The Melancholy of the Jellyfish Form: A Conversation with Anton Lukoszevieze on Autumn ‘60 by Cornelius Cardew

Autumn ’60 by Cornelius Cardew is a rare example of a composition that perfectly balances a fine set of rules with indeterminacy. Anton Lukoszevieze, director of contemporary chamber music ensemble Apartment House, has played it with various musicians. This conversation contains some of his recordings, each offering different takes on that piece. The differences and similarities in these interpretations form the composition’s ever-changing shape, suggesting that the piece exists between different versions rather than in any single one. In our conversation, Lukoszevieze describes different aspects of Autumn ’60 and how allocating tasks to different members of musical ensembles creates a metamorphic collective sound. 

—Daniel Muzyczuk

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Daniel Muzyczuk: In 1962 Cornelius Cardew gave a talk in the historical lecture series at the Heretic Society in Cambridge on his composition entitled Autumn ‘60: “What are the characteristics of the music we have just listened to? What emotions has it aroused? What impressions does it create?”1 Isn’t it interesting that he starts this talk with questions dealing with affects, not structures?

Anton Lukoszevieze: Maybe he thought that he had to approach the discussion of his work from a different angle, because of the specific audience. We—musicologists, musicians, performers, etc.—tend to focus on the structure of things and how they’re made, how they’re constructed, and how we play them.

DM: The lecture stresses the feeling of melancholy that might be evoked by the piece. But he wants to avoid any romanticization of this music. How should we understand that melancholy?

AL: I think the sense of melancholy in Autumn ’60 is connected with failure. It’s always only partly a success, but it is also designed to fail because of the intrinsic structure—in conventional terms. When it was written in 1960, literally everyone who was a male composer, especially in Europe, was trying to fix music, trying to make everything highly notated. They thought truth was in the details and how things were made. This was the peak of total serialism, even if total serialism never actually existed. So I think that one could describe Autumn ‘60 as a melancholic piece, but not because of its possible sadness.

DM: Given the political agenda of Cardew, maybe this sadness is close to left-wing melancholia? It’s also interesting how the work was created. Cardew had a vision of the entire piece at once. He saw it as a sound produced by a large number of musicians and, strangely, thought it should evoke reminiscences to Mozart.

AL: It’s funny that you say that because when I used to conduct this piece, I always said in rehearsal that I wanted the piece to sound like Mozart. This comparison helped musicians who were very reluctant to play it because it does require a certain amount of dedication from each musician. They have to know what they’re doing because in a sense it is a bit like a game. You just have to be very aware of and understand the rules and instructions. But it’s not that difficult a piece, and it’s actually quite exhilarating to play because you’re always in a state of observing what’s written and observing the conductor, or ignoring what’s written and ignoring the conductor. There is a dialectic, I think, between precision and improvisation.

DM: Can you can you describe how you have approached the performance of the piece with your band Apartment House? The score is open not only for interpretation, but also for collaboration in writing it. There are empty bars for musicians to fill in.

AL: Essentially, the overall texture of the piece is quite pointillist. That’s because Cardew notates single beats within bars, so each event happens during a beat, or for up to four beats if one is interpreting the “IV” sign. The performance could be very slow or very fast (according to the tempi of the conductor). The performers sometimes have the opportunity to do whatever they want in a single beat. However, there’s not a lot of time for things to happen and to be expressive or to construct some great melody or some very complex series of sounds. Your freedom of choice is limited.

DM: Howard Skempton, one of the composers close to Cardew, wrote that Autumn ’60 achieves precision in two ways:

Free from context, a musical symbol is remarkably precise. Take as examples the crescendo symbol and portamento symbol. In context they can be vague and thus liable to be treated with scant regard. Autumn ’60 avoids this danger, by making the performer responsible for the precise placing of these precise symbols, responsible but free. Cage would say “Free without being foolish.”2

AL: The piece always takes a different shape. It will always sound different and there is this sense that it’s like multiple drawings that you are constantly erasing. In some ways it’s a game piece, so it’s a precursor to works by John Zorn, for example.

DM: From a sociological and political point of view, what’s very interesting is that Skempton introduces freedom and responsibility at the same time, and they are shared by everyone involved in the piece. So everyone is responsible: the conductor can control the tempo and orchestration, and the performers can interpret the score and add their own notes. There is even a way to involve someone who does not want to be creative. The conductor has the liberty to fill the empty bars for that person. So there is also the possibility of a very traditional approach to music performance, one in which a musician is asked to play notes written by someone else.

AL: To a certain extent there is a lot of freedom, but I don’t think you can just not perform the piece and ignore everything. Otherwise, you’re actually not playing the piece correctly. Even given the opportunity to ignore certain instructions and do what you want, you can’t just do what you want. You still have a responsibility. You’re still part of the team. Cardew also undermines the traditional role of the conductor, because the conductor is actually on the same level as the performers.

DM: Except performers are adding material while the conductor is controlling the time.

AL: Unless the conductor, as I said, removes themself from the time aspect and just goes like this [gives a downbeat]—then the performers are free to play through the material in their own time.

DM: Coming back to the melancholic element of the piece—if you’re calling your work Autumn ’60, it will be associated with melancholy. It’s your own damn fault.

AL: The basic pitch material adds to that. There’s a pentatonic pitch gamut that runs through all of Autumn ’60. You can hear it in many different ways, but it does sound a bit like F minor, the key of F minor. There’s a fundamental F that happens in the very first bar, and then there’s an A flat as well, which comes back. But then there’s also a G flat—minor second, etc.

DM: Based on the combination of pitches used in the composition, you can recognize it even if it is being played by different ensembles with different methodologies, right?

AL: I think so. The piece is a bit like a jellyfish. In the water jellyfish always look different from each other, but they essentially have the same form.

DM: We’ve started with emotions. Since you’ve performed the piece many times, I want to hear your observations about this feeling of freeness and responsibility that is shared by the performers.

AL: I think the liberation effect is minimal. I don’t think people are performing and always thinking, “I can do what I want in this bar.” The thing that I do love about the piece is that it always sounds different, but similar. There’s this slightly crystalline feeling about the way the music unfolds. You have this feeling like a pinball machine; in some sections sounds are literally bouncing off each other. So I think the piece is a happy paradox, one that’s quite fulfilling and not as perplexing as some paradoxes. I think it actually grows outwards.

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The four recordings of Autumn ’60 by Apartment House: