I'm starting to think that maybe Sorabji wrote this piece for people like us to quarrel over. Or possibly he wanted to be the first composer to ever write a piece that no one would perform... Is he in the Guinness World Records?
I ws going to leave this for others to squabble over if they so wish, but I suppose I'd better make a few brief observations, now that I've actually been invited to do so.
I hardly think that Sorabji would have sought to write a piece just so that people who weren't even born at the time he wrote it would "quarrel" over it on an internet forum, a medium that would have been entirely unfamiliar to him at the time (1929-30); neither is it conceivable that he would have wanted to be the first - or any other - composer "to ever write a piece that no one would perform", given that, at the time of its completion, he was already scheduled to perform it himself within less than six months.
OC used (erroneously) to be in the Guinness Book of Records but has not been for some years.
"Invictious" is as entitled to his opinion of OC as is anyone else, although it is clearly not shared by those who have played the work or most of those who have attended public performances of it and/or purchased one or more of its recordings; that said, the value of individual opinions to those that read them is inevitably dependent upon the extent of experience and understanding that informs - and helps to form - those opinions in the first place, whether on OC or anything else - and just how well "invictious" knows OC I have no idea. I am quite sure, however, that Sorabji would also have encouraged people to play more Rakhmaninov, Skryabin and other major piano composers whose work he adored - not that this fact is directly relevant to the subject under discussion here.
Who would copyright such garbage?
Please erase this composition of treachery from the face of earth.
I call for extermination of all records of Sorabji, his works, recordings, and all of those who "enjoy" his works. Why didn't Hitler file Sorabji lovers under the same category as homosexuals and Jews? The world would have been a better place if he had done so.
It seems unlikely that this post was intended to be taken seriously but - just for entertainment value - let's divert ourselves momentarily and try.
The copyright in OC was established in precisely the same way as is the case for all new compositions; the question here therefore seems redundant.
The identity/ies of those to whom the rather fatuous and unworkable erasure plea is intended to be addressed is as unclear as is that of the victims of the alleged "treachery" (and I had thought that "treachery" involved betrayal, so the use of the term here is also unclear); the call for "extermination" is self-evidently even more implausible of execution.
Poor Hitler; why blame him? - especially when he was almost certainly ignorant of the subject (and quite understandably so, since he was not a professional musician and no performances of Sorabji's music are known to have taken place in the Fatherland during his lifetime); after all, he departed this world long before there were any Sorabji recordings and before the dawn of the now burgeoning performance tradition in the composer's work. In any case, had he known more, who knows? - perhaps his much-vaunted love of Wagner might have prompted him to find something to admire in the larger-scale works of this very non-British and non-Jewish composer. But then - taken literally - the question here seems only to bemoan Hitler's omission to "file" these individuals; it is therefore unclear what outcome of his greater efficiency as a filing clerk might have arisen had he actually done as the questioner seems to wish he had done.
To return hastily to more serious and less speculative matters, I am sorry have to to say that there is no more news on a new recording of OC yet. The latest situation, as we understand it, is that Jonathan Powell, who intends to make the next one, wishes to secure and give just two more public performances of it before he is prepared to commit himself to it in the studio. Everyone interested in the outcome of this will naturally share my hope that these events will all occur sooner rather than later.
Readers will doubtless be relieved to learn that I do not propose to be drawn into yet another series of exchanges about how to obtain Sorabji scores legitimately or why they should be obtained in that way, if for no better reason than that most people surely know by now how to get hold of these items and that we are here to help anyone who wants Sorabji information and material - and those who don't know will be aware of who to ask. Full stop. Amen.
I hope that the above answers whatever needed to be answered to the satisfaction of anyone who wanted some kind of answer from me.
Best,
Alistair
Topic: opus clavicembalisticum