1. In Praise of the Intifada by DAVE SMITH.
11” Performed by John Tilbury, piano Recorded in Leeds, date and recordist unknown.
Based on Palestinian songs.
2. Boolavogue, in three movements, for two pianos by CORNELIUS CARDEW.
15” Performed by John Tilbury and Susan Bradshaw, pianos. Recording date unknown.
Cardew’s piece for two pianos is described by the composer as “attempts at handling folk material in classical terms; in particular that they give expression to the passion and drive of the working people’s struggle against the barbarity of national oppression and wage -slavery.”
3. 21 Questions by JOHN TILBURY.
3’ 45 Performed by John Tilbury, piano and tape.
Questions is a ‘piece’ I produced for an anti-war concert in London a few years ago, after 9/11 but before the US war on the poor in Afghanistan and Iraq. The questions pertain to the Twin Towers and are read out. They are accompanied by a collage of Protestant church music. It is a kind of court; but the accused, Bush and Blair, are not in the box because they do not recognise international law. They are represented, appropriately, by the religious music. In my introduction I dedicated the piece to the victims, to the people who died that day. I was referring to the 25,000 people who died in the most appalling circumstances, many in excruciating agony: the 25,000 people who died, in abject poverty, of starvation, a number which is repeated every day of every week of every month of every year. The unfortunate 3000 people in the Twin Towers were also victims, but there was a difference. In the aftermath of the deaths of the 25,000 people nobody asked their names, their age and nationality, enquired after their families, their education, their taste in Art, their aspirations. There was no roster, no commemoration. On the contrary they were, in their deaths, consigned by the rich and powerful, to everlasting anonymity and to “the enormous condescension of posterity.”