Emma McGann PDP

Your Own Interpretation: Cornelius Cardew

Really enjoyed today’s session with John. We looked at Cornelius Cardew’s ‘Treatise’.  With no defined symbols representing timbre, pitch, duration or dynamics present on the score, ‘Treatise’ asks the performer to express their own interpretation from the ambiguous geometric shapes, lines, numbers and incomplete scribbles notated on the graphic score.  From a performers point of view, the piece seemed extremely daunting at first, but once we opened our imaginations to the possible meanings of each shape the ideas began to flow a lot easier. Working as a group enabled us to share different ideas and develop on them collectively.  I’m thinking about working on this graphic score for the analysis presentation next term.  Composing a pastiche graphic score could be quite interesting!

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tags #cornelius cardew #treatise #graphic score #composition