted by Taylor, asserted that it was "inflated rubbish." Some of Cardew's working class pieces drew criticism from a compositional standpoint, which Cardew refuted in a 1975 interview in Music and Musicians. "I acknowledge there are compositional shortcomings in these pieces and I don't make any claims for them. The advantage of them is that they draw the attention of the listeners to social issues. If you have a concert of arrangements of Irish songs, it does draw attention to the culture of the Irish and also to their fight," he said.
Cardew's influence waned in the last ten years of his life, as his political views grew more extreme. On December 13, 1981, he was killed by a hit-and-run driver near his home in East London. The driver was never found, and some have theorized that Cardew was murdered because of his political beliefs. Tilbury and numerous other musicians have carried Cardew's work into the 21st century and renewed his relevance. "He's a very difficult person to sum up in a few words, but also for that reason he's constantly surprising and stimulating," Parsons told the Birmingham Post, in an article assessing Cardew's lasting influence. "He was a complex character, and very much an explorer. If he were alive today he would certainly be doing something interesting, but we don't know what it would be."
Selected discography
Solo albums Great Learning, Deutsche Grammophon, 1971. Four Principles On Ireland and Other Pieces, Cramps, 1974; reissued, Ampersand, 2001. Thälmann Variations, Matchless, 1986. Treatise, Hat Hut, 2000. Chamber Music 1955-64—Apartment House, Matchless, 2001. We Sing for the Future!, New Albion, 2001. We Only Want The Earth, Musicnow, 2002.
With AMM AMMusic, Elektra, 1966; reissued, Matchless, 1994. Improvisation, Mainstream, 1968. To Hear You Back Again, Matchless, 1974. It Had Been An Ordinary Day In Pueblo, Japo, 1979. Generative Themes, Matchless, 1982. Combine and Laminates, Pogus, 1984. Inexhaustible Document, Matchless, 1987.
Nameless Uncarved, Matchless, 1990. Vendouvre Ambient Isolationism, Virgin, 1993. Newfoundland, Matchless, 1994. Live In Allentown, Matchless, 1996. Tunes Without Measure Or End, Matchless, 2001.
Selected compositions Why Cannot the Ear Be Closed to Its Own Destruction? (vocal and piano), 1957. Arrangement for Orchestra (orchestra), 1960. Third Orchestra Piece (orchestra), 1960; arranged as Material (harmony instruments), 1964. Autumn '60 (chamber orchestra), 1960. Octet '61 (undetermined forces), 1961. 3 Winter Potatoes (piano), 1961-65. Movement for Orchestra (orchestra), 1962. Ah Thel (voice and piano), 1963. Treatise (undetermined forces), 1963-67. Bun no. 1 (orchestra), 1965. Sextet—the Tiger's Mind (undetermined forces), 1967. Schooltime Compositions (undetermined forces), 1968. Schooltime Special (undetermined forces), 1968. The Great Learning (various performers), 1968-70; paragraphs 1 and 2 revised, 1972. The East is Red (orchestra), 1972. 3 Bourgeois Songs (voice, orchestra, piano), 1973. Thälmann Variations (piano), 1974. Vietnam Sonata (piano), 1975. Mountains (bass clarinet), 1977. Workers' Song (violin), 1978. We Sing for the Future! (piano), 1981. Boolavogue (two pianos), 1981. Selected writings Treatise Handbook, Gallery Upstairs Press, 1971.
Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, Latimer New Dimensions, 1974.
Sources Periodicals Birmingham Post (England), April 29, 2002. Music and Letters, November 1998. Music and Musicians, May 1975.
Cornelius Cardew was the fundamental figure in the British avant-garde of the 1960s. Cardew grew up in Cornwall and at the age of 17 entered the Royal Academy of Music in London. Cardew developed an interest in electronic music, and in 1957 traveled to Germany to study in the Cologne-based electronic music studio of composer Gottfried Michael Koenig. Cardew then joined Karlheinz Stockhausen as his assistant. Cardew stayed with Stockhausen for three years, working on the latter's massive multi-orchestral work Carré.
Cardew returned to England in 1961, supporting himself by working as a graphic artist and organizing concerts. He undertook a number of challenging scores with an emphasis on graphic notation and verbal instructions, such as the verbal-vocal The Great Learning (1961) for untrained chorus and orchestra and Volo Solo for piano (1964). In 1966 he joined the improvisational electronic group AMM, probably the first ensemble of its kind in Europe. In 1967 he completed his magnum opus, Treatise, consisting of 193 pages of music in graphic notation. In 1968 Cardew, Michael Parsons, and Howard Skempton formed the Scratch Orchestra, which improvised music from verbal instructions and other minimalist prompts. Cardew published a book based on their experiments entitled Scratch Music in 1971 that has become a standard reference work for experimental musicians ever since. As composer, Skempton recalled, "Cornelius was a visionary and his humane, prophetic powers affected everyone around him."
Around 1970 Cardew became increasingly involved in leftist political thought inspired by the works of Mao Zedong. He came to regard his own work in the avant-garde as elitist and rejected it, publishing a book in 1974 entitled Stockhausen Serves Imperialism. Many of Cardew's colleagues thought he'd lost his mind, and regarded coolly the new works that Cardew composed, written in a post-Romantic, populist, and somewhat monotonous tonal idiom. In hindsight it is clear that in this phase of Cardew's work he was helping open the door to the "New Tonality," a style enthusiastically endorsed, though individually modified by the English composers who followed him -- Skempton, Parsons, Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Brian Eno, Christopher Hobbs, and others. Cardew did not live to witness the success of this final contribution to English post-modernism; estranged from most of his colleagues and under scrutiny owing to his political convictions, Cardew was crossing a street in London when he was killed in a hit-and-run accident at age 45. ~ Uncle Dave Lewis , Rovi
Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. He was the second of three sons whose parents were both artists — his father was the potter Michael Cardew. The family moved to Wenford Bridge PotteryCornwall a few years after his birth where he was later accepted as a pupil by the Canterbury Cathedral School which had evacuated to the area during the war due to bombing. His musical career thus began as a chorister. From 1953-57, Cardew studied piano, cello, and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Career
In 1957, Cardew performed in the British premiere of Pierre Boulez's Le marteau sans maître (having learnt to play the guitar for the occasion as no professional guitar player was available). Having won a scholarship to study at the recently established Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne, Cardew served as an assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1958 to 1960. He was given the task of independently working out the composition plans for the German composer's score Carré, and Stockhausen noted:
As a musician he was outstanding because he was not only a good pianist but also a good improviser and I hired him to become my assistant in the late 50s and he worked with me for over three years. I gave him work to do which I have never given to any other musician, which means to work with me on the score I was composing. He was one of the best examples that you can find among musicians because he was well informed about the latest theories of composition as well as being a performer.[1]
Most of Cardew's compositions from this period make use of the integral and total serialist languages pioneered by Boulez and Stockhausen.
Chance and the American avant-garde
In 1958, Cardew witnessed a series of concerts in Cologne by John Cage and David Tudor which had a considerable influence on him, leading him to abandon post-Schönbergian serial composition and develop the indeterminate and experimental scores for which he is best known. He was particularly prominent in introducing the works of American Avant-Garde composers such as Morton Feldman, La Monte Young, Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, and Cage to an English audience during the early to mid sixties and came to have a considerable impact on the development of English music from the late sixties onwards.
Cardew's most important scores from his avant-garde period are Treatise (1963–67), a 193-page graphic score which allows for considerable freedom of interpretation, and The Great Learning, a work in seven parts or "Paragraphs," based on translations of Confucius by Ezra Pound. The Great Learning instigated the formation of the Scratch Orchestra. During those years, he took a course in graphic design[2] and he made his living as a graphic designer at Aldus Books in London.[3]
In 1966, Cardew joined the free improvisation group AMM as cellist and pianist. AMM had formed the previous year and included English jazz musicians Lou Gare, Eddie Prévost, Keith Rowe, and one of his first students at the Royal Academy Christopher Hobbs. Performing with the group allowed Cardew to explore music in a completely democratic environment, freely improvising without recourse to scores.
While teaching an experimental music class at London's Morley College in 1968, Cardew, along with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons formed the Scratch Orchestra, a large experimental ensemble, initially for the purposes of interpreting Cardew's The Great Learning. The Scratch Orchestra gave performances throughout Britain and elsewhere until its demise in 1972. It was during this period that the question of art for whom was hotly debated within the context of the Orchestra, which Cardew came to see as elitist despite its numerous attempts to make socially accessible music.
Political involvements
After the demise of the Orchestra, Cardew became more directly involved in left-wing politics and abandoned avant-garde music altogether, adopting a populist though post-romantic tonal style. He spent 1973 in West Berlin on an artist's grant from the City, where he was active in a campaign for a children's clinic. During the 1970s, he produced many songs, often drawing from traditional English folk music put at the service of lengthy Marxist-Maoist exhortations; representative examples are Smash the Social Contract and There Is Only One Lie, There Is Only One Truth. In 1974, he published a book entitled Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, which denounced, in Maoist self-critical style, his own involvement with Stockhausen and the Western avant-garde tradition.
Cardew was active in various causes in British politics, such as the struggle against the revival of neo-Nazi groups in Britain, and subsequently was involved in the People's Liberation Music group with Laurie Scott Baker, John Marcangelo, Vicky Silva, Hugh Shrapnel, Keith Rowe and others. The group developed and performed music in support of various popular causes including benefits for striking miners and Northern Ireland.
Cardew became a member of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) in the 1970s, and in 1979 was a co-founder and member of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). His creative output from the demise of the Scratch Orchestra until his death reflected his political commitment. Cardew stated his attitude towards the avant-garde in Stockhausen Serves Imperialism:
Cardew's efforts to politicise culture in Britain were influenced by his relationship with Hardial Bains, the Canadian communist leader and a leading anti-revisionist politician. Bains contributed the lyrics to Cardew's signature song from his later period, We Sing for the Future.
Death
Cardew died on 13 December 1981, the victim of a hit-and-run car accident near his London home in Leyton. The driver was never found.
Musician John Tilbury, in his book Cornelius Cardew—A Life Unfinished suggests that the possibility that Cardew was killed because of his prominent Marxist-Leninist involvement "cannot be ruled out".[4] Tilbury quotes a friend of Cardew's, John Maharg; "MI5 are quite ruthless; people don't realise it. And they kill pre-emptively".[5]
A 70th Birthday Anniversary Festival, including live music from all phases of Cardew's career and a symposium on his music, took place on 7 May 2006 at the Cecil Sharpe House in London.
"Cornelius Cardew" is the name of the unemployed pipe-fitter in Alan Moore's Skizz.[6]
A character called "Cornelius Cardew" appears (as a caricature of a political radical) in the 1985 film The Shooting Party.
The German musician and composer Ekkehard Ehlers published a Cardew-inspired work in 2001, titled Ekkehard Ehlers plays Cornelius Cardew, which was released on Staubgold Records.[Full citation needed]
The US band The Music Lovers name-checked Cardew in the song, "Thank You, Cornelius Cardew". It appears on their 2006 album, The Music Lovers' Guide for Young People.[Full citation needed]
The Great Learning Paragraphs 2 and 7 (1971; re-released 2002) (Deutsche Grammophon/Universal Classics 471 572).
Thälmann Variations (solo piano, rec. 1975 in New York, publ. posthumously, 1986)
Cornelius Cardew Piano Music musicnow 1991 (the composer; Andrew Ball and John Tilbury, Andrew Bottrill, 79.00)
We Sing for the Future! Interpretations of two compositions for solo piano (We Sing for the Future!, Thälmann Variations) by Frederic Rzewski (2002) (New Albion)
Four Principles On Ireland And Other Pieces (Ampersand)
Treatise (Hat[Now]Art)
Chamber Music 1955-1964 Apartment House (2001) (Matchless Recordings mrcd45)
Material (Hat[Now]Art)
Cornelius Cardew — piano music 1959-70 (1996) John Tilbury (Matchless Recordings mrcd29)
AMMMUSIC — Cardew as an improviser. With Lou Gare, Eddie Prévost, Lawrence Sheaff and Keith Rowe, London 1966. CD release (ReR Megacorp.)
AMM The Crypt - 12 June 1968 Cardew as an improviser. With Lou Gare. Christopher Hobbs, Eddie Prévost and Keith Rowe. Double CD. (Matchless Recordings MRCD05)
AMM LAMINAL Cardew as an improviser. Three CD retrospective AMM box set published in 1996. Cardew performs on one CD, titled The Aarhus Sequences (1969). (Matchless Recordings MRCD31)
Bains, Hardial. "The Question Is Really One of Word and Deed" (unpublished speech delivered 21 December 1996, as part of the seminar, "In Commemoration of Cornelius Cardew, 1936-1981", organised by the Progressive Cultural Association)
Cardew, Cornelius. Cornelius Cardew: A Reader, edited by Edwin Prévost, introduction by Michael Parsons. Harlow, Essex: Copula, 2006. ISBN 0-9525492-2-0. (A collection of Cornelius Cardew's published writings together with commentaries and responses from Richard Barrett, Christopher Fox, Brian Dennis, Anton Lukoszevieze, Michael Nyman, Eddie Prévost, David Ryan, Howard Skempton, Dave Smith, John Tilbury and Christian Wolff.)
Clark, Philip. "Cornelius Cardew: Schematic for the People". The Wire (November 2009): 30–33.
Eno, Brian. "Generating and Organizing Variety in the Arts". In Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner,[page needed]. New York and London: Continuum Books, 2005. (A study of "Paragraph 7" of The Great Learning.)
Fox, Edward. "Death of a Dissident". The Independent Magazine (9 May 1992): 24–30.
Tilbury, John. "The Experimental Years: A View from the Left" Contact 22 (1981): 16-21. Reprinted online in Journal of Experimental Music Studies (17 March 2004).
Tilbury, John. Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished Harlow: Copula, an imprint of Matchless Recordings and Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9525492-3-9 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-9525492-4-6 (pbk)
Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Cornelius Cardew. Read more
