From a program recorded on January 25, 1975, Charles Amirkhanian interviews the British composer, pianist, and Socialist, Cornelius Cardew. Born in 1936, Cardew had a traditional music education, studying composition and piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In the late 1950’s he became interested in avant-garde and electronic music, working with Karlheinz Stockhausen, and composing a series of aleatoric pieces influenced by the ideas of John Cage and others. In the late 1960s and 70s Cardew’s interest in Socialist politics, the Chinese Revolution, and the teachings of Mao Zedong, led him to reevaluate the academic avant-garde, essentially rejecting it as elitist, and irrelevant to the struggles of the working class. He went on to be a founding member of both the Scratch Orchestra and the People’s Liberation Music, both of which were nonhierarchical musical collectives with decidedly pro-Socialist intentions. In this program Cardew discusses the political aspects of his music as well as playing a selection of his protest songs and politically inspired solo piano works. Cardew died in 1981, the victim of a suspicious hit and run accident. The program concludes with a spontaneous performance art piece by Ingram Marshall, otherwise known as eating lunch, and a brief excerpt from a tape work by Anthony Gnazzo. |
