Cornelius Cardew - The Great Learning 11/12th July London

[Dax]

The whole of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning is to be performed in the Union Chapel in London UK on 11th and 12th July.   

This is a large-scale composition in 7 paragraphs, based on a translation of the Chinese text of Confucius. The music was written between 1968 and 1970, and is dedicated to the Scratch Orchestra, of which Cardew was one of the original founders. The first chapter of the Confucian classic is used as a basis for a wide variety of musical and visual interpretations, and the complete work calls for a large number of trained and untrained musicians, singing, speaking, drumming, playing stones and whistles, performing actions and gestures, improvising, using conventional and unconventional instruments and other sound resources. The 7 Paragraphs range in duration from about 30 minutes to 2 hours: total duration is between 7 and 8 hours.

Details about the performance can be found at http://unionchapel.org.uk/pages/the_great_learning_by_cornelius_cardew.html

There's an interesting article on this extraordinary work at http://experimentalmusic.co.uk/emc/Jems_files/AndersonChineseGL.pdf

Should anybody be interested in taking part, PM me (I'm one of the organisers).

[Mandryka]

The whole of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning is to be performed in the Union Chapel in London UK on 11th and 12th July.   

This is a large-scale composition in 7 paragraphs, based on a translation of the Chinese text of Confucius. The music was written between 1968 and 1970, and is dedicated to the Scratch Orchestra, of which Cardew was one of the original founders. The first chapter of the Confucian classic is used as a basis for a wide variety of musical and visual interpretations, and the complete work calls for a large number of trained and untrained musicians, singing, speaking, drumming, playing stones and whistles, performing actions and gestures, improvising, using conventional and unconventional instruments and other sound resources. The 7 Paragraphs range in duration from about 30 minutes to 2 hours: total duration is between 7 and 8 hours.

Details about the performance can be found at http://unionchapel.org.uk/pages/the_great_learning_by_cornelius_cardew.html

There's an interesting article on this extraordinary work at http://experimentalmusic.co.uk/emc/Jems_files/AndersonChineseGL.pdf

Should anybody be interested in taking part, PM me (I'm one of the organisers).

Thanks for letting me know. I shall try to be there.

[amw]

The whole of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning is to be performed in the Union Chapel in London UK on 11th and 12th July.   

How'd it go?

[Dax]

Pretty well I reckon, but it's difficult to give a proper assessment if you were one of the performers: if things turn out rather differently than expected, you have to wait for the recording for confirmation. Paragraph 7 (entirely vocal) certainly seemed to come across well - the Union Chapel's acoustic being particularly favourable for massed vocals. But then the more impressive Paragraphs (3, 4 and 6) seemed well served also. The audience was pretty appreciative anyway and the performers pleased with the way things had gone.

[Karl Henning]

Splendid!