John Tilbury spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday at the CCA in Glasgow
(Centre for Contemporary Arts, but should be Cafe for &c.) giving
two daytime concerts a day, working his way through the entire score
of Cornelius Cardew`s Treatise; at night, two Morton Feldman (one
early, one late period) and one Howard Skempton. I didn`t make them
all, tho` I know folk who did.
Sad to say, the noise from the piano must have disturbed those trying
to hold loud conversations in the bar next door, and the kitchen
staff, I`d guess, could hardly hear themselves throw plates around -
but the organisers didn`t let Tilbury get too much in the way. It
was an interesting idea to project the graphic score on the far wall;
lest it get too interesting, we were only allowed to see the right
hand page (as Tilbury followed double pages), and poor lighting made
that one page almost too faint to see.
Tilbury, against these odds, was imperturbable and skilful. He even
gave an unscheduled, free talk on ethical considerations in
composition and performance, which dwelt on a liberating reticence in
the notation of his favoured composers, and mellifluous restraint in
the noise you end up making, adding up to an ideal analogy for
non-aggression. I asked him about this afterwards, as, during one of
the last pages of Treatise, which has marks which are Cardew`s
infuriated wife`s attempt to deface the composition incorporated into
it, he was scoring a three inch iron bolt across a huge paiste GONG,
with violence, when the bolt flew out of his hand and hit the wall,
eight inches from my left eye.
If he is in your area, go, in safety goggles.
robin
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|