"DAVE TK,

This is fascinating. What a project! I do not know of this composer and I definitely want to hear some of his works. How strange he made a "prohibition" on playing his works?!! Do you know why?"

That is one of the many intriguing facets of this composer. Imagine writing an enormous body of music (something like 11,000 pages) and not being interested in whether it was performed. To us composers/musicians with the usual ego (and we all know there are some pretty huge egos out there) imagine not being driven by the desire for public recognition. But by all accounts Sorabji went out of his way to avoid the usual musical circles particularly fellow composers, performers etc. Of course why exactly he was like this may never be known but there are some very interesting pointers. A quote from one of his letters:

“You are surprised, maybe at my ban on public performance of my work? Well, allow me to quote scripture at you…”CAST NOT YOUR PEARLS BEFORE SWINE LEST THEY TRAMPLE THEM UNDER THEIR FEET AND TURN AGAIN AND REND YOU.” AND, when I see – and hear – the sort of people who DO get performed … AND before WHOM…Well, there but by the grace of god GO NOT I!…”

Another quote about musicians which I love:

"One is so often misled into thinking that because a man or a woman has embarked on a career like music, that is sufficiently far removed from the avocations of the multitude, he will for that reason be a person of rather more than ordinary interest, of rather more than ordinary force of character, individuality of outlook and independence of judgment. Vain delusion! In most cases, except for the fact that he is a musician he might be anybody, with anybody's ideas about anything, as avid and uncritical a mopper-up of press dope as the generality; and to sum up, with no qualities of mind or personality that make any time passed in his neighbourhood, let alone in his company, anything other than spiritually and morally profitless, a waste, null and void." - Kaikhosru Sorabji, Mi Contra Fa: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musican, 1947.

His writing is something like his music!!

David.

'Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician"

Interesting title...

Actually I can understand what he is talking about from personal experience. I have often been struck by the fact that musicians, who have a great, maybe almost angelic ability to play this or that instrument, or do beautiful and inspiring compositions, may often be total a**h***s. Another, less eloquent way of putting it.

Aslo, I believe that he was probably extremely sensitive - as a composer must be - and was trashed at an early time - as a composer must be. His reaction was more extreme than most people, but understandable if you've also been trashed.

strings 24, 24, 16, 16, 12

Quite right! I always insist on at least 24 firsts too [[;)]]

I remember hearing someone play a recital of this music in the 80's in London - at the academy??

Reminded me rather of the piano writing of Finnissey?

Also hectic in the extreme for the player. Who knows the English country tunes by him? RSI virtually guaranteed!

Best,

strings 24, 24, 16, 16, 12

Quite right! I always insist on at least 24 firsts too [[;)]]

I remember hearing someone play a recital of this music in the 80's in London - at the academy??

Reminded me rather of the piano writing of Finnissey?

Also hectic in the extreme for the player. Who knows the English country tunes by him? RSI virtually guaranteed!

Best,

I am very interested in this guy as well as the other maniac, Havergal Brian.

I too seem to remember going to a John Ogdon piano recital of Sorabji's music in the 80s when I was far too young and inexperienced to appreciate what I was hearing. I also seem to think Ogdon recorded the work although I'm not sure of the details.

I think the comparision with Finnissey is and extremely good one. He taught me for a while and again I was probably too stupid to grasp most of it. If you get chance to have a look at the score to English Country tunes (or any of his published works for that matter) you'll see it's all beautifully hand written. Another larger set of his works which I enjoy are the Gershwin arrangments.

But getting back to Sorabji, I think Finnissy produced the longest piece of non repetative continous piano music (which I seem to think was previously Opus Clavicembalisticum) with a History of Photography in Sound first performed by Ian Pace.

Very intresting thread on Sorabji.

"History of Photography in Sound"

Is that the piece? Interesting. What kind of a piece is it and how long do you mean?

Sorry yes "History of Photography in Sound" is the piece and it's about 5 hrs long I think, although I've never heard it all before (I couldn't attend any of the perfomances by Ian Pace).

It's quite hard to describe but if you listen to the English Country Tunes you'll get a fair idea. Finnissy is in a "school" know as the "New Complexity" which is a pretty much meaningless name to me.

In a way I suppose it sounds a bit like a european post serial 5 hour version of the Ives piano music. Sort of. [*-)]

Five hours - wow. And post serial Ives-like? Even better. This is something I need to hear. Thanks for that info.

Um...... what does it sound like?

@Leon Willett said:

Um...... what does it sound like?

F**k**G Cr@P!

Blimey!

Really?

Finnissy - what does it sound like?

I'd say that it is generally very dense (pages could be more easily printed with white ink on black papaer), full of allusions to all sorts of things, shards of tonality, spikey, notty, athletic, virtuosic, very English etc...

basically he is a bit bonkers - not that unusual in composers so we can't hold that against him.

He's part of the new complexity outfit (with Barrett, Chris Dench, Dillon maybe etc), for whom Ferneyhough is the great inspiration.

Although F is a pianist and a pianist's composer (though not this pianist), I think his best stuff is the orchestral music eg. Red Earth, which is a blast of goood orchestral writing.

hope that helps.

@Leon Willett said:

Um...... what does it sound like?

F**k**G Cr@P!

Hahah!! In all honesty, that's what I would have thought from the limited information before us. But, it remains to be seen, of course [[;)]]

I have read a few psychology of music papers, and it appears that humans can only percieve, at peak concentration, a maximum of five musical elements (voices or planes of tone) simultaneously. So, it would seem that composing 26 is rather a waste of time, as it is simply percieved as a blanket of sound, or even noise. If you venture into the realms of more than 5 busy elements at once, the music recedes into a single mushy voice, which is not interesting, or engaging. It's not a matter of quality or lack thereof, it's just impossible for humans to hear this music in the way the composer intended. He wrote it all in non-real time, but we get this huge, stupifying avalanche of simultaneous elements that our brains can not hope to ever cope with!

Still, I would love to hear this stuff, because anything bonkers is good in my books, and desrerving of my curiosity.

@Leon Willett said:

I have read a few psychology of music papers, and it appears that humans can only percieve, at peak concentration, a maximum of five musical elements (voices or planes of tone) simultaneously.

Well, maybe I was a bit hasty, but I heard my milkman whistling some of it the other morning as he came down the road, and I have to say, I didn't care for it much. But it was early! [[;)]]

Paul,

I think that milkman must be bonkers himself. You'd better check your milk carefully.

Leon,

I agree with your statement that a sufficient number of elements becomes mush after a while. The live version of MIDI soup. What you said also reminds me of some early experimental computer music, in which the composer was discussing at great length how the meter was in simultaneous 9.8/4 and 15/8. It occurred to me that this would translate - in practice - to NO meter.

Though I also like anything insane (as long as its not too violent - a few homicides, or burning down the concert hall while finishing your part solo, o.k. - but nothing extreme)

I'm sorry I hadn't spotted that this thread had continued and I'm never ne to miss an opportunity to eulogise about Sorabji.

The recital Nick must have heard (or gone to? - that would be just too exciting) in the 80's must have been Ogden's momentous performance of the Opus Clavicembalisticum at the QEH which he later went on to record on the Altarus label. That recording is soon to be re-released.

As I detailed in the first post on this thread OC, which lasts about 4.5 hours is not Sorabji's longest work - there are several longer including the Organ Symphonys Nos 2 & 3 both of which last about 7 hours. The 2nd is due to recieve it's world premier soon performed by Kevin Bowyer. Equally long would be a complete performance of the 100 transcendental studies . These have almost all now been premiered and are being recorded on the BIS label the first of seven volumes is due to appear later this year.

The Altarus label champions Sorabji's music http://www.altarusrecords.com/News.html
and have recently released a 3CD set of Jonathan Powell's performance of the 4th Sonata which comes in at a mere 2.5 hours.

Notably, within the next two weeks there will be two performances of Sorabji in the Merkin Hall New York. Donna Amato will perform the WP of the Piano Symphony No 5 (again 2.5 hours) and Jonathan Powell will play Opus Clavicembalisticum. Here's an article in the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/arts/music/13GRIF.html

I was fortunate enough to hear JP play the OC last year in the Purcell Rooms. I posted my usual OTT reaction here

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin//chat/chat.pl?com=thread&start=139231&groupid=1&words=Sorabji&name=carter

Of course how long a piece is, has absolutely no bearing on whether it's worth listening to. I could go on and on and on about the extraordinary qualities of Sorabji's music but I shan't - if you're interested in a totally different musical exprience which requires you to put (almost) as much effort into the listening as it does for the performer to perform it and indeed it did for the composer to write it then try it out.

My editing of the Jami Symphony continues apace and I have just completed page 435 of 812 - should be finished late 2006 and then I'll start on the virtual performance.

DC

I find this project of yours, DaveTK, very interesting. Good luck on it. It is obviously a huge undertaking.