1967-68 SCHOOLTIME COMPOSITIONS(Edit)

With Schooltime Compositions, completed several months before the Morley class began, Cardew had already achieved the crucial breakthough : received definitions and notions of ‘music’, ‘musicality’, ‘musicalness’ are questioned and reassessed. — (John Tilbury, "Cornelius Cardew, a life unfinished", Copula, 2008)
Tilbury then suggests that ' Schooltime Compositions, in particular, is a work of an melted creative instinct, demonstrating a profound commitment to the "moral" dimension and to the idea of "the world as musical composition ».’, after quoting Cardew’s 1967 comment that ‘the musical and the real world are one’ suggesting that ‘by « real world » Cardew was referring as much to the interior world of the imagination […].

At the suggestion of Michael Sargent of Focus Opera Group Cornelius Cardew has been working on a small opera book called Schooltime Compositions, which will be performed at the International Students House on March 11 and 12th, 1968 (one half hour session each evening) under the titles 'Dayschool' and 'Nightschool'. — (Paul Steinitz, in The Musical Times, Vol. 109, No. 1501 (Mar., 1968), pp. 231-233)

Cardew wrote :

Schooltime Compositions (1967) is an opera that marks Cardew’s progression towards ‘music as an expression of human relations’ which was realised to the full through the Scratch Orchestra, whose membership included artists associated with Fluxus, musicians and non-musicians.
Schooltime Compositions was written for the Scratch Orchestra to have materials in an impromptu way of making music anyplace, anytime, by whatever means was at hand, and this work, fits neatly into a breast pocket, or clarinet case. Written in 1967, these pieces were designed to help musicians and non-musicians develop their own methods of interpretation and music-making. They emphasize process over finished products and personal development over pretty results.
Cardew redefines ‘opera’ as ‘many people working’. The title hints at the possibility of an educational application for the piece. Cardew made the cover page of the published score look like a school exercise boo with his own name scrawled in red ink. Schooltime Compositions is the sort of thing what you get out of it depends on what you put in. — (Jolyon Laycock, "A Changing Role for the Composer in Society: A Study of the Historical Background and Current Methodologies of Creative Music-Making", Peter Lang AG, European Academic Publishers, Bern 2005)

Throughout the period he was becoming less and less concerned with beautiful artefacts and more and more involved with people and their ability to make their own music. He began to assume a more educative role - to which he was perfectly suited through his strong democratic sentiments, his ability to teach by example, and not least his genius for improvising. Musical education is what Schooltime Compositions (1967) is about. The work is a notebook of observations, ideas, notations, hints, diagrams, concepts, scientific experiments, geometric analogies - some direct, some oblique, but mostly presented as 'facts' with no covering instructions. For Cardew each composition was a matrix to draw out the interpreters' feelings about certain topics or materials. Here the different matrices grew around such things as words, melody, vocal sounds, triangles, pleasure, noise, working to rule, will/desire, keyboard. Some of the matrices serve as a measure of virtuosity, others of courage, tenacity, alertness, and so on. They point to the heart of some real matter, mental or material. The score tells the interpreter the general area of his potential action - he may wish or have the talent to play, or sing, or construct, or illumine, or take exercise of one sort or another, and can draw out his interpretation in that direction. — (John Tilbury, "Cornelius Cardew", originally published in Contact no. 26 (Spring 1983), pp. 4-12. Reprinted with the kind permission of the author.

This is a graphic piece, with the ubiquitous cover you see still today on composition/writing booklets, tablets, folders,notebooks for grade school, with the typical black/white texture with a center held in a box for the subject. Here however Cardew's booklet is very small 8 (vertical)inch by 3-4 inch; the object is to transform the graphics into music, solo or chamber. Cardew take great orientation from John Cage, and in many ways brought a new, more playful content to graphic notation, in one respect you could say he was more "lyrical", "playful" in his graphics than the cold calculations charts, tables, plexiglass, configurations of Feldman, Brown, Wolff and Cage.

Schooltime Compositions (Opera, audio-visual) was performed at International Students' Theatre (International Students' Centre, Great Portland Street, London) on March 11, 1968. Christian Wolff took part at the premiered performance of Schooltime Compositions, with John Tilbury, Lou Gare, Robin Page, Mark Boyle, and an amateur chorus. Later, In May 1969 George Brecht took part at a Schooltime Compositions concert at ICA in London (interpretation of ‘Making A’).

Schooltime Compositions, (1967), excerpts. Cornelius Cardew, "Schooltime Compositions", self-published: London, 1968. "Schooltime Compositions" was published in 1968 by Gallery Upstairs Press, which also published Treatise.

Michael Nyman, in "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Music in the Twentieth Century)", 1974)

Reviews :

• Michael Reynolds, Daily Mail, March 12, 1967.
• Other reviews appeared in Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, The Times, Stage, and Sunday Times.
• He was also highlighted in the underground press, with a long interview feature in the International Times of February 2–15, 1968 (“Cornelius Cardew” [interview]).

International Times of February 2–15, 1968 (“Cornelius Cardew” [interview])

1968 SCHOOLTIME SPECIAL(Edit)

Schooltime Special, for undetermined forces (1968), is a series of questions and options for the performer.
It makes the performer responsible for a specific decision on each musical event. — Michael Nyman, in "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Music in the Twentieth Century)", 1974)

[download pdf schooltime special score] — [download jpg schooltime special score (version française)]

1968 EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC / MORLEY COLLEGE(Edit)

Cornelius Cardew was named a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 1966 In 1967 Cornelius Cardew was appointed Professor of Composition there the following year by Sir Thomas Armstrong who was principal of the Royal Academy of Music at that times. "I thought that he will be desirable to have a young musician on the staff who is an avant-garde composer in touch with all with all is going on in Europe and America among the young people, and I thought he will inspire some of the other younger composers and provide a breath of fresh air in the somewhat academic atmosphere. […]" — (Sir Thomas Armstrong, ca.1990, interview from the film "The Content of our Song" by Stuart Monro, 2011). In 1968, Cardew started teaching a course in Experimental Music at Morley College, an adult educational institution in South London. He taught evening classes from 1968 until 1973. Anyone was welcome – more than a few attendees got away without paying the fees – and the class attracted a broad church of musicians and composers plus visual artists, dancers, and others whose interest had been piqued by this curious and commanding figure. Michael Parsons, a composer who was amongst the first to enrol, remembers the course as a “musical laboratory.” : “There was no curriculum. People would bring pieces and try them out. Cornelius was very open to anything anyone brought along. Everyone was able to contribute and everyone’s ideas were welcome.” Painter Carol Finer, who attended, recalls, "Cor saw us all as potential performers and composers, to be taken seriously, even though some of us, such as myself, had no professional music training or expertise. I learnt that there was a valid music available to all, outside of the so-called professional musicians, and that I could be part of it. Music was for everyone." The Scratch Orchestra grew out of a series of public classes in experimental music that Cornelius Cardew and other composers had been running in London in the late 1960s. These began at the Anti-University on Rivington Street and then at Morley College, a workers education centre set up in the 19th Century. — (Ref. Simon Yuill) Cardew was a committed if unorthodox educator. Richard Reason, his student at the Royal Academy in 1969, recalls composition classes at Cardew's home, where they exercised their imagination, inventing games and other surprising ways to instigate music. At the same time that he was puzzling his establishment colleagues, Cardew contributed to the anarchic 'Anti-University' that had a short and elusive existence in East London. For him, teaching was not laying down the law, but enabling others to join in processes of discovery. With Keith Rowe and Eddie Prévost, he took up study of Chinese language and culture. — (cited by Julian Cowley) It was from this course at Morley that the nucleus of the Scratch Orchestra developed.

1967-1969 Concerts announcements(Edit)

Fac-Similes : (click to enlarge)

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16 January 1967: Cornelius Cardew, Solo with accompaniment (first public performance), given by David Bedford and John Tilbury with Francine Elliott — Arts Council of Great Britain, Great Drawing Room, 4 St. James's Square.

Jan. 1968. — Festival of New Music at the Arts Laboratory Satie's Vexations by Richard Topp New American Music : Robert Ashley, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, La Monte Young, etc. New England Music : Cornelius Cardew, Anna Lockwood, Richard Orton, Richard Topp, Hugh Davies, etc. Music of John Cage : Concert for Piano and Orchestra, Electronic music for piano, First English performance with Variations IV. — Source : International Times archive. May 1968. MUSIC : Music Now in collaboration with I.C.A. presents Cornelius Cardew Ensemble playing Deathchant by LaMonte Young and In C by Terry Riley at 8:30 at 195 Piccadilly. 10/- WHI 6393. — Source : International Times archive. May 1968. JAZZ MONTHLY : #159, May 1968, 10–11 Victor Schonfield, “Cornelius Cardew, AMM, and the Path to Perfect Hearing” — Source :

June. 1968. — Spirals with Keith Rowe, John Tilbury, Cornelius Cardew, Lou Gare, Eddie Provost, presented by Music Nov at Commonwealth Institute, Kensington High St., W.8., 8.pm — Source : International Times archive. Oct. 1968. — MUSIC: Cornelius Cardew takes part in a free improvisation entitled 'Spacecraft'. In'Music in our time' BBC Music programme. — Source : International Times archive. Nov. 1968. — Mark Boyle, George Brecht, Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury George Brecht, "Water Yam" — Source : International Times archive. Feb. 1969. — John Tilbury, at Purcell Room, works of Webern, Stockhausen, Cage, Cardew and others. — Source : International Times archive. Mar. 1969. — Cornelius Cardew's Schooltime Compositions, (directed by John Tilbury), at ICA, Nash Hse., The Mall, 10.30am - 7.30pm — Source : International Times archive. Unknow date. — State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Music, presents, CREATIVE ASSOCIATE RECITAL VIII, Cornelius Cardew - Piano works by Morton Feldman, Terry Jennings — Source : Renee Levine Packer, « This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo », Oxford University Press, 2010.

April 1969. Thirty years of the music of John Cage — An evening directed and devised by Tim Souster Part I - Music from his earliest works of 1930-1938 including music for wind instruments, piano, radios and singer. Part II - First performance in this country of four pieces written between 1954-1956 for two prepared pianos, percussion and violin —Part III - First public performance in this country of Variations VI during which there will be Music for Amplified Toy Pianos With John Tilbury, Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars, Sarah Walker, Christopher Hobbs, Wind Quartet led by Robin Thompson. Wednesday 16 April 1969, 7.30 pm, Purcell Room. This concert is given with financial assistance from the Arts Council of Gt. Britain. June. 1969. — Open air concerts are happening all over the place, which is a healthy sign by any standards. News of two more scenes of this type follows. In the bandstand on Clapham Common (where it really does all happen), on Sunday June 15 at 3pm there is a recital by AMM, featuring Cornelius Cardew and friends and the following. Sunday one can hear contemporary music performed by the New Music Group of the R.A.M. So if you Eke a free opportunity to dig some of the more obscure musical tiling that are happening, these are worth a trip. — Source : International Times archive. Aug. 1969. — MUSIC: Lou Gare, Christopher Hobbs, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe —AMM Music' at Artists Place, 17 Dukes Rd., WC1. — MUSIC: Gavin Bryars, Christopher Hobbs, John Tilbury — solo for piano, WBAI & Diary — How to Improve the World (John Cage) at Artists Place, 17 Dukes Rd., WC1. 5/- members, 7/6 guests. — Source : International Times archive.

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1969-71 THE GREAT LEARNING(Edit)

The Cornelius Cardew's major work of this phase was The Great Learning, begun in 1968 and completed in 1971, and based on poet Ezra Pound's translation of writings by the Chinese philosopher Confucius. A monumental composition lasting around seven hours (to nine hours) in total, it enables amateur and professional musicians to participate as equals despite different levels of skill and varying backgrounds. Christian Wolff calls it one of the very great works for collaborative, communal performance. The composition of The Great Learning, and the foundation of the Scratch Orchestra in 1969 (initially in order to perform Paragraph 2 of that work ; and, in fact, at least two paragraphs of The Great Learning had been completed before the Scratch Orchestra was formed) set the seal on his all embracing humanism as his search for untrained 'musical innocents' bore fruit in the social music-making of the orchestra. This remains a noteworthy work of experimental music, combining verbal and musically-notated directions for performers with a prominent ritual element. The original text is divided into large paragraphs, a structural division that Cardew adopts in his score. The score calls, generally, for chorus, although other instruments and objects occasionally make appearances. For example, paragraph 1 calls for ‘chorus (speaking and playing whistles and stones) and organ’. — (Timothy D. Taylor, 'Moving in Decency: The Music and Radical Politics of Cornelius Cardew', 1998) — (Julian Cowley, The Wire, 2001) — (James Weeks, Tempo, 2007) — (John Tilbury, liner notes The Great Learning, cd organ of Corti 21, Cortical Foundation, 2000) — (Virginia Anderson, "Chinese Characters and Experimental Structure in Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning", in JEMS An Online Journal of Experimental Music Studies, March 2004)

(Michael Nyman, in "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Music in the Twentieth Century)", 1974)

The Seven Paragraphs of The Great Learning(Edit)

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The Background Reference of The Great Learning :
Daxue 大学 ("Great Learning"), part of the Sishu 四书 ("Four Books"), one of the texts collected in the Li Ji 礼记 ("Book of Rites")

From an edition as published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1893, as Volume 1 in ‘The Chinese Classics’ Series. An annotated version of the Book of Rites, dated before 907. Classic of Rites annotated edition (礼記子本疏義) vol. 59.

Kai-wing Chow, ‘Between Sanctioned Change and Fabrication: Confucian Canon (Ta-hsüeh) and Hermeneutical Systems Since the Sung Times’, From ‘The Hermeneutic Traditions in Chinese Culture’, edited by Ching-i Tu, 1996.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 1

Paragraph 1, score excerpt.

(For chorus (speaking and playing whistles and stones) and organ). Duration about 30 minutes. Composition 31/4/1968. Paragraph 1 is for chorus and organ. The organ part requires technical proficiency and notational literacy. The chorus are not required to sing, but rather to play stones and whistles, reading from graphic notations based on the Chinese characters in the original text. Each paragraph occupies its own distinct sound world, the first constrated by Paragraph 2’s voices and drums, and again in Paragraph 3, which relies on ‘large instruments’ sustaining long low notes in ascending scales. Voices overlay words from the text to specified pitches, or to pitches the singers hear being played by the instruments, a kind of ‘network’ technique employed elsewhere in the Great Learning. This ensures the opportunity to listen and make decisions rather than simply relaying information — a further example of Cardew’s characteristic conflict between instruction and freedom. — (Tony Harris, "The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew") VIDEO          Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning - Paragraph 1 The Scratch Orchestra, Cornelius Cardew Recorded at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on May 16, 1982, by Bob Woolford. Composed in 1968.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 2

[Click here for a large view of the singing part] — [Click here for a large view of the drumming part] AUDIO          Cornelius Cardew — Paragraph 2 of The Great Digest (aka The Great Learning) — (ca 49mn) BBC Source : Ubu.com

(For singers and drummers). Duration about 1 hour. Composition January 1969. "Paragraph 1" works its way from the mysterious, delicate clicking of handheld stones through harsh yet oddly meditative organ tones and penny whistles to the massed choral intonations of the Confucian script. It is eerie and otherworldly but casts its own unique sense of serenity over the listener. This spell is abruptly shattered by the percussive explosion that begins and carries through "Paragraph 2," an exercise in the inevitability and value of failure. The chorus is required to attempt to valiantly surmount the raging drums and to do so over a long period of time, an idea based on the Buddhist method of practicing chanting in front of a roaring waterfall; they will fail in making themselves clearly heard but something valuable may be learned in the process. Little by little, due to sheer physical exhaustion, the singers subside while the drums, gathering rhythmic cohesion, go on and on. — (Brian Olewnick) VIDEO          Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning - Paragraph 2 The Scratch Orchestra, Cornelius Cardew Recorded at Chappell Studios, London, on February 15/16, 1971. Composed in 1969.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 3

Paragraph 3, score excerpt.

(For large instruments and voices). Duration about 45 minutes. Composition 14/7/70. As Paragraph 3 states, “Things have their root and branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in The Great Learning.” VIDEO          Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning - Paragraph 3 (and 6) Directed by Dave Smith. Recorded at ICA London, Play for Today event, november 2009. Composed in 1970.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 4

Paragraph 4, score excerpt.

(For chorus (shouting and playing ridged or notched instruments, sonorous subtances, rattles or jingles) and organ). Duration about 40 minutes. Composition 10/4/70. Paragraph 4 for chorus (shouting and playing ridged or notched instruments, sonorous substances, rattle or jingles) and organ returns to the notations found in Paragraph 1, a relatively conventionally, though indeterminately, notated organ par underpinning an all-corners chorus sitting in a zigzag formation and performing from Chinese character-based graphics in canon. — (Tony Harris, "The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew") VIDEO          Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning - Paragraph 4 Conducted by ADACHI Tomomi. An extract from 50 minutes long Japan premiere performance in 2009 of "The Great Learning Paragraph 4" written by Cornelius Cardew. Composed in 1970.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 5

Paragraph 5, score excerpt.

(For a large number of untrained musicians making gestures, performing actions, speaking, chanting and playing a wide range of instruments, plus, optionally 10 singers singing ‘Ode Machines’ which may also be performed separately.). Duration about 2 hours. Composition 1969-70. Paragraph 5 demonstrates another level of complexity in its construction, mixing detailed instructions with text, staff and graphic notations. The sound-world is unspecified and diverse with integrated gestures and physical actions and 10 optional solo singers singing the ‘Ode Machines’, a collection of 10 settings of poems from the Confucian ‘Book of Odes’, any number of which may be performed concurrently. — (Tony Harris, "The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew") [download pdf score of PARAGRAPH 5 (parts in English, and main parts in French)]

Paragraph 5, score excerpts.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 6

Paragraph 6, score excerpt.

(For any number of untrained musicians). Duration about 30 minutes. Composition October 1969. Paragraph 6 provides the antithesis to these excesses. Intented for any number of musicians using any sound materials it relies solely on instructional text in its scoring and, while the sound materials are freely chosen, the specified type and number of sounds ensures a sparse and pointillistic evocation. — (Tony Harris, "The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew") VIDEO          Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning - Paragraph 6 Directed by Dave Smith. Recorded at ICA London, Play for Today event, november 2009. Composed in 1970.

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Cornelius Cardew — The Great Learning — Paragraph 7

Paragraph 7, score excerpt. [Click for a large view]

(For any number of untrained voices). Duration about 90 minutes. Composition 8/4/1969. The final Paragraph 7 uses voice alone — any number of trained or untrained singers. The network technique of listening and responding to each other is revisited providing what Parsons describes as a ‘framework within which individual responsability and choice and the sense of community and interdependence with other participants is made meaningful’ (Parsons and al., 1984, in Prévost 2006:322). — (Tony Harris, "The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew") Paragraph 7 from The Great Learning is a verbal score; it is composed of 24 lines of text. Each line indicates a new word or phrase, and is repeated a different number of times at different amplitude levels, as indicated in the score. Members of the choir choose a new pitch for each new line, always matching pitches that are already sounding in the room; they introduce a previously unheard pitch when no new pitch can be found or sung from the existing group of pitches. The entire text of Paragraph 7 reads, "If the root be in confusion, nothing will be well governed. The solid cannot be swept away as trivial and nor can trash be established as solid. It just does not happen. Mistake not cliff for morass and treacherous bramble." In Paragraph 7, both the structure of the music, and the music itself, describe a system of organization built around contingency: each element in a group is ordered through its influences and dependencies upon other elements. "Paragraph 7," for "any number of untrained voices," is a lush and complex vocal sea. From a rich and heady underlying drone, individual voices emerge and recede (is that Julie Tippett one hears?) like waves cresting and falling back. The mass of voices becomes palpable and breathing like a single, multi-throated organism. One can easily imagine, in lesser hands, a composition like this disintegrating into a new agey mush, but this one succeeds wildly as a deep and probing conception, realized fully and with passion.— (Brian Olewnick) [download pdf of the PARAGRAPH 7 score] [download pdf of the PARAGRAPH 7 score (French version)] VIDEO          Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning - Paragraph 7 The Scratch Orchestra. Cornelius Cardew. Recorded at Chappell Studios, London, on February 15/16, 1971. Composed in 1969.

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1971 The Great Learning LP(Edit)

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Cornelius Cardew & The Scratch Orchestra – The Great Learning - LP Deutsche Grammophon ‎– 2561 107 (Germany) - LP Deutsche Grammophon ‎– 2538 216 (UK) This LP is referenced as part of DG Avant-Garde Series. This LP was also available as part of the six LP box set 'Avangarde Vol.4' on Deutsche Grammophon. Some of the other members mentioned in the liner notes are: John Tillbury, Gavin Bryars, Michael Parsons, Howard Skempton, Michael Chant, Christopher Hobbs, and Hugh Shrapnel - each of who recruited friends, family and students to swell the ranks. Though David Jackman is not mentioned anywhere on the sleeve, he was an active member of the Scratch Orchestra at this point and is probably one of the massed singers. Recorded at Chappell Studios, London, on February 15/16, 1971. — This recording was also part of a reissue in 2000 by the Cortical Foundation label with in supplement a recording of Paragraph 1 (also released on the LP Cornelius Cardew Memorial Concert, in 1985 (recorded 16th of May 1982 at Queen Elizabeth Hall). A complete recordings of The Great Learning, paragraphs 1 to 7, was released on the Polish label Bôłt ‎(BR 1008) in 2010, with an ensemble of performers conducted by Nima Goushed with assistance of James Bull. The performances took place at Residential Arts Centre in Wigry and White Synagogue in Sejny between 18th and 24th of July, 2010. — Source : .

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