Extremely Long Piano Compositions - What's Their Point?

[Florestan]

Then why starting this thread? It was directed against S? A need to critize back the critic as a sort of resentment (so being insulted).

Please, read the OP. It's about Sorabji's and other people's piano music being so excessively long as to preclude any public performance and make most pianists shy away from recording it, and my asking what's the point in composing such works. Sorabji's critical views have got nothing to do and I brought them into discussion only today, one full week after creating the thread, and only in order to stress a point.

Btw, it's rather funny. The Sorabji thread went for 6 pages over 16 years, whereas this thread is already at page 11 during a single week. I might have inadvertently done his GMG status and fame a service. 

[Henk]

Please, read the OP. It's about Sorabji's and other people's piano music being so excessively long as to preclude any public performance and make most pianists shy away from recording it, and my asking what's the point in composing such works. Sorabji's critical views have got nothing to do and I brought them into discussion only today, one full week after creating the thread, and only in order to stress a point.

Btw, it's rather funny. The Sorabji thread went for 6 pages over 16 years, whereas this thread is already at page 11 during a single week. I might have inadvertently done his GMG status and fame a service. 

I still suspect it's resentment, it works unconciously. No worries, it's normal. <psychiatrist smiley>

[Florestan]

Actually, I have found the answer to my question: what's the point? It is obliquely but plainly contained in this 315-page, thoroughly researched and copiously documented Ph. D. Thesis:

K. S. Sorabji on Neglected Works: Counter-Canon as Cultural Critique

Sean McMenamin

Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

International Centre for Music Studies
Newcastle University

which was written with assistance from Alistair Hinton (friend of Sorabji and curator of The Sorabji Archive) and Marc-André Roberge (author of the definitive book on Sorabji, Opus Sorabjianum, which I linked to in a previous post) and which can be downloaded here:

https://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/3309

And the answer is simple: the point is precisely to place the music outside the reach of the average listener and make it attractive and interesting only to a small circle of connoisseurs; this is elitist music by design, written specifically for an elite; the excessive longueur is not a bug, it's a feature.

This is recommended reading for anyone but especially for people who still think otherwise.

[Karl Henning]

That's fine but consider this: if you skip two bars from a Chopin prelude you audibly botch it, whereas entire sections could probably be skipped from Sequentia ciclica and most people wouldn't even notice.

At the risk of interrupting your new-found favorite pastime, I'm presently reading Martin Chuzzlewit. More than once with Dickens, and I don't mind speculating that the problem may partly lie in an unquantified change in my powers of concentration since my stroke, I'll "speed-read" through some paragraphs and will therefore miss (obviously) some material which the author took trouble to compose, without impairing my ability to follow the plot. If you don't want to listen to the Sequentia cyclica, then by no means listen to it. Be at liberty.

[Karl Henning]

This is recommended reading for anyone but especially for people who still think otherwise.

Congratulations on having given yourself a permission structure for denigrating the music. I'm not sure this is worth the bother of repeating, since you've disregarded the point before, no doubt in your determination to keep true to your original implicit premise that there can be no "point" to the music of which you will deign to approve. Whatever motivations lie behind the composition of any piece, they may or may not matter in the actual result, which is a piece of music which listeners may or may not enjoy. You may be in the elitist minority of people who care very much about dismissing this music as an "ivory tower" exercise, something we might even accuse Bach of in Die Kunst der Fuge.

[Spotted Horses]

That's fine but consider this: if you skip two bars from a Chopin prelude you audibly botch it, whereas entire sections could probably be skipped from Sequentia ciclica and most people wouldn't even notice.

I can imagine Florestan standing up in the back of the concert hall after a performance of the Diabelli variations, shouting "Damn it, that was only 32 variations, I was counting!"

[Karl Henning]

Alistair Hinton (friend of Sorabji and curator of The Sorabji Archive)

And, a participant here at GMG. @ahinton 

[Henk]

Congratulations on having given yourself a permission structure for denigrating the music. I'm not sure this is worth the bother of repeating, since you've disregarded the point before, no doubt in your determination to keep true to your original implicit premise that there can be no "point" to the music of which you will deign to approve. Whatever motivations lie behind the composition of any piece, they may or may not matter in the actual result, which is a piece of music which listeners may or may not enjoy. You may be in the elitist minority of people who care very much about dismissing this music as an "ivory tower" exercise, something we might even accuse Bach of in Die Kunst der Fuge.

It's populism rather than elitism I would say.

[Brian]

Actually, I have found the answer to my question: what's the point?

If you are concerned that people are being rude to you, this is a good place to stop and reflect. Several people have answered your question with great eloquence, personal insight, and knowledge from composers' points of views. Instead of thanking them or trying to see the world from their perspective, you found a paper you claim supports your original contempt.

Now, 315 pages is a lot to ask people to read just for the sake of an internet argument, but the paper actually sounds interesting, precisely because the abstract doesn't even slightly say what you summarize it as saying.

In any case, if Sorabjites, Long Piano Cyclists, Youngians, and Rileyphiles want to keep discussing and praising this fascinatingly weird bit of repertoire, and the way that it challenges/changes the way we listen and experience music, maybe they'd be wiser to do so in other threads rather than this one, if the OP is going to treat this one as a trap.

[Karl Henning]

It's populism rather than elitism I would say.

Good point.

[ritter]

What fills me with admiration is that our dear Florestan was able to read a 325-page thesis in such a short period of time. 

[Florestan]

the paper actually sounds interesting, precisely because the abstract doesn't even slightly say what you summarize it as saying.

If you keep reading --- which I didn't ask anyone to do; recommending is not asking, is it? --- you'll eventually see for yourself what I mean.

[Brian]

If you keep reading --- which I didn't ask anyone to do; recommending is not asking, is it? --- you'll eventually see for yourself what I mean.

I have the file open, but it might take a month or two 

[Florestan]

What fills me with admiration is that our dear Florestan was able to read a 325-page thesis in such a short period of time. 

I started reading it five days ago, actually, and finished it a few hours ago. Most of the Sorabji quotes I presented earlier are taken from this work. There are still others worth presenting but obviously some people are rather bent on shooting the messenger instead of listening the message.

[Florestan]

I have the file open, but it might take a month or two 

Take all the time you need.

[Karl Henning]

bent on shooting the messenger instead of listening the message.

Oh? Not bent on answering the original tendentious question, in patient good faith? You should be embarrassed to play a victim here, my friend.

[DavidW]

And the answer is simple: the point is precisely to place the music outside the reach of the average listener and make it attractive and interesting only to a small circle of connoisseurs; this is elitist music by design, written specifically for an elite; the excessive longueur is not a bug, it's a feature.

This is recommended reading for anyone but especially for people who still think otherwise.

Just the abstract seems to be describing the exact opposite.  It seems like an exploration of Sorabji incriminating society on behalf of any marginalized composer.  More like the act of someone that wanted attention for his art but didn't receive it.

[Henk]

I started reading it five days ago, actually, and finished it a few hours ago. Most of the Sorabji quotes I presented earlier are taken from this work. There are still others worth presenting but obviously some people are rather bent on shooting the messenger instead of listening the message.

All that labor down the drain 

[Florestan]

Just the abstract seems to be describing the exact opposite.  It seems like an exploration of Sorabji incriminating society on behalf of any marginalized composer.  More like the act of someone that wanted attention for his art but didn't receive it.

As with Brian, my advice is to keep reading (if you are so inclined, of course --- you are under no obligation to do it) and you'll eventually see for yourself what I mean.

[DavidW]

What fills me with admiration is that our dear Florestan was able to read a 325-page thesis in such a short period of time. 

It would take longer to do that instead of just listen to the five hour piano composition!