Scelsi, Cage and Cardew

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    Scelsi, Cage and Cardew

    Works by Scelsi and Cage I have not heard before. Also very much looking forward to Part 3 of Cardew's "Great Learning". Have any of our contributers heard this enormous work in its entirety?

    Music by Scelsi and Cage, plus the Hear and Now Fifty: Cornelius Cardew's Great Learning.


    S-A
    Last edited by Serial_Apologist; 29-10-11, 20:45. Reason: To include the website

    #2
    I've heard (and taken part in ) most of "The Great Learning" its an extraordinary work and worthy of more performances IMV

    The Scelsi and Cage pieces I don't know
    more of this on R3 please

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      #3
      Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
      Works by Scelsi and Cage I have not heard before. Also very much looking forward to Part 3 of Cardew's "Great Learning". Have any of our contributers heard this enormous work in its entirety?

      S-A
      I, and a number of other contributors to the old BBC Radio 3 message boards, took part in the first complete performance in 1984, (you can hear an extract from that tonight, I am given to understand). I have also listened to the 4 CD set of a Polish performance given last year (bit of a disappointment, that). If anyone would like to hear a recording of the 1984 performance, a PM should do the trick. A performance of Paragraph 3 given at the ICA a year or two ago can be found on YouTube:

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        #4
        Originally posted by Bryn View Post
        I, and a number of other contributors to the old BBC Radio 3 message boards, took part in the first complete performance in 1984, (you can hear an extract from that tonight, I am given to understand). I have also listened to the 4 CD set of a Polish performance given last year (bit of a disappointment, that). If anyone would like to hear a recording of the 1984 performance, a PM should do the trick. A performance of Paragraph 3 given at the ICA a year or two ago can be found on YouTube:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZAgM8dBc00
        Thanks Bryn!

        (BTW some other great Cardew clips down the r.h. side of the link you gave )

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          #5
          Happy to be able to link to it, S_A. Quite a few who took part in the very first performance of Paragraph 3 (up the stairwell of The German Institute, Exhibition Road in the early '70s) are to be found also participating in that ICA performance, and none of them look a day older. Decades, yes, but not a day.

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            #6
            Originally posted by Bryn View Post
            Happy to be able to link to it, S_A. Quite a few who took part in the very first performance of Paragraph 3 (up the stairwell of The German Institute, Exhibition Road in the early '70s) are to be found also participating in that ICA performance, and none of them look a day older. Decades, yes, but not a day.
            That sounds like a Ronnie Scott joke, Bryn

            Part One of an Interview with Dave Russell about the Arts and Community Centre in Notting Hill from 1967-1972


            Happy days...

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              #7
              Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
              That sounds like a Ronnie Scott joke, Bryn

              Part One of an Interview with Dave Russell about the Arts and Community Centre in Notting Hill from 1967-1972


              Happy days...
              Oh wow! Happy days indeed. What nostalgia! I recall some very fine events at The Crypt. Not just AMM, but Pink Fairies too.

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                #8
                Wonderful stuff indeed! Schubert watch out, cos here comes Cornelius, snapping at your heels with his irresistible melodies and glorious harmonies...

                A section of Paragraph 7 of Cornelius Cardew's work, The Great Learning. Performed by Organum as part of the Bath International Music Festival 2011 and cond...


                What a hoot!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Will someone (he chooses to ignore me !) tell this sad little idiot to "go away" ?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by MrGongGong View Post
                    Will someone (he chooses to ignore me !) tell this sad little idiot to "go away" ?
                    Just ignore ignoramuses is the best advise here MrGongGong

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                      #11
                      Will someone (he chooses to ignore me !) tell this sad little idiot to "go away" ?
                      MrGG,

                      I was about to suggest the same but you beat me to it.

                      This is the first time I can recall Simon commenting on music and it has to be negative and snide. He comes on here with a fixed ideology, pooh-poohing left, right and centre determined to wind people up. I can see why as we get older we become less tolerant of youth today. He is so childish.

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Roehre View Post
                        Just ignore ignoramuses is the best advise here MrGongGong
                        I think you mean "advice".

                        But do tell me if I'm in error: just point me towards one of Cardew's glorious feats of musical crafstmanship and I'll be an instant convert.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Simon View Post
                          Wonderful stuff indeed! Schubert watch out, cos here comes Cornelius, snapping at your heels with his irresistible melodies and glorious harmonies...

                          A section of Paragraph 7 of Cornelius Cardew's work, The Great Learning. Performed by Organum as part of the Bath International Music Festival 2011 and cond...


                          What a hoot!
                          Simon

                          I've excluded you from this board for making unhelpful and disruptive comments. If you want to comment on any aspect of contemporary music, including any subjects being discussed here, please do so on Platform 3 in future.
                          It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Well let's pretend (and it can only be a pretence) that this Simple Simon genuinely desires guidance re. issues of melody, harmony and craft in Cardew's work. Since he has linked to a performance (essentially a workshop performance) of Paragraph 7 of The Great Learning, let's look at that. Harmonically the process is to gradually move from an essentially random complex cluster. Each performer chooses his or her own first pitch at which to sing the first eight breath-long renditions of the word "If". Then each listens to the other singers and picks a pitch one of the others is using in order to sing the words "the root" five times, each held for one full breath. So the performers proceed, with a consequent coalescing towards a less and less complex cluster and more or less slowly towards unison. This process is a reflection on the Confucian text set. As to melody, such would only be evident over a very extended period. In slip-shod performance, such as that given by a few of the performers at the Union Chapel, Islington in the summer of 2000, failure to observe the score might lead to melismata, but such would be the sort of erroneous performance practice to be expected of, say, a Simple Simon. The craft lies as much in the social domain as the musical. The performers are encouraged to develop their listening and intonation with respect to their fellow performers. Remember, the work is aimed at untrained and well as trained musicians. The Ezra Pound translation set reads somewhat differently to Cardew's own, given in the introduction to the score. Cardew referred to that he offered as the "content". It reads, "It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered. It never has been the case that what was of great importance has been slightly cared for, and, at the same time, that what was of slight importance, has been greatly cared for." It might be said that the quality of care given to listening to and reproducing pitches chosen from what is heard in performance of this work is what determines the quality of the emerging harmonic order.


                            Simples!

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Yet again Hear & Now on the iplayer is at the ludicrously low bitrate of 56Kbps. What is the point and why can't the iplayer team sort themselves out? I'll email Philip Tagney again as he got last week's prog upgraded to 320kbps before it disappeared.

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