Cornelius Cardew

Having worked closely with Karlheinz Stockhausen during the late 1950s, the Irish-born Cornelius Cardew became a major figure on the European avant-garde music scene over the following decade. However, by the early 1970s Cardew had become deeply involved in the international communist movement which created a growing rift between himself and his colleagues (particularly after his book Stockhausen Serves Imperialism was published in 1974). As Cardew’s politics changed, so did his music, which began drawing more and more from the populist roots of folk music. On this LP Cardew proposes a series of compositions based on the revolutionary songs of different countries (i.e. the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Islamic Rebellion of 1937, the uprisings in West Berlin in the early seventies). It is perhaps not surprising that Cardew’s new music found a home in Italy of the 1970s (this LP was originally released on the Italian Cramps label), as the Italian Communist Party was extremely strong during this era.