OC - How many recordings are there?

[ioriyagami]

I just wonder how many pianist have recorded this work?
i know madge and ogdon do,but i am not able to get a copy of the ogdon's recoding

does any one know where to get the ogdon's one(except emule cuz the one at there doesn't work)
or are there any recordings other than the madge and ogdon one?

[ilikefinnissy]

Both Ogdon and Madge are very much available at Amazon.com.  The Ogon was just re-released last year.  However, both of these recordings are horrible and terribly distort the music.  The only good recording available of OC is by Michael Habberman, though unfortunately this is only of the first two short movements.  He really brings clarity to the variations (Preludio-chorale), which in Ogdons and Madge's hands, just become unrecognizable washes of sound.
Whenever Jonathan Powell records OC, that will be the time to really evaluate the work.

There is supposedly a video recording of Jonathan Powell playing OC, though the one person who has it is (Rygullian - his AIM screen name), is a real jerk.  I mean a real f*ing ***.

[ahinton]

There have to date been three complete recordings of OC, two by Geoffrey Douglas Madge and one by John Ogdon. Madge's were both taken from live performances, respectively in 1982 (Utrecht) and 1983 (Chicago), although the first of these recordings (a boxed set of LPs that has been unavailable for several years) was released in 1983 in the Netherlands but the second (on CDs and still available from BIS) did not appear until 1999. The Ogdon was recorded in London om the latter 1980s and appeared soon after the death of the composer and just before that of the pianist.

We have never seen any video of Jonathan Powell playing OC and, to our knowledge, no official video was made at any of his performances of it. His five performances of it have been privately at The Sorabji Archive (2003), London (2003), New York (2004) and Helsinki and St. Petersburg (both 2005). He now says that he needs to perform it in public another twice and then he'll feel ready to record it; no such performances have been scheduled yet, but we hope that this will happen before too long.

Best,

Alistair

[prometheus]

Buy the Toccata No.1 by Powel instead.

[ahinton]

Buy the Toccata No.1 by Powel instead.

Or indeed any of Mr Powell's other Sorabji recordings, of which there are now several - the largest and most ambitious of which is his 3-CD set of the work that almost immediately preceded OC - the Fourth Sonata. There's nothing to stop anyone buying Mr Powell's receordings AS WELL as others' of Sorabji's music, however; for example, there are two recordings of Gulistan, one by Hopkins and the other by Powell and I for one would not want to be without either. Then there's Yonty Solomon's of Le Jardin Parfumé. A mixed recital CD and Fantaisie Espagnole played by Donna Amato. One point worthy of note here is that most of the CDs of Sorabji's music that have been issued over the past 18 years are still available today.

Best,

Alistair