Now available in paperback

Now we have a thousand-page book to fill in the details of his life, written with affection, humour and perspicacity by the pianist John Tilbury. Tilbury was Cardew’s friend and colleague, and a one-time (and part-time) fellow-traveller on the Maoist road; he has spent a quarter of a century writing this book. Aficionados will love his account; others might have preferred a more succinct version; yet for all its length, Tilbury’s book is a sparkling account of a moment in British history when debates about music, art, poetry and revolutionary politics became the obsessive concern of a small group of talented practitioners. It has been relegated to a footnote in most cultural histories of the time, but Tilbury provides a more complete story.

(LRB 12 March 2009)

Copula | hardback 1069 pp. |ISBN: 9780952549239