In 1975 when Four Principles was released, Cornelius Cardew was comfortably within his third stylistic phase of musical development. Unlike the groundbreaking experimental activities of his most famous pieces, 'Treatise' and 'The Great Learning' the music on Four Principles marked a repudiation of the musical avant-garde that Cardew himself had championed in England. The collection of 13 solo piano pieces represent a return to an aesthetic Cardew knew and understood: the beautiful music of clarity and eclecticism reformulated through the poetry, folk ballads, melodies and resistance songs of China and Ireland.