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CD
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3DB 012CD
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Not in stock, awaiting repress expected mid-2014... Performed by John Tilbury (piano), Michael Duch (double bass) and Rhodri Davies (harp). Cornelius Cardew's music of the '60s is arguably from his most creative and experimental period as a composer, beginning with "Autumn 60" and ending with the last paragraphs of "The Great Learning" in 1970. This decade can be divided into two parts, where the first half focuses on indeterminate music and the latter sees a growing emphasis on improvisation. "Treatise" functions as a bridge between these two periods as it contains elements of both. This recording is a document of this duality; a portrait of Cardew leaving the avant-garde he got to know from his work with Stockhausen and Cage, and entering the scene of improvised music as he would get to know it in AMM. Cardew's work with improvisation would culminate with the Scratch Orchestra -- as much a social experiment as a musical one. In the '70s, Cardew left radical music in favor of radical politics. "Autumn 60" is Cardew's first indeterminate score. It is often performed with larger ensembles, but also works well in a smaller format. It was premiered by a quartet consisting of the composer on guitar and John Cage on piano, amongst others. This version was arranged and conducted by John Tilbury. "4th System" is taken from February Pieces, composed between 1959 and 1961. Originally written for solo piano, "4th System" is the last, most open and flexible of these four pieces which were published together in 1961. "Material" is a work for an ensemble of harmony instruments. As in "Autumn 60," letters are used to identify each section (A to Q). These sections of phrases are to be played together and in succession before the performers depart to their own tempo and individual choice of sections to be played. "Solo With Accompaniment" has a complicated accompaniment supporting a relatively simple solo part consisting of a repetition of single notes and a quasi-improvisational middle section. It is one of Cardew's most complex compositions and while the form of the piece seems quite conventional and traditional, ironically it has more sets of rules and examples than any of his other compositions. "Treatise," in which the interpretation is left entirely up to the performer, is undoubtedly Cardew's most famous work, and probably also the most performed of his compositions. In "Treatise," there are no parts indicated by either numbers or letters; only the overall form of this massive 193 page graphic masterpiece is given. "Unintended Piano Music" sounds unlike anything else Cardew produced. It lies somewhere between the most melodic of his experimental music from the '60s and his politically revolutionary music of the '70s. While the rest of the compositions on this CD outline a particular period and style of the composer's music, "Unintended Piano Music" is a form of a musical fragment standing on its own.
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LP
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DOZ 409LP
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Restocked, last copies. "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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LP
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PLANAM 004LP
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Sold out, repressed 2018. "Cornelius Cardew's opus magnus Treatise is a 193-page graphic score written between 1963 and 1967 while he was performing with the improvisation group AMM. The score's graphic notation, with its intricately devised graphic lines, shapes and symbols, was intended to question the limits of compositional practice. Decisions concerning pitch, timbre and duration, along with the choice of instruments and the number of performers, are left entirely to the discretion of those willing to devise the rules and means for its performance. This realisation of 4 pages from Treatise by Keith Rowe (tabletop guitar) and Oren Ambarchi (guitar), possibly the most powerful ever achieved, was recorded live at Bimhuis in Amsterdam on Feb 8th 2009. Rowe and Ambarchi use the guitar as a point of departure for completely new techniques and sound environments. Already in the 1960s Rowe made a radical departure from traditional jazz, redefining the guitar in the British collective AMM. He prefers to lay the instrument on the table to manipulate its sound with springs, fans, office appliances and electronics. Ambarchi, also in Sunn O))), Menstruation Sisters and Burial Chamber Trio, predominantly mould guitar sounds into dark sonic patterns. Cornelius Cardew might be considered the most relevant contemporary composer from Great Britain. In the end of the 1950s Karlheinz Stockhausen was very impressed by Cardew's abilities as a musician and his knowledge of new music and invited him to participate to the historical 'Kontrefestival' concerts in Cologne (an important pre-fluxus event). In 1960 Cardew was at Darmstadt were he met John Cage, David Tudor and among others Walter Marchetti. Cage's experimental techniques were very inspiring for Cardew who, in 1969 founded the Scratch Orchestra, a large, rotating group of professional and amateur performers committed to collective experimentation which might be considered as one of the most convincing collective experiments in the history of 20th century avant-garde culture. Edition limited to 300 copies, reproducing, on the sleeve and the innersleeve, the 4 pages from Treatise performed by Rowe-Ambarchi."
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Book
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MR COPULA3
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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.
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CD
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MRCD45
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"Recorded by Apartment House directed by Anton Lukoszevieze. First commercially released recordings of many of Cardew's early compositions."
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CD
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MRCD29
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Studio recordings from 1996 of solo piano music by the late composer (and key figure in the early days of AMM), Cardew, as performed by AMM's John Tilbury. "All the music included in this recording belongs to Cardew's early period of radical exploration and experimentation in the late 1950s and 60s, when having fully assimilated the advanced language of the European avant-garde, he went on to develop new techniques and new aspects of indeterminacy, to use notation in increasingly flexible and open-ended ways and to encourage the creative involvement of performers in the realisation of his musical ideas."
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