Sorabji's Sandcastle

[lescamil]

There is (was?) a recording of Jonathan Powell playing the first part of Opus Clavicembalisticum floating around on the internet (I think it was on his website for a time). If you can find it, I urge you to listen to it. It sounds like a completely different work in the hands of a more than competent interpreter like Powell. Remember, John Ogdon's recording was done shortly before his death, and his best playing days were behind him (it's amazing he did it at all), and, well, Madge's is a travesty. Powell really opens up your eyes to the work if you only know how Odgon and Madge have played it. Trust me, it really is a worthwhile work!

[Sequentia]

There is (was?) a recording of Jonathan Powell playing the first part of Opus Clavicembalisticum floating around on the internet (I think it was on his website for a time). If you can find it, I urge you to listen to it. It sounds like a completely different work in the hands of a more than competent interpreter like Powell. Remember, John Ogdon's recording was done shortly before his death, and his best playing days were behind him (it's amazing he did it at all), and, well, Madge's is a travesty. Powell really opens up your eyes to the work if you only know how Odgon and Madge have played it. Trust me, it really is a worthwhile work!

It's available here:

http://www.sorabji-files.com/music.php

[DieNacht]

It's available here:

http://www.sorabji-files.com/music.php

Thanks for that link.

[Fagotterdämmerung]

  Any interesting developments in terms of recordings and performances of Sorabji's work? Gulistan was my gateway drug, and my ears are always flapping in the wind for Sorabji performances. ( I don't always feel like seventy-two hours of piano noodling, but when I do...  )

  Actually, one of the aspects that charm me about Sorabji is how little filler there is. Certainly some repetition is inevitable, but listening to his works is like watching a lava lamp: the shapes are familiar, but always just a little different.

[gutstrings]

Sorabji's music has fascinated me for a long time-- holds up to repeated listening sessions without boredom or fatigue. Whirling patterns, layered and intertwined, but coherent throughout.  Nears the top of my modern composers "favorites" list.

[calyptorhynchus]

I decided that as Brain was getting mainstream (nearly all the symphonies recorded now) I had better start on Sorabji.


[In fact one of the first CDs I never saw was the BIS Madge version of the OC, this was c 1988 in Heffers Bookshop Music Department, Cambridge UK. After seeing this I looked up Sorabji in reference works, so I have always been aware of him, without ever hearing a note of his music].

So far I have only been listening to what you can hear on Youtube, mainly the three nocturnes: Le jardin parfumé, Djami and Gulistan and some of the Transcendental Studies.

I have been favourably impressed with these, normally I am bored by piano music, but these pieces seem to impress me despite having little obvious structure, or thematic unity, and mixing textures and tonal and atonal passages seemingly at random. I think I like them because I sense that Sorabji is so busy trying to cram the whole of experience into each piece that he has no time to lapse into the 'pianistic' mode. In Le jardin parfumé I can 'hear' the perfume, and the wind, rain, birdsong, and the various moods of the music succeeding one another seemingly at random and it seems to create a record of vibrant sensual being.

Sorabji seems to annoy a lot of people and the most common comment is that his music is 'pretentious'. To me this seems like missing the point, to be pretentious he would have to be pointing to this or that passage as of the highest value, but instead the complexity and scale of music seems to be saying that no individual passage is of any particular importance, what is significant is consciousness and the technique that concatenates them.

Anyway, I will carry on investigating this music.

Just a couple of questions:
1.       As Sorabji's music for solo piano is so very difficult, why hasn't anyone arranged some of his pieces for two or three pianos, to spread the notes around as it were?
2.       I see that Powell's recordings of the OC have disappeared from the internet, does this mean that a recording has been issued/is about to be issued?

[The new erato]

That 2nd line "never" doesn't chime with me, and I never heard of Brain - you mean Edgar Fliflet Bræin?   

[asin]B000026242[/asin]

[calyptorhynchus]

Havergal Brain (1876-1972), so called because only intelligent people can appreciate his music 

[The new erato]

I don't have a brain, so I have no idea which CD was the first one i never saw.

[In fact one of the first CDs I never saw was the BIS Madge version of the OC,

[calyptorhynchus]

Typo for 'ever'.

I would have thought the substance of a comment is what you reply to, not the typos, however funny they may be.

[The new erato]

Typo for 'ever'.

I would have thought the substance of a comment is what you reply to, not the typos, however funny they may be.

Sorry for teasing you just a little, and nice to have some company in the "masters of typos" department. I have just one Sorabji CD, which I enjoy quite a lot:

[calyptorhynchus]

Looks like that one is out of the catalogue at the moment.

[lescamil]

Sorry for teasing you just a little, and nice to have some company in the "masters of typos" department. I have just one Sorabji CD, which I enjoy quite a lot:

Gulistan is great. Jonathan Powell's reading of the work is just as essential as Hopkins'. The other two nocturnes, Djami and Le Jardin Parfumé, are also essential listening. Powell's Djami is a stunner in particular. The three nocturnes are his most approachable original works, in my opinion (obviously the four pastiches will be favorites). They highlight his sense of fantastical, athematic writing and improvisatory style.

[snyprrr]

Whoever said I should reexamine Scriabin might've had something there... 'Galustan' sounds great, with Sorabji playing in his living room, on YT... gotta love the "garlands", ever cascading, sickly sweet hothouse flowers...

[calyptorhynchus]

I was listening to more of the Transcendental Studies and they haven't palled yet.

I was thinking of how I feel listening to Sorabji's music, and it occurs to me, as I said before, that he was mystic, concerned in his music is describe everything, not just certain aspects of things. Do any of you know the Borges' story 'The Aleph'? The aleph is a concept in Jewish mysticism, a point in space from which all other points in the Universe can be observed at once. The Borges story is an amusing description of the narrator's experience of an aleph. Anyway, sounds like a pretty good analogy for listening to a piece by Sorabji.

[ahinton]

I've just seen this thread and others here that mention Sorabji so, whilst the concept of a bucket and spade as an aid to appreciating his music is is clear as the mud on the beach at Weston-super-Mare, I thought that, for those here who are interested but might not already be aware, there is a website dedicated to him and his work at www.sorabji-archive.co.uk which includes a brochure with a catalogue of his scores, literary writings and discography and much other information besides. Requests for information and material are welcomed at sorabji-archive@lineone.net .

The website also includes a link to the Sorabji forum on which, just in the past 24 hours or so, a thread on "favourite Sorabji works" has been initiated. I have responded to it as follows:

"What's so good about this topic is that, over the years, it has actually become increasingly possible for people to choose their "favourite Sorabji works". At the beginning of 1980, for example, there had been a handful of performances by Yonty Solomon and Michael Habermann, there were no commercial recordings and very few scores were available; today, there have been many hundreds of performances and/or broadcasts by dozens of performers in at least 25 countries, there are at least 40 recordings of or including his work and every known score is available both on paper and in .pdf format, many in splendid typeset editions. Long may this continue and long may ever greater numbers of listeners be given more and more opportunities to decide for themselves which are their favourite Sorabji works."

I hope that this is helpful.

[ahinton]

Give me more Sorabji, I DEMAND MORE! 

Well, as I've pointed out above, there's now a fair amount of his work around and it is indeed fortunate that almost all of those 40 or so recordings remain available to this day. A further clutch of them is anticipated between now and the end of next year (10 or more CDs, in fact) and, Kevin Bowyer also plans to record all three of his organ symphonies but that project, which will almost certainly require at least 16 CDs(!), looks to be a few years away yet.

Jonathan Powell is putting together a European tour of Opus Clavicembalisticum begining next year and Kevin Bowyer is aiming to do the same for the first two organ symphonies commencing 2018, although he's scheduled to give the US première of the monster second in Iowa University on 10 February next.

[ahinton]

Thanks very much for that, I came across that forum at one point but I didn't end up joining for some reason. There are many, many things I am interested in learning about his work! 

Well, the website has a good deal of information and there are two books -  Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, ed. Prof. Paul Rapoport (available from The Sorabji Archive) and the more recent (and ongoing) Opus Sorabjianum by Prof. Marc-André Roberge which is available free to download from the Sorabji Resource Site at http://www.mus.ulaval.ca/roberge/srs/07-prese.htm ; the Sorabji Reource Site at http://www.mus.ulaval.ca/roberge/srs/index.htm also has a wealth of other information.

Should you have any questions or need scores, literary writings &c., please feel free to write to sorabji-archive@lineone.net . In the meantime, you are, of course, welcome to join the forum!

[ahinton]

Sorabji: Highlights from the organ symphonies

ATTENTION ALL ORGANISTS! (and anyone else interested, of course)...

The organist Kevin Bowyer has posted the following on his Facebook page:

"THERE'S NO ORGAN MUSIC BY K S SORABJI THAT WILL FIT INTO A NORMAL CONCERT PROGRAMME". This is now false!

I'm preparing a series of extracts from the middle movement of Symphony 2, varying in length from 3 to 10 minutes, each able to stand alone in a concert programme. Individual variations (a pair of variations in one case) that are effectively concert studies, quite able to hold their own without the rest of the movement. There'll be eight small volumes, just a few pages each, the first of which will be issued in March 2017. They will include comprehensive and detailed suggestions as to how to go about tackling the various specific difficulties. This is the mature Sorabji - lyrical, fiery, colourful, dramatic, mercurial, elegant, romantic, totally original. If you're only familiar with the dark, volcanic deity of the first symphony, this is a voice you won't have heard yet. Can't wait? The Toccata from Symphony 2, although not itself part of my forthcoming series, is already available separately from the Sorabji Archive, as print or PDF download. The address is http://www.sorabji-archive.co.uk.

Occupying about 14 minutes in performance, the Toccata is a tough nut to crack, tougher than anything in the upcoming series, but there will be players out there who can do it - and I've no doubt they will. What's kept the name of K S Sorabji separate from the mainstream of 20th century organ music history is the fact that his 17 hours of organ music is given to us in just three huge pieces, overwhelmingly problematic to rehearse and schedule. But he is a genius, largely unknown to organists, though deserving of a place at the top table of truly great writers for the instrument. I hope that, with this new prospect, things are about to change."

Since the world première of Sorabji's Organ Symphony No.1 almost 30 years ago, Sorabji's works for organ solo have been associated almost exclusively with just one name – the extraordinary virtuoso organist Kevin Bowyer.

Sorabji's organ music comprises just three symphonies, each cast in three movements, the first of relatively modest proportions (a mere bagatelle, indeed, at a whisker under 2 hours!) and the other two of a monumentality rare even for Sorabji, their durations being at least 8 hours apiece!

So far, Kevin has recorded Organ Symphony No. 1 (released in 1989 and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 1991) and performed it on seven subsequent occasions in as many countries; he has also given two complete and several partial performances of Organ Symphony No. 2, with a third complete performance scheduled for 10 February 2017 in University of Iowa, US.

Kevin's remarkable critical typeset editions of all three symphonies are a tremendous contribution to the project to edit all of Sorabji's scores; however, the prospect of preparing performances of the second and third of them remains uniquely daunting. Kevin's concern about the risk that this will keep them outside the mainstream of organ repertoire is matched by his desire – which many surely share – to hear at least something of this music played by other organists and to encourage them to take up this challenge.

Kevin's aim is therefore to persuade organists to prepare these items as standalone pieces for inclusion in recital programmes, with the additional hope that some might be selected by juries of international organ competitions as test pieces for candidates.

This project is accordingly launched with the brilliantly effervescent celestial firework display that is the Toccata which closes the opening section of the finale of Organ Symphony No. 2; it is a coruscating virtuoso display piece of the highest order that transcends all expectations of an organ toccata. This is already available separately; please visit the catalogue of works on the Sorabji Archive website (www.sorabji-archive.co.uk ) for information about it; copies of this, either in paper format or as a .pdf file, may be obtained by emailing sorabji-archive.co.uk .

Watch this space for the addition of more such extracts in 2017 (these will be taken from the symphony's massive middle movement Theme and Variations).

We wish the very best of success to all intrepid organists who take up this viscerally exciting challenge!

[Karl Henning]

Zowie.