I listened to Opus Clavicembalisticum

[prometheus]

And I mean I listened to the full piece, played by Ogden.

First let me assume the recording was 100% correct. I know that this isn't true and that people have claimed that neither Madge's or Ogden's recording has the musical value this piece could potentially have. The only thing I bases my opinion on is the recording. I looked at some parts of the score, but I can make no music out of it by reading.
 

Before I started to listen to it I didn't know what to make of it. Is this piece a joke? An attempt to write the most insane piece ever? I could not find a sound motive.

What about it's musical value. Did he just put down all the notes at random? because of it's lenght I couldn't imagine Sorabij really wrote it considering every note.

First thing I noticed was the consistency of his style. It is rock solid. No cheesy or weak parts, no hidden mindless filling of pages. This guy was serious!

Second, I was suprised at the level of tonality. It sounded only a little more atonal that Scriabin. I am not sure, but that would make it not truely atonal. Most chords where constant chords on their own. I didn't study the score and harmonies but I wouldn't be suprised if it does have hierarchy.

The third thing that was immediate was that the composer wasn't trying to write the hardest piece ever. This was very obvious. He was exploring pianistic textures. Getting different sounds. The piece contains fast passages, slow ones, pp, ff. It has many parts that are 'very easy' to play, relatively speaking. I could cut out parts and post it on this forum and no one will ever know that it's from the opus clavicembalisticum. I bet some of the Sorabji haters might say they like it.

The music is stacked in such a way that it is impossible to get perspective. The piece isn't noise. But don't get me wrong, the music by itself isn't particulary great or rewarding. The fact that most people can't enjoy this music is not because the notes are random. It's just that the music is overloading the listener. If he would have tried to write the noisiest and/or hardest piece ever it would have sounded way different.

As I kept listening I started to realise that the piece kept sounding fresh. Even after two hours. But then I realised it would be hard to know because I couldn't image I could remember enough for me to realise repetitions. But still, I think this is not a very wrong suggestion. I think it will be fair to assume Sorabji realised that he had to keep it fresh and thus he put though in it and composed it to be fresh.

After four hours I started to get a real sense of the size of this piece. When someone tells you or you read somewhere that the piece is four to five hours depending on the recording then that is just a number. But when you hear it... It kept pouring out an endless stream of musical ideas. I was really moved by this. Sure this is a strange kind of emotional response to music, but the piece still accomplished it.

Most people may not like opus clavicembalisticum but Sorabji's skill is undeniable. It may be noise, but this is surely noise of sublime artistic level. Any claim that it would be very easy to write a piece like opus clavicembalisticum: please try and realise what an achivement it actually was.

But after 4 hours and 46 minutes, I was still puzzled. Why did he write it? And since OC wasn't an expeption; why did he write those other huge pieces, some even longer? It seems the guy was dead-serious. If he tried to write a piece of 15-25 minutes he would have written way better music. Face it, a 45 minute fugue will never be as rewarding as a proportional one. Plus even if it was, you can listen to several Bach fugues in the same time you can listen to one huge one.

Maybe he realised he would never accomplish what people before him had already done. His proportional opus clavicembalisticum would never surpass Bach's Die Kunst der Fugue or Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica. So he made it way too long.

It still puzzles me. He was serious and not insane. Yet he wrote the music he did. What a mystery.

[JCarey]

You have made some interesting observations. I'm waiting eagerly for the Powell recording so I will finally know what this piece is supposed to sound like. Judging by Powell's past posts, he seems to know what he's doing.

[thierry13]

And michael Habberman? Do you find him good or not?

[BoliverAllmon]

where do you get a recording of the OC?

[JCarey]

And michael Habberman? Do you find him good or not?

Michael Habermann is very good, but is not planning to record the entire piece.

where do you get a recording of the OC?

www.amazon.com

[BoliverAllmon]

nothing free?

[JCarey]

nothing free?

There used to be, way back when. I even posted the link. But it's over 300MB, so very few people would be willing to upload it on to their webspace.

[BoliverAllmon]

oh well.

[stevie]

im not meaning to degrade the piece of music when i say this, but what kind of a person do you have to be to seriously tackle a piece like this?

even for the most talented pianists it would take months and months to work on, and for what? very few people will wish to listen.

so i have to ask, what is the point?

[JCarey]

so i have to ask, what is the point?

To prove you can.

[stevie]

To prove you can.

i have no doubt any concert pianist CAN do it, but it would be so time consuming, i dont really see the point of learning it when there are tons of better pieces out there(IMO)

[BoliverAllmon]

some would see the challenge and get giddy.

[prometheus]

I don't think that is the main point. It must be love for music.


I do see the point of learning it instead of being one of the 100,000 people to play 'Rach 3'.  Just because there are so many good pianists out there is seems logical to play something very little people want to tackle.

Since there have only been 9 performances and two recordings I can see why someone would want to learn it.

To me the fact that people took the effort to play it compelled me to listen to it. I can see that the same would work for people that want to play it. The fact that Sorabij wrote it compelled them to play it.

[stevie]

are you forgetting sorabji actually wrote longer and harder works that this?

there is a piece that is DOUBLE the OC's length

surely, if the point is the challenge, then that would be the better choice..

imagine learning the OC because its supposed to be the hardest piece ever...wokring on it for yours and hours each day, then when you finally learn it, you are 80 years old, and the day before you are about to perform it, you find out that he wrote something EVEN HARDER and your whole life was spent in vain, then you die, somewhat randomly.

that would make a GREAT movie!

well...it would be a little dull...but yeah

[pita bread]

You learn it because you want to.

[prometheus]

No, I am not forgetting about that one. But his Symphonic Variations are only 6 hours, so not double the lenght.

But if one can play the OC, does he need to prove that he can also play the Symphonic Variations? And it may well be not as hard to play or be less rewarding in musical terms. It also isn't as infamous as the OC.

I don't see why someone would fail at life when they learn the OC instead of the Symphonic Variations.

[BoliverAllmon]

has the symphonic variations been recorded or performed

[JCarey]

has the symphonic variations been recorded or performed

No.

No, I am not forgetting about that one. But his Symphonic Variations are only 6 hours, so not double the lenght.

He is not referring to the Symphonic Variations, but the "Sequentia cyclica super 'Dies iræ' ex Missa pro defunctis", rather, which is, indeed, almost double the length.

[alzado]

I assume you listened to it on a recording.

How many CDs were required to record it?

[BoliverAllmon]

are their midi's of these pieces? and who really cares about the length. I know of people who love opera so much that they play piano reductions to operas. Mozart wrote operas that were around four hours. length doesn't matter, it is the quality and the feelings given from the experience.

[Etude]

And I mean I listened to the full piece, played by Ogden.

What about it's musical value. Did he just put down all the notes at random? because of it's lenght I couldn't imagine Sorabij really wrote it considering every note.

The work is based on many themes, it is far from random.  The very beginning movement introduces four of the main themes.  The first, is at the very beginning.  The single notes descending into a very low D# minor chord.  This is the 'motto' as Sorabji calls it and it is the most important theme throughout the composition.  It returns in many places throughout the work.  As the work progresses, more and more themes are introduced while the previous ones still recur.  In a way, the OC is both strict and free at the same time.  It mostly built from themes such as fugue subjects. Sorabji uses these themes to 'build' his vertical structures in his music, sometimes piling themes on top of other themes.  The final movement of OC, the Coda-stretta, for example, is completely built on themes from the entire work, in counterpoint, leaving very little room for anything else.  At the same time, the themes that recur do so very freely, the fugue subjects are an example.  The entries of a subject in one of the fugues will have the same general outline, but in many cases, some of the intervals or rhythms will be slighty different.  I wouldn't think, considering the scale of the piece, that Sorabji could have considered every note as you say, but he was probably more interested in the overall effect than the tiny details.

Second, I was suprised at the level of tonality. It sounded only a little more atonal that Scriabin. I am not sure, but that would make it not truely atonal. Most chords where constant chords on their own. I didn't study the score and harmonies but I wouldn't be suprised if it does have hierarchy.

Yes.  Unfortunately, because of Mr. Madge, many believe the OC is full of huge dissonant clusters, which rarely relent for the duration of the work.

The third thing that was immediate was that the composer wasn't trying to write the hardest piece ever. This was very obvious. He was exploring pianistic textures. Getting different sounds. The piece contains fast passages, slow ones, pp, ff. It has many parts that are 'very easy' to play, relatively speaking. I could cut out parts and post it on this forum and no one will ever know that it's from the opus clavicembalisticum. I bet some of the Sorabji haters might say they like it.

Absolutely.  The reason Sorabji wrote difficult music was so that people who wanted to learn it would have to be completely serious about doing so, but Sorabji really only writes difficult when he needs to be difficult.  You can't acheive the same effect as simple music in complex music any more than you can acheive the same effects as highly complex music in simplicity.  I think when Sorabji's intentions call for a certain degree of difficulty, whether it be extremely easy to play, or monstrously difficult, he just writes it.  Quite a few of the Passacaglia variations are very easy to play.

The music is stacked in such a way that it is impossible to get perspective. The piece isn't noise. But don't get me wrong, the music by itself isn't particulary great or rewarding. The fact that most people can't enjoy this music is not because the notes are random. It's just that the music is overloading the listener. If he would have tried to write the noisiest and/or hardest piece ever it would have sounded way different.

I think OC is easier to take than some other Sorabji.  It's divided into twelve movements, which means it isn't as concentrated as the fourth sonata for example, which although at half the length has only three movements.  I find Sorabji is hard to take in bigger chunks, like the sonata, the first movement of which is basically formless and lasts for 47 minutes.

After four hours I started to get a real sense of the size of this piece. When someone tells you or you read somewhere that the piece is four to five hours depending on the recording then that is just a number. But when you hear it...

True, when I started to listen to the sonata (I still haven't got through the first movement undistracted  )  I thought, okay I'm going to listen to a movement that's 45 minutes long.  It doesn't seem nearly as long as it actually is.

Most people may not like opus clavicembalisticum but Sorabji's skill is undeniable. It may be noise, but this is surely noise of sublime artistic level. Any claim that it would be very easy to write a piece like opus clavicembalisticum: please try and realise what an achivement it actually was.

It is indeed in no way easy to write something like Sorabji's music.  I've tried it many times and failed, ending up not knowing what the hell I had written actually sounded like.  Sorabji was a genius.
 

But after 4 hours and 46 minutes, I was still puzzled. Why did he write it? And since OC wasn't an expeption; why did he write those other huge pieces, some even longer? It seems the guy was dead-serious. If he tried to write a piece of 15-25 minutes he would have written way better music.

Much of his music is of  15-25 minutes.  The Sonata no. 1, "Le Jardin Parfume", and "Quaere reliqua hujus materiae inter secretiora" all fall into this time-length.

are their midi's of these pieces? and who really cares about the length. I know of people who love opera so much that they play piano reductions to operas. Mozart wrote operas that were around four hours. length doesn't matter, it is the quality and the feelings given from the experience.

I don't believe there are any online midi files of Sorabji's music, but a midi performance can offer only the right notes, which is one of the most fundamental aspects of pianism.  We really should not have to resort to midi to hear his work.

As JCarey already explained that currently the only way to hear it is to buy it, I would like to add that if anyone is going to purchase a recording, whatever you do, DO NOT buy Geoffrey Douglas Madge's recording.  There are many places in the four hours, where he plays random notes based on how the music looks, and there are parts where he is completely improvising.  I'm sure many people have been repelled from Opus Clavicembalisticum by this disgusting travesty of a recording.  Anyone who wishes to hear the piece can either buy John Ogdon's recording, which is substantially more accurate yet extending the length of the piece by almost an hour to acheive this, or wait for Mr. Powell to make his recording of the work, and judging by his other recordings of Sorabji, it should be worth waiting for.

[JCarey]

are their midi's of these pieces?

Unfortunately, no. However, here are some samples:


Fantasie Espagnole (Amato)


Opus Clavicembalisticum (Madge) -

Introito
Preludio-Corale
Fantasia
Fuga Tertia Triplex


Regards,
John Carey

[JCarey]

Also, here is a link to a complete recording of Sorabji's "In the Hothouse" - https://www.sorabji.com/sound/piano/hothouse.ram

[Nightscape]

I really like that "In the hothouse" piece by Sorabji.  I'm listening to it right now.  It sounds like some sort of Scriabin-Ravel-Schoenberg mix with a little jazz thrown in for good measure.  I'm interested enough to look for further recordings of Sorabji.  JCarey, do you have any recommendations for Sorabji CDs (I'm a little worried about recording quality, I read your review of Madge's OC on Amazon)?

[JCarey]

I suggest the following CDs out of the ones I own -

Fantasie Espagnole, Amato
Le Jardin Parfume, Solomon
Piano Sonata #1, Hamelin
Toccata #1, Powell
Piano Music and Transcriptions, Habermann
Gullistan, Hopkins
The Legendary Works for Piano, Habermann

This should certainly be enough to get you started. 

[prometheus]

Bowyer recorded the first Organ Symphony and he wants to record the other two too. I am not sure if this has already been done.

[JCarey]

I recommend that anyone who values their sanity STAY AWAY FROM THE ORGAN SYMPHONY!

[prometheus]

Why?

[JCarey]

Why?

I suppose it's a matter of personal taste... but I think this should get the point across.

[prometheus]

I already listened to it. I guess I already lost it.

[JCarey]

Perhaps I don't like it mainly because I don't like the organ. And I especially dislike the organ when it sounds like somebody is pressing down on as many keys as they can with their arms, as opposed to their fingers... 

[musicsdarkangel]

I suppose it's a matter of personal taste... but I think this should get the point across.

EWWWW

[Etude]

I find that recording easier to listen to now than I did when I first heard it; it doesn't seem so bad now.  I suppose it's a matter of getting used to the style.

However, that's exactly what happened when I heard Madge's OC......   

[xvimbi]

I find that recording easier to listen to now than I did when I first heard it; it doesn't seem so bad now.  I suppose it's a matter of getting used to the style.

No, that's called 'desensitization' 

[Etude]

I think the Organ isn't very good for this piece though, Bowyer has used so many stops that you don't recognize the original chords at first, just one big mess.  I also think maybe it is The Organ and not just this one.  Sorabji said this was his first mature piece.  And most of his works that follow are in more or less the same style, including Opus Clavicembalisticum, and more or less the same levels of dissonance.  For some reason, it seems you can get away with more dissonance on the piano than the organ.

No, that's called 'desensitization' 

perhaps.....   

[BoliverAllmon]

dissonant fast organ is not my taste. Even fast bach fugues are harsh on my ears. I wonder what someone who really likes organ would think of the piece?

[Skeptopotamus]

o.o


i like sorabji but the OC is like....... *wants to die*

[pseudopianist]

Unfortunately, no. However, here are some samples:


Fantasie Espagnole (Amato)


Regards,
John Carey

I LOVE YOU

[Skeptopotamus]

I LOVE HIM TOO!  everyone loves you rachabji!