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Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew (1936 - 1981) was an English avant-garde composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated 'people's liberation music'. 

Cornelius Cardew (1936 - 1981) was an English avant-garde composer, and founder (with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons) of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated 'people's liberation music'. 

Member of: AMM
AMMMusic
The first recording by these pioneers of electro-acoustic improvisation, AMMMusic stands the test of time both as a remarkably prescient session and as an utterly powerful and deep piece of 20th century music
The Great Learning
** CD housed in a 4-panel digipak. Comes with 12-page booklet ** Tone Glow Records is proud to present a special archival recording of Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 7 from Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning. Conducted and formed by American composer Dean Rosenthal, the Montréal Scratch Orchestra featured 14 or so like-minded experimental music enthusiasts who performed the pieces at Redpath Hall on the McGill University campus in 1996. This release arrives on Cardew's 85th birthday and follows Ro…
Indústria
The title Indústria was chosen by Eddie Prevost in tribute to the history behind the Museu Industrial de Bala do Tejo, in Portugal where this concert took place by the legendary free improvisation band AMM, represented here as the duo of percussionist Eddie Prévost and pianist John Tilbury, performing as part of the 2015 Out.Fest - Festival Internacional de Musica Exploratoria do Barreiro.
Uncovered Correspondence - A Postcard from Jaslo
Recorded at the concert hall of the Jasielski Dom Kultury (Jaslo Cultural Centre) in southern Poland on the 15th of May 2010."It is given to very few artists to have created a language entirely their own, but that is what AMM has done over the years, in various line-ups and configurations, with Eddie Prévost on drums as the only unifying element since 1965, and with John Tilbury on piano for the last two decades, here with just the two of them. You may like them or not, but they have made histor…
Spanish Fighters
Recorded at the festival Neposlusno (Sound Disobedience) in Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2012, the AMM duo of Eddie Prevost on percussion and John Tilbury on piano perform an extend improvisation of tension and dynamic, delicately balancing sound in a rich dialog. Incidentally, the title of the album is the name of the venue (Spanski Borci in which the concert was recorded. Both artists felt a certain respect playing in a place with references to the Spanish Civil War and the fascism that prevailed in…
Place Sub. V.
Active since the mid-1960s, England's AMM have become an icon of the free improvisational movement. In the spring of 2004, due to personal and philosophical disagreements, Keith Rowe suspended his involvement with AMM, an association that went back to his role as founding member in 1965 (albeit with an almost decade-long disenfranchisement through the '70s). The remaining members, percussionist Eddie Prévost and pianist John Tilbury, elected to continue on as AMM, and this their latest effort. T…
Two London Concerts
Restocked, reduced price. Two live recordings by master improvisers John Tilbury (piano) and Eddie Prevost (percussion) playing two emotional sets that are quiet at just the right times and allow for a balanced amount of white space, creating beautiful music. "A new AMM album then, always a welcome arrival, capturing two relatively recent London performances from the duo of Eddie Prévost and John Tilbury. one of which I attended, and the other I could not. Both capture really rather wonderful se…
Silver Pyramid
Matchless Recordings presents an historic recording. Eddie Prévost's Silver Pyramid performed by Music Now Ensemble directed by Keith Rowe in London in 1969. Includes Cornelius Cardew, Lou Gare, Keith Rowe and others. The music is continuous. Time codes have been inserted at intervals to assist retrieval. Pre-Scratch Orchestra Ensemble formed by / for the occasion of the four day 'Music Now' event at the Roundhouse, 1969. The motley crew perform Eddie Prévost's 'composition' 'Silver Pyramid'. En…
Morton Feldman
Beautiful collection of Morton Feldman's earliest, shorter piano works from the early 50s, going through the late 70s
Chamber Music 1955-64
Restocked, reduced price. The works on this CD represent arguably the most experimental and radical works to come out of Britain in the past 40 years. Cornelius Cardew's scores from the early 1960's are notable for their elegant, original and precise notational scores, labyrinthine blueprints for realisation as totally new and original compositions. They are open to ever new interpretations whose possibilities are restricted only by the creativity of the performer. It is this responsibility laid…
The Inexhaustible Document
Recorded live in London's beautiful Union Chapel in 1987. The organic control of sound on this is spectacular - pretty much a must for serious listeners worldwide.. Free imrovisation in the hands of Amm valorises the unknown, combining unpredictabiity with contexual coherence and the implicit drama of emotion and meaning in play. By opening out the moment it reveals the inherent wilderness of living processes that we lose sight of in an environment of over-determination, where the planned and th…
Combine + Laminates + Treatise (1984)
** Restocked, reduced price** A re-issue of the Pogus LP format with additional material taken from the same concert at the Arts Club, Chicago, USA, 25th May 1984. The difference in the music included on this CD version is the addition of Treatise '84. This, as the audience was aware, was an Amm improvisation inspired and guided, rather than dictated or controlled by Cornelius Cardew's graphic masterpiece. There is, of course, no way that this work could be identified as a composition in the acc…
To Hear and Back Again (1973-75)
** Restocked, reduced price** A reissue of what is chronologically the 3rd full Amm album, following AMM:1966 and The Crypt. Recorded during the years of 1973-75, this marks an unusual and little recognized period in the group's history. For about 5 years, Keith Rowe (and his guitar and electronics) had left the group (along with Cornelius Cardew), leaving AMM as a working duo of Eddie Prévost (drums) and Lou Gare (tenor saxophone). That makes this the most jazz-like version of AMM, but as the l…
Norwich
Norwich, recorded in February, 2005, at the School of Music, University of East Anglia, presents the current two-member AMM of Prévost and Tilbury ” the third two-man version of the group (Prévost played as AMM with saxophonist Lou Gare and then Rowe in the 1970s). Rowe's departure is a tremendous shift, of course, both for his extraordinary sonic resourcefulness and his sometimes abrasive electronics (including his use of random or found verbal and musical messages). However, it is much more im…
Fine
Music for dance, by AMM. Recording of the concert given together with the dancer Fine Kwiatkowski at Musique Action festival produced by CCAM, Vendoeuvre-les-Nancy, France on 24th May 2001. The album's title connotation is at least dual. This is a recording of a live performance done in conjunction with dancer Fine Kwiatkowski (who, incidentally, is not audible), and it's certainly "fine" in the qualitative sense. One hopes the aura of "finality" implicit in the title doesn't apply. This is one …
Tunes Without Measure or End
AMM and their CDs have an almost comfortable familiarity. The trio's personnel has remained fundamentally the same since the early '80s when pianist John Tilbury joined the remaining founders, drummer Eddie Prévost and guitarist Keith Rowe. Every two or three years they release a CD, usually a single uninterrupted improvisation, about an hour in length, taped in performance. The only way in which these two CDs tamper with that practice is that they were both released in 2001. 'Tunes Without Meas…
Before Driving To the Chapel We Took Coffee With Rick and Jennifer Reed
Awesome set with a sense of suspended time that marks out their musical world. Combined with the quality of attention and the virtuosic command that is evident in each stroke, it is almost hallucinatory in effect - Keith Rowe, John Tilbury, Eddie Prévost. Concert in Houston, Texas. 1996. "A stupendous continuation of the 90's AMM sound, ala previous documents such as Newfoundland, Live In Allentown and From A Strange Place. Shifting patterns consistently emerge; via Prévost's bowed percussion; v…
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