Sorabji? Who??

[stormx]

Hi,

In this forum, we are all very familiar with the name of Sorabji.

Yesterday night, i was listening on the radio to an interview to an orchestra director. His name is Stefan Lano, and he is currently directing the orchestra of the famous Teatro Colon of Buenos Aires. They were speaking about the recent Lano performance of an Opera of Richard strauss.

Then, the host asked Mr. Lano:

Question: do you know about a composer whose name is Sorabji?

Answer: NO 

So, a professional conductor, who has directed many important orchestras around the world, has NEVER heard the name of Sorabji.

What do you think?

PD: this is by no means a way to discredit Sorabji, whose music, by the way, i never had the opportunity to listen to. I am only intending to show that, besides this forum where he is very popular, Mr. Sorabji is pretty much unknown as a composer, even for professionals musicians.

[viking]

I couldn't agree with you more.  Although I find the music of Sorabji very interesting, and would very much like to dabble in some of his more accessible works in the future, it pains me to see half of the threads in the Repertoire section devoted to some aspect of Sorabji.  Can't we talk about something else?  Maybe we should just have one thread dedicated to the exploration of Sorabji and his works to save clutter elsewhere in the forum? 

Sam

[retrouvailles]

When I first arrived at this university, I was actually asked if I had heard of Sorabji when people found out I was a musician. The guy didn't seem too surprised that I knew who he was. I guess over here Sorabji has a fair amount of notoriety.

[Nightscape]

My piano teacher had heard of him before but knew nothing about him.  Another professor here had heard the name before in a magazine article.  I'm doing my undergrad senior project on a Sorabji work and also have done a theory paper and a piano lit paper on him as well, so most of my professors know who he is, and all of the piano majors and my friends have heard his music now too - now Sorabji has become this symbol of unattainable pianism for us all.

[ramseytheii]

I don't think it is a problem that he has never heard of him.  Who here can tell me, without resorting to Wikipedia (where information is free and you get what you pay for) what orchestral pieces Sorabji has added to the repertoire?  Probably only one person could say, and we all know who that is.  So why should a conductor even care?  Sorabji has probably influenced a tiny percentage of piano composers, and most people have probably never heard of them either.  He left behind a body of extremely esoteric, individualistic work that has little to no influence on music history.

Furthermore, I wouldn't be upset if they asked big-name pianists who he was, and they didn't know.  It's all about context.  Some people over at the opera forum are probably shocked that there are pianists who never heard of Estrella, or The Return of Ulysses to the Fatherland.  Who here, without resorting to Wikipedia, can tell me about those?  Please - no induced hysteria!

Walter Ramsey

[mephisto]

I don't think it is a problem that he has never heard of him.  Who here can tell me, without resorting to Wikipedia (where information is free and you get what you pay for) what orchestral pieces Sorabji has added to the repertoire?  Probably only one person could say, and we all know who that is.  So why should a conductor even care?  Sorabji has probably influenced a tiny percentage of piano composers, and most people have probably never heard of them either.  He left behind a body of extremely esoteric, individualistic work that has little to no influence on music history.

Furthermore, I wouldn't be upset if they asked big-name pianists who he was, and they didn't know.  It's all about context.  Some people over at the opera forum are probably shocked that there are pianists who never heard of Estrella, or The Return of Ulysses to the Fatherland.  Who here, without resorting to Wikipedia, can tell me about those?  Please - no induced hysteria!

Walter Ramsey

A very Intelligent post!

[pianogeek_cz]

Yep. W. R.'s got a point.

[arensky]

  Some people over at the opera forum are probably shocked that there are pianists who never heard of Estrella,

  Ponce wrote a popular song "Estrellita" that many classical instrumentalists including Heifetz have played in transcription. I don't think it's from an opera or zarazuela though.

The Return of Ulysses to the Fatherland. 

Opera by Monteverdi. Never heard it, but "Orfeo" is an incredible work. Don't enjoy "The Coronation of Poppea" so much but it has great moments.

[minor9th]

Stefan Lano

I've never heard of him.

[stormx]

Stefan Lano

I've never heard of him.

http://stefanlano.com/biography.html

Certainly not an amateur curriculum.

[indutrial]

He left behind a body of extremely esoteric, individualistic work that has little to no influence on music history.

Furthermore, I wouldn't be upset if they asked big-name pianists who he was, and they didn't know.  It's all about context.  Some people over at the opera forum are probably shocked that there are pianists who never heard of Estrella, or The Return of Ulysses to the Fatherland.  Who here, without resorting to Wikipedia, can tell me about those?  Please - no induced hysteria!

Walter Ramsey

People not knowing sh*t about such-and-such a composer, including loads of figures far more important and all-encompassing than Sorabji is far more common these days than before. These days I'd say it's totally common to encounter music students who can't name more than 10 twentieth century composers (and those 10 usually include Schoenberg, Bartok, Debussy, Cage, Glass, Stravinsky and maybe a curveball like Ligeti or Scriabin, but who knows, maybe not). As for composers who are not incredibly huge and hyped out the ass, there's no chance. There are entire countries worth of musical history whom this world's idiotic conservatory fodder are diligently letting disappear because their small, limited brains can't possibly spur them to become musicians AND scholars of music.

It is understandable that Sorabji is not widely known. His repertoire, no matter what anyone says, almost demands an extremist fringe audience. His music is massive, unrelenting, and detail-oriented far beyond the acumen and attention of a common listener. His repertoire is almost 100% keyboard music but doesn't introduce enough new ideas to separate himself from the "sounds-like" catagorization that plagues music criticism and music history teaching these days.

However, like I said, it would be a miracle if we could get average music students (and I'm not talking about this forum) to know who the hell Scriabin or Szymanowski were before we worry about bringing Sorabji to the head of the discourse. I feel like almost all of the Sorabji-talk is misguided from the outset because he's just treated as a kind of musical freak-show or yearbook superlative instead of being approached rationally in any way.

[ahinton]

However, like I said, it would be a miracle if we could get average music students (and I'm not talking about this forum) to know who the hell Scriabin or Szymanowski were before we worry about bringing Sorabji to the head of the discourse. I feel like almost all of the Sorabji-talk is misguided from the outset because he's just treated as a kind of musical freak-show or yearbook superlative instead of being approached rationally in any way.

It is indeed true that many people "haven't heard of" this, that or the other composer, but not only is that on occasion down to shameful ignorance but also to the very fact that the sheer number of composers represented on concert programmes and on disc is absolutely massive compared to what it was half a century ago. As to the "freak-show" stuff flung around by some people as a matter of habit when referring to Sorabji, the sooner that dies a death the better for us all - including Sorabji himself, of course; it tells us quite a lot about those who spout forth that kind of thing and next to nothing about Sorabji himself, as one might expect.

Best,

Alistair