Pieces Not Fit for Purpose

[Zucchini]

What is Sorabji? Can I get it Tesco or Lidl?

[Richard Barrett]

What is Sorabji? Can I get it Tesco or Lidl?

No, it only comes in wholesale quantities.

[Beef Oven!]

No, it only comes in wholesale quantities.

Very clever

But his music is very, very good IMV.

[Richard Barrett]

But his music is very, very good IMV.

I would agree that some of it is, although (on the subject of "fit for purpose") some of it on the other hand seems to me crucially lacking in the kind of self-criticism that might have come from experiencing more live performances.

[ahinton]

I would agree that some of it is, although (on the subject of "fit for purpose") some of it on the other hand seems to me crucially lacking in the kind of self-criticism that might have come from experiencing more live performances.

Like Havergal Brian, different as he and Sorabji were as composers, the lack of experience of live performances could only ever have had a less than positive effect; it is surely something that all composers need and I'd go so far as to say that it's an essential part of the very act of composition. OK, that lack of experience on those two composers' parts was of very different origin (and, having finally sought to persuade Sorabji of the folly of denying his potential audiences the opportunity to become acquianted with his work, I suppose that I ought to know!) but, whereas I get the impression that Brian's symphonic and orchestral skills arguably suffered from lack of performances despite having (like Ives, van Dieren, Sorabji, Skalkottas and others) nevertheless continued to compose in spite of it, I've yet to be convinced - or to hear the view of others - that it imposed a lack of self-criticism upon Sorabji.

Some of Sorabji's orchestral writing in particular would undoubtedly have benefitted from his having been taken to one side by understanding, intelligent and sensitive conductors although, so far, the only major work of his involving orchestra to have reached public performance - his fifth piano concerto from 1920 - is not an example of this problem in that, unlike his two orchestral symphonies, eighth piano concerto and parts of the Symphonic Variations (in its version for piano and orchestra), it calls for reasonable forces and is not amenable to the dangers of being overwritten.

Another example of this fault at work is the final part of the sextuple fugue that nearly concludes his Third Organ Symphony wherein the occasional impracticalities that beset some other parts of it as well as some parts of the latter two movements of his Second Organ Symphony reach a point so far beyond impossibility as to require the organist to play some parts of it against a prerecording of the rest (as Kevin Bowyer, who has prepared excellent critical typeset editions of all three, ought to know if anyone does, has pointed out); had even a small handful of organists taken his work into their respective repertoires at the time of writing and told him what he ought to have been told, this would clearly have been of benefit to the end result.

Anyway, as to "wholesale quantities", the scores can be obtained in retail ones by seeking out information on them at www.sorabji-archive.co.uk and then emailing sorabji-archive@lineone.net (and I apologise if that might appear like the shameless advertising that it is not meant to be).

By the way, whilst I have no evidence that Sorabji and Brian ever even corresponded, let alone met, the latter did publish a review of the former's Opus Clavicembalisticum in which he described the work as a "rebirth of music".

[Serial_Apologist]

I would agree that some of it is, although (on the subject of "fit for purpose") some of it on the other hand seems to me crucially lacking in the kind of self-criticism that might have come from experiencing more live performances.

I was listening yesterday to Szymanowsky's Piano Sonata No. 3 of 1917, and it suddenly struck me that this music resembled Sorabji's piano pieces (the one's I've heard at any rate) more than anyone else's I can think of. To be frank I find Sorabji over-elaborate and too unfocussed, and I think Szymanowsky exerted rather more self-criticism.

[Serial_Apologist]

Like Havergal Brian, different as he and Sorabji were as composers, the lack of experience of live performances could only ever have had a less than positive effect; it is surely something that all composers need and I'd go so far as to say that it's an essential part of the very act of composition. OK, that lack of experience on those two composers' parts was of very different origin (and, having finally sought to persuade Sorabji of the folly of denying his potential audiences the opportunity to become acquianted with his work, I suppose that I ought to know!) but, whereas I get the impression that Brian's symphonic and orchestral skills arguably suffered from lack of performances despite having (like Ives, van Dieren, Sorabji, Skalkottas and others) nevertheless continued to compose in spite of it, I've yet to be convinced - or to hear the view of others - that it imposed a lack of self-criticism upon Sorabji.

Some of Sorabji's orchestral writing in particular would undoubtedly have benefitted from his having been taken to one side by understanding, intelligent and sensitive conductors although, so far, the only major work of his involving orchestra to have reached public performance - his fifth piano concerto from 1920 - is not an example of this problem in that, unlike his two orchestral symphonies, eighth piano concerto and parts of the Symphonic Variations (in its version for piano and orchestra), it calls for reasonable forces and is not amenable to the dangers of being overwritten.

Another example of this fault at work is the final part of the sextuple fugue that nearly concludes his Third Organ Symphony wherein the occasional impracticalities that beset some other parts of it as well as some parts of the latter two movements of his Second Organ Symphony reach a point so far beyond impossibility as to require the organist to play some parts of it against a prerecording of the rest (as Kevin Bowyer, who has prepared excellent critical typeset editions of all three, ought to know if anyone does, has pointed out); had even a small handful of organists taken his work into their respective repertoires at the time of writing and told him what he ought to have been told, this would clearly have been of benefit to the end result.

Anyway, as to "wholesale quantities", the scores can be obtained in retail ones by seeking out information on them at www.sorabji-archive.co.uk and then emailing sorabji-archive@lineone.net (and I apologise if that might appear like the shameless advertising that it is not meant to be).

By the way, whilst I have no evidence that Sorabji and Brian ever even corresponded, let alone met, the latter did publish a review of the former's Opus Clavicembalisticum in which he described the work as a "rebirth of music".

Most interesting, thanks AH.

[Quarky]

And here, right on cue:


How do you describe a teaspoon in music?

The Listening Service

Can you describe a teaspoon in music? Why would you even want to? Tom Service explores how music is able to tell stories in sound

Do you think tht Tom might just have been stirring it?

Quite - it's obvious isn't it? The only way to describe a teaspoon musically is by the sounds it makes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6DZ23vAFfY

[ahinton]

I was listening yesterday to Szymanowsky's Piano Sonata No. 3 of 1917, and it suddenly struck me that this music resembled Sorabji's piano pieces (the one's I've heard at any rate) more than anyone else's I can think of. To be frank I find Sorabji over-elaborate and too unfocussed, and I think Szymanowsky exerted rather more self-criticism.

It's a wonderful piece; Sorabji was undoubtedly influenced by Szymanowski and, in a brief essay on him, wrote warmly about it and even more so about the same composer's rather more Reger / Strauss / Marx-influenced Piano Sonata No. 2 of a few years earlier (Joseph, that is, not Karl!). Szymanowski never sought to write on the grand scale that often preoccupied Sorabji, although there are many relatively short pieces in Sorabji's output that you might find less unfocussed than those that you find problematic - there's the early Fantaisie Espagnole, the Scriabin-influenced Piano Sonata No. 1, Le Jardin Parfumé, two pieces based on tales of the supernatural by Montague Rhodes James and most of the 100 Transcendental Studies, for starters.

[ahinton]

Most interesting, thanks AH.

Thanks; you're more than welcome, of course!

[Beef Oven!]

It's a wonderful piece; Sorabji was undoubtedly influenced by Szymanowski and, in a brief essay on him, wrote warmly about it and even more so about the same composer's rather more Reger / Strauss / Marx-influenced Piano Sonata No. 2 of a few years earlier (Joseph, that is, not Karl!). Szymanowski never sought to write on the grand scale that often preoccupied Sorabji, although there are many relatively short pieces in Sorabji's output that you might find less unfocussed than those that you find problematic - there's the early Fantaisie Espagnole, the Scriabin-influenced Piano Sonata No. 1, Le Jardin Parfumé, two pieces based on tales of the supernatural by Montague Rhodes James and most of the 100 Transcendental Studies, for starters.

Of all the Sorabji music that I've heard, it has never occurred to me that it is unfocused (not that I have sufficient technical understanding to know what he should have been focusing on). And as for experiencing the music in a live performance, the 'focus' is so intense that two hours can pass by and you'd swear you last looked at your watch no more than twenty minutes ago!!


Btw, many thanks for your excellent post #80

[ahinton]

Of all the Sorabji music that I've heard, it has never occurred to me that it is unfocused

Nor to me, but then we all respond differently.

And as for experiencing the music in a live performance, the 'focus' is so intense that two hours can pass by and you'd swear you last looked at your watch no more than twenty minutes ago!!

Indeed. OK, I don't usually look at my watch on such occasions when the music's playing, but two instances do spring to mind.

The first was when Jonathan Powell gave his second performance of Opus Clavicembalisticum, in New York in 2004; although the 12 movements of the piece are clearly divided into three overall sections and its other performers (the composer himself, John Ogdon, Geoffrey Douglas Madge and Daan Vandewalle) have accordingly presented it with two intervals, Jonathan has always felt that it works best with its Pars Prima and Pars Altera played without a break, so with only one interval; the music thus plays continuously for almost 2½ hours before the first interval and this was the first time that I'd heard it this way, ending with the third of the work's four fugues and I suddenly became aware, during that fugue, as to roughly how long Jonathan must have been playing and couldn't believe my ears - it had felt like little more than one hour.

The second and perhaps most unbelievable of all such experiances was at Kevin Bowyer's première of Organ Symphony No. 2 in Glasagow in 2010. Like Sorabji's other two organ symphonies, this is cast in three movements of quite uneven duration and obviously presumes the need for an interval between each. The central movement is a theme and variations that at first glance seems not so different to that in Opus Clavicembalisticum and it is therefore perhaps no surprise that Sorabji began work on this symphony just before embarking on OC; indeed, he interrupted its progress shortly after commencing that variation movement to write OC and resumed it some time after OC's completion. The theme of each variation set comprises a long melodic line accompanied by slow moving chords (two lengthy phrases in the OC one and three in the organ symphony one) but, whereas the theme and variations in OC plays for some three quarters of an hour, that in Organ Symphony No. 2 continues for vastly longer and, in Kevin's performance on that occasion, it actually took 4½ hours although, with some tidying up, it would probably come in at a whisker or three under 4 hours; that said, it felt like around an hour and a half and it was only when looking at my watch as the second interval began that what I saw first made me think that it (my watch) had somehow powered itself into some kind of self-propelled accelerative mode.

When John Ogdon was recording OC, he would sometimes warm up with the solo version of Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica (as you do - NOT! - unless you ARE John Ogdon) and, likewise, I thought that his performance was somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes whereas it exceeds half an hour. There must be other instances when real time and perceived time can risk being thrown into disarray by the performance of certain music.

Btw, many thanks for your excellent post #80

You're more than welcome!

[Beef Oven!]

Fascinating anecdotes - again, thanks for sharing.

I do get curious at concerts about how long the performance has been going and also at the end of movements I tend to check the time. It's just a bad habit. At the Sorabji concert in question, I think Jonathan Powell was about 1 hour 40 minutes into the movement and as I looked at my watch, I was expecting to find about 20 minutes had passed!!! And don't forget, without putting too fine a point on it, the older we get, the more we need to anticipate the intervals!

[Richard Barrett]

Of all the Sorabji music that I've heard, it has never occurred to me that it is unfocused

I would say that "unfocused" means something like a lack of structural discipline on the larger scale and a certain arbitrariness in the material on the smaller scale, so that it's often not at all clear why the music has to have the dimensions that it has, or what the necessity is behind there being the notes or harmonies you hear rather than any others. Of course all music, especially when it works with extended durations like Sorabji, Feldman, LaMonte Young or Wagner, does strange things to the listener's perception of time, but of all the aforementioned my feeling is that this is more hit-and-miss with Sorabji than with the others - the feeling that he simply has no idea when or how to stop is in some cases (Opus Clavicembalisticum) fascinating, in others (Fourth Piano Symphony) simply interminable. To me anyway.

[Beef Oven!]

I would say that "unfocused" means something like a lack of structural discipline on the larger scale and a certain arbitrariness in the material on the smaller scale, so that it's often not at all clear why the music has to have the dimensions that it has, or what the necessity is behind there being the notes or harmonies you hear rather than any others. Of course all music, especially when it works with extended durations like Sorabji, Feldman, LaMonte Young or Wagner, does strange things to the listener's perception of time, but of all the aforementioned my feeling is that this is more hit-and-miss with Sorabji than with the others - the feeling that he simply has no idea when or how to stop is in some cases (Opus Clavicembalisticum) fascinating, in others (Fourth Piano Symphony) simply interminable. To me anyway.

A helpful clear explanation - thanks.

As I suspected, my lack of a technical grasp of music is saving me from such considerations. I wouldn't know structural indiscipline from music that observes the rules (although I can often sense when something's not quite right). Similarly, I am unaware, and therefore untroubled by the randomness of the smaller scale music. Happy in ignorance?