Changing the system: the music of Christian Wolff

Changing the System is piece by American composer Christian Wolff for a variable number of musicians. It was written in the early 1970s when Wolff’s music was undergoing certain changes and attempting to address the changing political situation around him. This chapter looks at the piece, Changing the System, both in terms of its constituent parts and materials, and in the broader context of experimental and indeterminate musical traditions and their relationship with ‘political’ art. The final section compares Wolff’s work with Luigi Nono, Hans Werner Henze, and Cornelius Cardew, as well as the broader issues of time and participation within avant-garde practices.