Cornelius Cardew | |
|---|---|
 Cardew in 1977 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1936-05-07)7 May 1936 Winchcombe,Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 13 December 1981(1981-12-13) (aged 45) London, England |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Years active | 1960–1981 |
Cornelius Cardew (7 May 1936 – 13 December 1981) was an Englishexperimental music composer, and founder (withHoward Skempton andMichael Parsons) of theScratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected experimental music, explaining why he had "discontinued composing in an avant-garde idiom" in his own programme notes to hisPiano Album 1973.[1]
Cardew was born on 7 May 1936, inWinchcombe,Gloucestershire. He was the second of three sons whose parents were both artists—his father was the potterMichael Cardew. The family moved toWenford Bridge Pottery inCornwall a few years after his birth where he was first nurtured as a chorister atCanterbury Cathedral, and later atThe King's School, Canterbury[2] which had evacuated to theCarlyon Bay Hotel[3] for the war. His musical career thus began as a chorister. From 1953 to 1957, Cardew studied piano, cello, and composition at theRoyal Academy of Music in London.
Having won a scholarship to study at the recently establishedStudio for Electronic Music in Cologne, Cardew served as an assistant toKarlheinz Stockhausen from 1958 to 1960. He was given the task of independently working out the composition plans for the German composer's scoreCarré, 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.[4]
In 1958, Cardew witnessed a series of concerts in Cologne byJohn Cage andDavid Tudor which had a considerable influence on him, leading him to abandon post-Schönbergianserial composition and develop the indeterminate and experimental scores for which he is best known. He was particularly prominent in introducing the works of American experimental composers such asMorton Feldman,La Monte Young,Earle Brown,Christian Wolff, and Cage to an English audience during the early to mid sixties.
Cardew's most important scores from his experimental period areTreatise (1963–67), a 193-pagegraphic score which allows for considerable freedom of interpretation, andThe Great Learning, a work in seven parts or "Paragraphs," based on translations ofConfucius byEzra Pound.The Great Learning instigated the formation of the Scratch Orchestra. During those years, he took a course in graphic design[4] and he made his living as a graphic designer at Aldus Books in London.[2]
In 1966, Cardew joined thefree improvisation groupAMM as cellist and pianist. AMM had formed the previous year and included English jazz musiciansLou Gare,Eddie Prévost,Keith Rowe, and one of his first students at the Royal AcademyChristopher 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'sMorley College in 1968, Cardew, along with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons formed theScratch Orchestra, a large experimental ensemble, initially for the purposes of interpreting Cardew'sThe Great Learning. The Scratch Orchestra gave performances throughout Britain and elsewhere until its demise in 1972. It was during this period that the question ofart 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.[1]
Cardew became a member of theCommunist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) in the 1970s, and in 1979 was a co-founder and member of the Central Committee of theRevolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). His creative output from the demise of the Scratch Orchestra until his death reflected his political commitment.
At a 1976 meeting of the Central London branch of theMusicians Union, he tabled a controversial motion denouncingDavid Bowie as a fascist, after Bowie said that "Britain is ready for a fascist leader... I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader." The motion read:
This branch deplores the publicity recently given to the activities and Nazi style gimmickry of a certain artiste and his idea that this country needs a right wing dictatorship. Such ideas prepare the way for political situations in which the Trade Union movement can be destroyed, as it was in Nazi Germany. The spreading of such ideas must be considered as detrimental to the interests of the Union and any necessary steps should be taken to prevent such ideas from gaining credence in the community. We propose, therefore, that any member who openly promotes fascism or fascist ideas in his/ her act or recorded performance should be expelled from the Union.[5]
Although the vote was a tie, at twelve for and twelve against, a second motion was passed with a majority of 15–2.[5] At the time of the punk explosion, he wrote a tract called "Punk Rock Is Fascist", where he describedThe Clash as "reactionary".[6][unreliable source?]
Tony Harris (2013) argues that Cardew's inclusion in Wikipedia or in other encyclopedias such asNew Grove has the effect of taming his legacy as a composer and ignoring those aspects of his work other than those which fit with those of a contributor to the Western classical music canon. In other terms, it fails to "define his attitude or approach to music making and (makes) no attempt to illustrate his influence or impact...Composers, if they are to be remembered and valued within the Western classical context, must leave behind masterworks" to justify their being encyclopedized in a format whose guidelines implicitly dictate "what a composer biography should look like".[7]
Cardew died on 13 December 1981 aged 45, the victim of a hit-and-run car crash near his London home inLeyton. The driver was never found.
MusicianJohn Tilbury, in his bookCornelius Cardew—A Life Unfinished suggests that the possibility that Cardew was killed because of his prominent Marxist-Leninist involvement "cannot be ruled out".[8] Tilbury quotes a friend of Cardew's, John Maharg; "MI5 are quite ruthless; people don't realise it. And they kill pre-emptively".[8] However, Howard Skempton recalled the treacherous weather conditions prevailing at the time of Cardew's death and suggests that Cardew could have been walking in the road to avoid the icy pavements and might have been hit by a drunken driver who drove off to avoid arrest.[9]
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 theCecil Sharp House in London.
