Browse by Artist: CARDEW, CORNELIUS

Artist:	CARDEW, CORNELIUS
Title:	Cornelius Cardew: A Reader
Label:	MATCHLESS RECORDINGS (UK)
Format:	Book
Price:	$48.00
Catalog #:	MR COPULA3

A collection of Cornelius Cardew's published writings, edited by Eddie Prévost. 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. Introduction by Michael Parsons. "The English composer Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) was among the most adventurous, controversial and innovative musicians of his generation. After an initial association with Stockhausen and the European avantgarde, he became engaged with the aesthetic ideas of John Cage and the New York School. A leading figure in the experimental music of the 1960s, Cardew is widely acknowledged as a pioneer of indeterminacy, graphic notation, free improvisation and performer involvement. As well as extending the boundaries of music in unprecedented directions, he inquired deeply into its social relevance and meaning. His passionate and untiring quest for wider social significance led him eventually to become a political activist. In the 1970s he repudiated his earlier experimental work and adopted a more traditional musical language. He joined a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party and devoted himself to political action, at the same time searching for ways to express his commitment in musical terms. At the height of his political involvement he died tragically at the age of 45, killed by a hit-and-run driver near his home in East London. This reader brings together a diverse collection of Cardew's major essays and writings from different stages of his career, together with commentaries by other writers associated with his work. It reflects developments, changes and contradictions in his thinking about music from the late 1950s to the end of his life. As a companion volume to John Tilbury's biography -- Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished, Copula, 2006 it provides essential material for the study of Cardew's life and ideas; it also makes a significant contribution to discussion of the wider issues involved in the relationship between music, ideology and political commitment." Illustrated 390 pages, paperbound.

Artist:	CARDEW, CORNELIUS
Title:	We Sing For The Future!
Label:	NEW ALBION
Format:	CD
Price:	$14.50
Catalog #:	NA 116CD

Performed by Frederic Rzewski, piano. "Twenty years on, Cardew's music still provokes controversy. Even amongst his many admirers, his later 'political' music in particular creates unease and perhaps misgivings. The relation of the music to its 'programme' and to the lofty aims it purports to serve is problematic enough, so let us remind ourselves what Cardew himself wrote about this music in the seventies: '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 in the world today, its individualistic outlook and not least its class character (the other characteristics are virtually products of this). "We Sing For The Future" is a composition based on a song. The song is for youth, who face bleak prospects in a world dominated by imperialism, and whose aspirations can only be realised through the victory of revolution and socialism. In the framework of a solo piano piece lasting about 12 minutes, something of this great struggle is conveyed. The music is not programmatic, but relies on the fact that music has meaning and can be understood quite straightforwardly as part of the fabric of what is going on in the world.' Rzewski's interpretations of these two works are wholly admirable, the performances compelling, and the two improvisations towards the conclusion of 'We Sing For The Future' -- an unexpected bonus -- are quite magnificent. He stretches the boundaries of style and musical language drawn up by Cardew without rupturing them, and, at the end of the improvisations, Cardew's music is ushered back, seamlessly and convincingly. In the second improvisation we are reminded of the great Bach/Liszt transcriptions; there can be no higher praise. Cardew would certainly have approved the inclusion of the improvisations and would have relished the verve and boldness of Rzewski's playing." -- John Tilbury

Previous Page Index of Artists Next Page