Revolutionary music, or music for revolution? Thirteen paragraphs on Cornelius Cardew: the composer, his communism, some context
Twentieth Century Communism - ISSN 1758-6437
Volume 2015 Number 9
Revolutionary music, or music for revolution? Thirteen paragraphs on Cornelius Cardew: the composer, his communism, some context
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Abstract
Paragraph one: beginnings and ends. Cornelius Cardew, born in 1936, spent his childhood in an ‘atmosphere of libertarian bohemianism’. His father was a modernist potter and an unconventional Colonial Service officer, helping train ceramists in West Africa during one phase of a varied and celebrated career. The family home at Wenford Bridge, on the edge of Bodmin Moor, comprised an old inn and barns without electricity or running water. During the war, the young Cornelius became a chorister with the evacuated Canterbury Cathedral Choir School, excelling in cello and piano lessons. At the Royal Academy of Music (1953-57) he turned, rebelliously, to European serialism. Next, a scholarship to Darmstadt, and a couple of years working in Cologne: assistant to Karlheinz Stockhausen. From the early 1960s, Cardew worked mainly in London – teaching music, doing graphic design, writing, performing in other composer’s ensembles, composing for television and film and securing commissions for his own music. Relationships, marriages, family and children were fundamentally important elements of life, if not always settled and stable.
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To cite this article
(2015) Revolutionary music, or music for revolution? Thirteen paragraphs on Cornelius Cardew: the composer, his communism, some context, Twentieth Century Communism, 2015(9), -