Cornelius Cardew (1936 – 1981) CORNELIUS CARDEW (1936 - 1981) C O R N E L I U S C A R D E W was killed in a road accident last December. Though he had translated several German articles JOT recent issues of T E M P O , he himself contributed only once, and that twenty years ago: his article 'Notation—Interpretation, Etc.'* remains an important document of its times and of the quality of extreme commitment which Cardew (who had recently been closely involved in the composition of Stockhausen s Carre) brought to everything he did. Through the various developments and differing ideological stances of his career, it was this quality of commitment which made him such an inspiring figure to so many people concerned with wholly different kinds of'New Music' throughout the 1960*5 and 1970'j. Susan Sradshaw, who had known Cardew as a fellow student at the R.A.M., gave the premiere, with John Tilbury, in March 1981 of his last work: Boolavogue^or two pianos, an example of the highly politicized music that had become his prime concern. Howard Skentpton was a pupil of Cardew in the 1960'j, and a representative of that generation of young English composer-performers who were involved with him in the extraordinary range of improvisational activities centred on the Scratch Orchestra. Kurt Schwertsik knew Cardew well, and was deeply influenced by him, during his early years in Cologne. W H E N I first met Cornelius he was 17: the most impressively single-minded person I'd come across, his ability to concentrate one hundred per cent on what- ever interested him at the moment was extraordinary. And this characteristic would seem to have persisted through the many apparently conflicting phases of his all-too-short life. The devotion to every one or his espoused causes was total to the point of blindness to all other considerations. Meeting him again last March, after a gap of some years, he seemed hardly to have changed. Yet he showed signs of an uncharacteristically mocking attitude towards the new seriousness of his latest work, which conveyed more than a little sadness at having suppressed his own talents (as pianist as well as composer) for so long. What a tragic pity that he should have been torn away just as he appeared to be on the verge of returning to the world of a more self-demanding kind of music- making. . . Susan Bradshaw * TEMPO $8 (Summer 1961) pp. 21-33. Copies of this issue are still available, price £i-oo. at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:06:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 https://www.cambridge.org/core CORNELIUS CARDEW (i936-1981) 23 A Tribute to Cornelius Cardew I have been re-reading Stockhausen Serves Imperialism.1 After seven years, I find it no less powerful, if less disturbing (the passage of time and the tragedy of Cardew's death have drawn its sting). The book contains contributions from Rod Eley and John Tilbury. Eley refers to Cardew as 'a focal point' for many people with similar interests and attitudes. It was this quality of leadership that drew me to London in 1967 to study with Cornelius. He was an associate, and principal advocate, of many of my favourite composers: Stockhausen, Cage, Feldman, and LaMonte Young. Of his own music, I knew Octet ' 6 1 , February Tieces, and Four Works. I recognized his intelligence, virtuosity, and practicality. Later, at first hand, I appreciated his humility and integrity—the humility and integrity of a great artist; a complete musician, reminding me in that respect of Britten, but of nobody else. I recall his devotion at that time to the music of Bach, Mahler, and Webern. And with Webern, I am reminded of the principle of necessity. In Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, Cardew quotes Engels: 'Freedom is the appreciation of nec- essity'.2 During the last ten years, he became increasingly aware of the need to abandon the role of the bourgeois composer. In 1972, he exhorted Cage to 'shuffle his feet over to the side of the people and learn to write music which will serve their struggles'. 3 It is now clear that Cornelius himself succeeded in this aim—no mean achievement. Unlike his critics, he realized that 'the business of changing one's class stand, remoulding one's world outlook, is no easy thing, no "lover's bed", but a long a complicated process of struggle'.4 Howard Skempton . . .for CORNELIUS CARDEW AT a concert in Vienna in the 1950's where I'd conducted some Cage, a quiet- spoken English composer played his 2-piano pieces. I remember him rehearsing them very beautifully. But for some reason we didn't get to meet. The very important part he played in my life began shortly after my arrival in Cologne in '^9. I was feeling somehow betrayed by the social graces of my musical heroes in that capital of New Music. I believed that an artist should live outside society altogether, or at least on its outermost fringes: as a hermit or clochard. I worked quite hard to achieve that. One day in the Hohestrasse I caught sight of someone who had succeeded without trying. His loping walk, his dress, his entire demeanour—all different! Un- mistakably, at whatever distance, Cornelius Cardew. He never needed to avoid normal patterns of behaviour; he simply never came within sight of them. For 1 1974, Latimer New Dimensions Ltd. 2 p . 1 1 3 . 3 'John Cage; Ghost or Monster', The Listener, 4 May 1972 ; reprinted in Stockhausen Serves Imperialism ( p . 4 0 ) . 4 Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, p . i o 2 , at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:06:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 https://www.cambridge.org/core 24 TEMPO instance: seeing a grubby old coat draped over a parked motorcycle to protect it from the Cologne weather, he took off his own coat, compared the two, medi- tated for a moment, and swapped them over. So much for appearances. More important: in Cornelius I found for the first time someone who felt as I did about the New Music, and helped me develop a critique of it. I was greatly impressed by the way he managed to make ideas workable by radical simplification rather than by compromises. He never tried—as I was still trying—to reconcile the demands of 'The New' with the desire to change them; he just wasn't concerned to please respected authorities as well as pleasing, and being, himself. He was free. Musical 'possibilities' that I was still nebulously pondering he had already realized according to a highly original and practical method (for instance, in Autumn '60). This went on for some time. (I grew up slowly). When eventually I recognized what it was that I myself had been driving at, the clarity of his own musical formulations still impressed me as outstanding—(e.g. Treatise, The Great Learning or Piano Album 1973). So much for his music. But most important for me to remember today: his serenity, and, humanly, his sense of the right time to do things. Long before anyone else, he understood the use of a juke-box. Already in ' ̂ 9 or '60 he knew how to cheer up a gloomy group simply by selecting the right song. From Presley to jazz, he knew it all. He once said to me that his real models were there, and not in 'serious' music at all. His serenity: simply to be with him always brought calm and reassurance. Easter '69 . . . sensing that I was hopelessly depressed and nervous he took me on a little picnic with his family; and there I sat, happy as a clam. We haven't seen each other for quite some time, but planned to get together soon. That will have to wait now. Kurt Schwertsik at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:06:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 https://www.cambridge.org/core Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited Nicholas M a w La Vita Nuova for soprano and chamber ensemble poems by Italian Renaissance Poets 1(=picc). 1(=cor A ad lib).1.1—1.0.0.0—harp—string quartet full score on sale (£1200); score and parts for hire The Voice of Love song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano poems by Peter Porter These two works have just been issued on record (Chandos ABR1037) performed by Nan Christie and the Nash Ensemble (La Vita Nuova) and Sarah Walker and Roger Vigno/es (The Voice of Love) publication 13 May 1982 SHOSTAKOVICH: THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC CHRISTOPHER NORRIS (editor) Christopher Rowland and Alan George, Robert Dearling, Ronald Stevenson, Geoffrey Norris, Malcolm MacDonald, Bernard Stevens, Christopher Norris, Robert Stradling, Alan Bush (contributors) This volume of specially commissioned essays provides an approach to the work of one of the twentieth century's most eminent and widely admired composers. The essays cover the full range of Shostakovich's output—the symphonies, piano music and operas as well as his later work and songs—and a discussion on the problems involved in interpreting his chamber music by two musicians who have done more than any others to establish it in this country. 240 pages 44 music examples cloth £12-50 [M Lawrence & Wishart 39 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LQ at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:06:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 https://www.cambridge.org/core Alexander G O E H R . works performed in the London Sinfonietta's The Manchester School' Series The Deluge Op. 7 Full score Ed 10703 £4-40 Concerto for Eleven Op 32 Provisional study score available on request Lyric Pieces Op 35 Study score Ed 11279 £2-15 Behold the Sun Op 44 (Commissioned by the London Sinfpnietta for this series) Provisional study score available on request To be published shortly: String Quartet No. 3 Op 37 (Study score) Das Gesetz der Quadrille Op 41 for voice and piano Deux Etudes Op 43 for orchestra (Study score) Also available: The Music of Alexander Goehr: Interviews and Articles edited by Bayan Northcott £5-75 The music of ALEXANDER GOEHR is published exclusively by SCHOTT London Mainz New York Tokyo For further details and a complete list of works, please contact the Promotions Department 48 Great Marlborough Street, London W1V 2BN Telephone 01-437 1246 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Carnegie Mellon University, on 06 Apr 2021 at 01:06:07, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms https://doi.org/10.1017/S0040298200035427 https://www.cambridge.org/core