Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew (7 May 193613 December 1981) was an English experimental music composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch 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 his Piano Album 1973. which had evacuated to the Carlyon Bay Hotel for the war. His musical career thus began as a chorister. From 1953 to 1957, Cardew studied piano, cello, and composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Career 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.

Indeterminacy and American experimentalists 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 experimental composers such as Morton 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 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

Cardew published 'Cage; Ghost or Monster?' and Stockhausen Serves Imperialism in 1972 and 1974, respectively. These essays called out his former colleagues, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, for serving imperialist and bourgeois agendas through their art. After this, Cardew was ostracised from the English music scene and began engaging in more political issues.

Political involvements 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. His 1986 Thälmann Variations commemorated Ernst Thälmann, leader of the Communist Party of Germany from 1925 to 1933.

Although the vote was a tie, at twelve for and twelve against, a second motion was passed with a majority of 15–2.

Legacy Tony Harris (2013) argues that Cardew's inclusion in Wikipedia or in other encyclopedias such as New 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".

Death Cardew died on 13 December 1981 aged 45, the victim of a hit-and-run car crash 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". Tilbury quotes a friend of Cardew's, John Maharg; "MI5 are quite ruthless; people don't realise it. And they kill pre-emptively". 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.

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 Sharp House in London.

In popular culture In 1999, Page 183 of Cardew's Treatise was performed by the experimental rock group Sonic Youth on their album SYR4: Goodbye 20th Century. "Cornelius Cardew" is the name of the unemployed pipe-fitter in Alan Moore's Skizz. A character called "Cornelius Cardew" appears (as a caricature of a political radical) in the 1980 novel 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. 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.

Discography The Great Learning (Deutsche Grammophon, 1971) Four Principles on Ireland and Other Pieces 1974 (Cramps, 1975) Memorial Concert (Impetus, 1985) Thälmann Variations (Matchless, 1986) Piano Music (B&L, 1991) Piano Music 1959–70 (Matchless, 1996) Treatise (hatART, 1999) We Only Want the Earth (Musicnow, 2001) Apartment House Chamber Music 1955–64 (Matchless, 2001) We Sing for the Future! (New Albion, 2001) Material (hatART, 2004) Consciously (Musicnow, 2006) Treatise with Keith Rowe (Planam, 2009) Treatise with Petr Kotik (Mode, 2009) Works 1960–70 (+3 dB, 2010) Treatise (Harsh-Noise Version) (Sublime Recapitulation, 2013)