As a closing activity for the exhibition Instruccions – Relacions entre l’escolta i la mirada, the Museu de la Música, together with the Difraccions series, presents a laboratory dedicated to the study and interpretation of Treatise (1963-1967) by Cornelius Cardew, one of the most significant works of 20th-century experimental music.
With 193 pages of unconventional graphic notation and the use of abstract symbols instead of traditional notation, Treatise lacks precise performance instructions, leaving complete freedom for performers to decide how to transform the graphics into sound. From a radically open and politically engaged approach to composition and performance, Cardew questions the boundaries between creator and performer.
The laboratory is open to anyone interested in research, experimentation, and sound and visual creation. No musical knowledge is required.
Laboratory led by Magda Polo Pujades and Violeta Mayoral
Programme
10:00 h – Doors open
10:15 h - Instructions, for what?
Presentation of the laboratory by Alba Font, designer and curator of the exhibition Instruccions - Relacions entre l’escolta i la mirada.
10:30 h - Interpreting Cardew’s Treatise through Wittgenstein’s Philosophy
By Magda Polo Pujades, Professor of Aesthetics and Music at the Department of Art History, University of Barcelona.
Magda Polo presents an analysis of Treatise (1963-67) by Cornelius Cardew through the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly focusing on early Wittgenstein. The work questions the limits of notation and musical interpretation, as well as the concepts of freedom and improvisation. Inspired by the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Cardew explores the relationship between signs, images, and meanings as a representation of the world, a fundamental idea in Wittgenstein. Treatise challenges the traditional function of the score and shifts creative responsibility to the performers, similar to how Wittgenstein suggests that meaning depends on usage. The philosophical influence extends beyond structure, shaping the very idea of understanding and action in music, transforming performance into an exploratory process rather than mere reproduction. Ultimately, Treatise is presented not only as a composition but also as a philosophical experiment on communication and meaning.
12:00 h – Break
12:15 h - On the Concept and Practice of Escolta Total
By Violeta Mayoral, artist
The concept of Escolta Total refers to "that ephemeral and almost imperceptible affect" that has the power to place us in our environment at the precise moment we perceive it. It is an attentional state that, rather than isolating certain stimuli to separate them from the world and focus on them, seeks to integrate everything that has been relegated to the background and discarded as part of our experience.
13:00 h - Colloquium
Facilitated and moderated by Barbara Held
14:00 h – Break
15:30 h - Escolta Total – Workshop
Led by Violeta Mayoral
The workshop proposes an approach to Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise score based on the research lines of artist Violeta Mayoral concerning attention at the limits of sound materiality. With the aim of establishing a dialogue between the worlds of possibilities that Cornelius Cardew proposes in Treatise and Violeta Mayoral’s concept of Escolta Total, both frameworks of thought will be articulated through a theoretical-practical exercise open to various expressive languages, focusing on pause and rhythm as fundamental elements of listening, as well as interdependence with the acoustic environment, drawing on the infinite semiosis of C. S. Pierce.
18:30 h – End of the event