In stock
4 CD
Cornelius CARDEW
“The Great Learning”
All seven Paragraphs of Cardew's The Great Learning by the Scratch Orchestra Strasbourg under Didier Aschour, an orchestra born from an open call and two years of shared practice: 4CD box with a 116-page booklet.
4CD box with a 116-page booklet. Shiiin's thirteenth release is a complete recording of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning, the seven Paragraphs written between 1968 and 1971 on the opening of the Ta Hio (Daxue, "the Great Learning"), the Confucian treatise on self-cultivation and the harmonious ordering of collective life, in Ezra Pound's translation. Mixing voices, instruments, objects and actions through graphic and verbal notation, the score prescribes relationships between the performers more than sounds, and shares out among them the responsibility for the form. The work is inseparable from the Scratch Orchestra, which Cardew founded in London in 1969 with Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton.
The Scratch Orchestra Strasbourg grew out of an open call launched by the Musica festival in spring 2023, with no condition of level or background: amateurs and professionals, the self-taught and people with no previous practice. First gathered in September 2023, the group worked regularly under Didier Aschour, with members of the Dedalus ensemble and Strasbourg musicians versed in improvisation, graphic scores and open protocols passing on tools rather than imposing a reading. The aim was neither to reproduce a traditional orchestra nor to rebuild Cardew's, but to put his principle back into play: turning a diversity of skills into a shared resource.
On 15 September 2024 the orchestra performed all seven Paragraphs in the Saint-Paul church in Strasbourg, a concert of nearly seven hours that opened the music programme of the 42nd Musica festival, in dialogue with Mode d'emploi, the exhibition of instruction-based works at the city's museum of modern and contemporary art. The group went on working on other pieces and came back to The Great Learning for this recording, made in the same church from 27 to 29 November 2025. What it fixes is an interpretation shaped by more than two years of common practice, not a line-up assembled for a single date, which brings it close to Cardew's own idea of the orchestra as a lasting space of practice, learning and collective change.
Alongside Aschour play Lou Renaud-Bailly, Jeanne Barbieri, Stéphane Clor, Yannick Guédon, Jean-Philippe Gross and Thierry Madiot, with Jérémy Marchal on the church organ, the Pelicanto choir directed by Mathilde Mertz and the De-ci De-là choir directed by Cédric Dosch. Paragraphs 1 to 3 fill the first disc and Paragraph 4 the second; Paragraph 5 alone runs over an hour and a quarter on the third, and the fourth holds Paragraphs 6 and 7.
The booklet opens with a text by Stéphane Roth and gathers two essays. Dean Inkster's, written for the 2009 Cardew exhibition at CAC Brétigny, places the work within the composer's aesthetic and political path and shows how the dispersal of the voices opens onto a shared freedom of listening rather than a fusion of the collective. Matthieu Saladin's, first published in Revue & Corrigée in 2020, examines the devices of each Paragraph as so many attempts to contain the relations of domination that form again within any group.
49,00€
Out of stock
CD
Cornelius CARDEW
“Chamber music 1955-64”
Anton Lukoszevieze, cello, conductor. Gordon MacKay, violin. Bridget Carey, viola. Alan Thomas, guitar. Rhodri Davies, harp. Marco Blaauw, trumpet. Andrew Sparling, clarinet. David Ryan, bass clarinet, piano. Sarah Walker, piano, prepared piano. Dave Smith, prepared piano, melodica. Tania Chen, piano. Robert Coleridge, organ. Michael Parsons, conductor, electronic keyboard. Simon Allen, vibraphone, marimba.
“Solo with accompaniment” (1964). “Three rhythmic pieces for trumpet and piano” (1955). “Autumn ’60” (1960) Version I. “Material” (1964) Version II. “Second string trio” (1955). “Piece for guitar (for Stella)” (1964). “Material” (1964) Version I. “Memories of you” (1964). “Autumn ’60” (1960) Version II. “Octet ’61 for Jasper Johns”. Recorded at Gateway Studio, Kingston-upon-Thames on 6 and 7 April 2001.
“Solo with accompaniment” (1964). “Three rhythmic pieces for trumpet and piano” (1955). “Autumn ’60” (1960) Version I. “Material” (1964) Version II. “Second string trio” (1955). “Piece for guitar (for Stella)” (1964). “Material” (1964) Version I. “Memories of you” (1964). “Autumn ’60” (1960) Version II. “Octet ’61 for Jasper Johns”. Recorded at Gateway Studio, Kingston-upon-Thames on 6 and 7 April 2001.
12,00€
Out of stock
2 CD
Cornelius CARDEW
“Treatise”
“Treatise” (1963-67). For any number of musicians with any instruments, may be performed whole or in part. The QUaX Ensemble, directed by Petr Kotik. Live recording from Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1967. Program notes Petr Kotik & John Tilbury. This performance of Cardew’s monumental 193-page graphic score Treatise was recorded live in Prague in 1967 by the Czech QUaX Ensemble, directed by composer, flutist, conductor Petr Kotik. This historical recording offers a unique perspective to hear Treatise as interpreted by Cardew’s contemporaries. Kotik met Cardew in Warsaw in 1962, and they began exchanging scores by mail, including Treatise, which was a work in progress. Upon meeting again in London (1966), Cardew provided Kotik with additional portions of the score and insights. Fresh from this encounter, Kotik started the QUaX Ensemble upon his return to Prague in 1966. The first thing QUaX did was to rehearse Treatise, working through the pages Kotik had: "The piece was very important for getting all of us together, musically speaking, besides having a lot of fun working out individual pages by having all the musicians contribute ideas and suggestions. We worked regularly over a long period of time, ending up with a 2-hour version of the piece ... only performed once, at the concert on October 15, 1967 in Prague." It is presented here. Cardew said: “Treatise is a continuous weaving and combining of a host of graphic elements (of which only a few are recognizably related to musical symbols) into a long visual composition, the meaning of which in terms of sound is not specified in any way. ... Any number of musicians using any media are free to participate in a ’reading’ of this score ... and each is free to interpret it in his own way”. Liner notes by Petr Kotik and Cardew’s friend and colleague John Tilbury. Tilbury says of this performance: "There is much to admire in this 1967 version of Treatise by the QUaX Ensemble from Prague: the feeling of spontaneity, its uninhibitedness, the rough-hewn sounds, the accidental, the half-intended, the blurred." High resolution 96khz, 24-bit remastering from the original analog tape.
26,00€