Cardew was born on 7 May 1936, in
Winchcombe,
Gloucestershire. He was the second of three sons whose parents were both artists—his father was the potter
Michael Cardew. The family moved to
Wenford Bridge Pottery in
Cornwall a few years after his birth where he was first nurtured as a chorister at
Canterbury Cathedral, and later at
The King's School, Canterbury which had evacuated to the
Carlyon Bay Hotel for the war. His musical career thus began as a chorister. From 1953 to 1957, Cardew studied piano, cello, and composition at the
Royal Academy of Music in London.
Career Having won a scholarship to study at the recently established
Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne, Cardew served as an assistant to
Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1958 to 1960. He was given the task of independently working out the composition plans for the German composer's score
Carré, and Stockhausen noted: As a musician he was outstanding because he was not only a good pianist but also a good improviser and I hired him to become my assistant in the late 50s and he worked with me for over three years. I gave him work to do which I have never given to any other musician, which means to work with me on the score I was composing. He was one of the best examples that you can find among musicians because he was well informed about the latest theories of composition as well as being a performer.
Indeterminacy and American experimentalists In 1958, Cardew witnessed a series of concerts in Cologne by
John Cage and
David Tudor which had a considerable influence on him, leading him to abandon post-Schönbergian
serial composition and develop the indeterminate and experimental scores for which he is best known. He was particularly prominent in introducing the works of American experimental composers such as
Morton Feldman,
La Monte Young,
Earle Brown,
Christian Wolff, and Cage to an English audience during the early to mid sixties. Cardew's most important scores from his experimental period are
Treatise (1963–67), a 193-page
graphic score which allows for considerable freedom of interpretation, and
The Great Learning, a work in seven parts or "Paragraphs," based on translations of
Confucius by
Ezra Pound.
The Great Learning instigated the formation of the Scratch Orchestra. During those years, he took a course in graphic design Cardew published 'Cage; Ghost or Monster?' and
Stockhausen Serves Imperialism in 1972 and 1974, respectively. These essays called out his former colleagues, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, for serving imperialist and bourgeois agendas through their art. After this, Cardew was ostracized from the England music scene and began engaging in more political issues.
Political involvements Cardew became a member of the
Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) in the 1970s, and in 1979 was a co-founder and member of the Central Committee of the
Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). His creative output from the demise of the Scratch Orchestra until his death reflected his political commitment. At a 1976 meeting of the Central London branch of the
Musicians Union, he tabled a controversial motion denouncing
David Bowie as a fascist, after Bowie said that "Britain is ready for a fascist leader... I think Britain could benefit from a fascist leader." The motion read: Although the vote was a tie, at twelve for and twelve against, a second motion was passed with a majority of 15–2.
Legacy Tony Harris (2013) argues that Cardew's inclusion in Wikipedia or in other encyclopedias such as
New Grove has the effect of taming his legacy as a composer and ignoring those aspects of his work other than those which fit with those of a contributor to the Western classical music canon. In other terms, it fails to "define his attitude or approach to music making and (makes) no attempt to illustrate his influence or impact...Composers, if they are to be remembered and valued within the Western classical context, must leave behind masterworks" to justify their being encyclopedized in a format whose guidelines implicitly dictate "what a composer biography should look like".
Death Cardew died on 13 December 1981 aged 45, the victim of a hit-and-run car crash near his London home in
Leyton. The driver was never found. Musician
John Tilbury, in his book
Cornelius Cardew—A Life Unfinished suggests that the possibility that Cardew was killed because of his prominent Marxist-Leninist involvement "cannot be ruled out". Tilbury quotes a friend of Cardew's, John Maharg; "
MI5 are quite ruthless; people don't realise it. And they kill pre-emptively". A 70th Birthday Anniversary Festival, including live music from all phases of Cardew's career and a symposium on his music, took place on 7 May 2006 at the
Cecil Sharp House in London. ==In popular culture==