Cornelius Cardew 'treatise' and graphic scores

http://www.ubu.com/sound/cardew.html

you guys should go. I wish I could go.

ST GILES CRIPPLEGATE - Christian Wolff at 70
Starts Friday, October 29 2004 at 7:30 PM

Dal Niente Projects and COMA
Christian Wolff: Changing the System (1972-3)
Cornelius Cardew: The Great Learning Paragraph 3 (1970-1)

according to the notes, paragraph 3 is:

1 page, for large instruments and voices, duration about 45 minutes, text: 'Things have their root and their branches, affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught.'

christina wolff was first - for those who don't know 'changing the system' is for several groups of four (there were five for this performance - two groups of singers, two for percussion instruments and one for brass/percussion). I wz a bit late so it took me a while to get into it and seeing the logic from the random - not quite the kind of thing that could be performed at a concert hall (which I guess is the point) so the groups were spread round the church. The ending has those teasing silences that reminded me of the performance of 'for philip guston' that I attended earlier this year.

'Paragraph 3' sounded reminded me of Oliveros and totally diff from uncertanties of 'treatise', the COMA singers were not professional, anyone can take part and the thought that anyone could join this group (there's an email addy in the programme) made me all warm and fuzzy.

shawn feeney's electronic realisation: https://vimeo.com/24759329

the actual score -- when animated -- always reminds me of the look of george dunning's yellow submarine

which reminds me (since it's where i first wrote that observation down) here's a little piece i wrote about it (pdf -- you have to scroll down) : http://www.soundmatters.org.uk/content/documents/exhibition-guide/CC_SM_guide.pdf

and here's a version by the SYNTAX ensemble now the youtube embeds are sorted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMzIXxlwuCs

Treatise: An Animated Analysis -- a fair proportion of which seems "state the bleedin obvious" to me, but perhaps i have been thinking about this object for too long

Takes me back to my slog through Tilbury's biog at the start of the year, I must pick it up again.

i close-read a few sections for that "sound matters" catalogue piece and speedread the rest: i was actually constantly torn between "dude NO ONE needs to know this much abt xxx" and "i feel there is actually more to say here on this topic" (ie that someone not so caught up in and basically sympathetic to a lot of CC's odder stances might have a sharper perspective?)

i'm still glad the JT biog exists but blimey

Agree with all of that. JT not only sympathetic to CC's later wrongness but complicit in, of course.