if mr solomon (reading alistairs archives) said something about 'uniquely forbidding,' then it must be that one of the main objectives of sorabji and alistair is to create a few mountains for pianists to climb.
No - not at all - not in either case; the "objective" is to write the piece that one feels one needs to write, howsoever complex or simple, easy or difficult to perform, etc. What matters is the obtaining, organising and expressing of ideas. I never go out of my way to be approachable in my work, but then I never go out of my way to do the opposite, either; this kind of thing carries with it the inherent danger that one might get unduly hooked up on the problems and difficulties - or otherwise - of what one is trying to create rather than its actual substance. The same may be said of Sorabji's attitude to such matters. Furthermore, although Sorabji's solo piano output constitutes a substantial proportion of his oeuvre as a whole and I've not exactly been a slouch at piano writing myself, each of us wrote for other forces - so it's not all about what pianists have to end up doing in any case...
and once climbed - they can be complimented for their ability to at least 'get through' the piece although never fully comprehending the 'interpretation' side - since that will always rest with the composer on that one.
Were that to be true, then much of the object of the exercise would be either lost altogether, or at leeast of dubious worth; if the performer/s doesn't/don't get inside the music itself, then all the technical feats of physical virtuosity / digital/cerebral co-ordination and all the rest will likely risk adding up to little more than a mere circus trick.
the reason i say this - is that i've noticed that alistair does like the fact that a pianist - to get a true sense of a work - should at least do what he did (in finding sorabji) and do a little research. find out about the composer. dead or alive. and have some interaction to fully understand what interpretation the composer most favored.
Research of this kind can sometimes help, although it should always only be seen as a useful adjunct, rather than taking the place of, instinctive and intelligent reasoning. Working with living composers' music is always going to be a rather different matter to working with that of deceased ones, but one must remember in both cases that music has a degree of fluidity and that interpretative traditions grow and metamorphose over time - and that the composer is not "always right", any more than there is bu one Urtextual way in which any one piece should be performed at any given time. One has only to consider different performances of the same work at different times by some of the gret pianists to understand at least something of that notion; composers likewise are often likely to view their own works differently - both per se and in the ever-changing context in which they may be placed - as time passes.
as i see it, with some excellent piano teachers, that is the most favored method in any case. to be faithful to the original idea. although in newer music - it also allows for 'creative' periods where the pianist may on occasion - simply enter the realm of 'this is my piece' and either make the composer very very happy or turn over in his/her grave.
See above. In so writing, however, I am not trying to blur the lines between fine, less than fine and downright hopeless interpretations - merely to point up the fact that it's not all "black and white" (apart from the piano keys, of course!) or "right and wrong".
i was surprised to find out that alistair doesn't really care if program notes are read and frankly considers them a waste of time.
So was I! No - what I said (I haven't time to go look up the precise reference right now, so perhaps I should write "what I meant to covey") was that I do not care for the practice of reading of programme notes before - and still less during - a performance and that the best time to read them at all is some time after the performance has taken place. Music should not - and the best of it indeed does not - "need" verbal explanation and excuses to "help" listeners get their ears around it, whether it is entirely new or familiar to them.
yet - fastidious as he was in finding sorabji and allowing his works to be performed by specific pianists of his choosing - there is obviously some things that are to be understood.
There is always a special kind of problem when a performing tradition on a composer's work does not begin to get off the groung during the composer's lifetime - or, at least, very late in life (as in Sorabji's case); there is a variety of reasons for this and space precludes my mentioning and discussing them here. The fastidiousness to which you refer and which was particularly necessary in the case of Sorabji's work was due to the fact that Sorabji had allowed himself to become accustomed to lack of performances of his work over several decades and had accordingly developed something of a "couldn't-care-less" attitude about it, preferring, as he did, to continue to wrestle with his more recent creative thoughts.
what i want to know - is what characteristics that solomon had that made him a good interpreter of sorabji. and, obviously, it wasn't just good sightreading ability. (or was it?)
Of course not! Yonty Solomon simply had the kind of mind to attune itself instinctively to certain Sorabjian pianistic thought-processes and was able to produce the kinds of sounds that Sorabji liked and wanted in his works. Mr Solomon has a vast dynamic range, yet never forces anything at all (indeed he absolutely deprecates the use - or even any suggestion - of "force" at the piano, as his many so many students over the years will readily testify).
oh, and i want to know exactly what jonathan powell possesses that makes him a good pianist for the works of yours, alistair.
To date, Mr Powell has played only one piano work of mine (albeit one of the most challenging of them), although he is soon to prepare the third and fourth of my five piano sonatas. What he and certain others have is an innate ability to bring out precisely what I had in mind without my having to act like a programme note writer and "tell" them (in rehearsal) "no, I want this passage like that" or "no, I don't want that passage like this". I suppose that this testifies in part to some ability on my part to express my thoughts on paper with at least some reasonable degree of accuracy and comprehensibility but, given that musical notation is by its very nature capable of conveying only a limited amount of what is being expressed, I prefer to credit intelligent and pereptive performers for getting inside the music and being able to present and project it pretty much as I had conceived it, with no assistance from me beyond my having written the music down as best I could. If I were a pianist, I would, for example, want to perform my
Sequentia Claviensis like Jonathan Powell does.
mi contra fa - might mean that the devils chord should always be placed in the bass. just kidding. i would like to understand a few passages of this book without reading the entire thing.
Then do procure yourself a copy from a library if you can; I'm not sure how else you'll get it, other than buying the entire thing from us, which I presume you'd rather not do until you have at least had opportunity to sample its contents. This book, like his earlier volume
Around Music (1932), is a collection of essays on various matters. Several chapters in each book first appeared in British journals to which Sorabji contributed from time to time, although there are more instances of this in
Around Music than in
Mi Contra Fa. The earlier book, as its title suggests, confines itself to musical subjects, whereas the later one spreads its net - and its terms of reference - rather wider, although it, too, still contains plenty of material on musical topics.
can you give us a synopsis.
It would be hard to give a meaningful "synopsis" of a book whose very natuire is a collection of essays on disparate topics; you'll really have to get a copy to find out what it has in store for you, I fear!
i have limited time
I know - you have all that posting to do(!)...
but some interest in what sorabji was attempting to do with his music. was it to break all the limits of time and space.
I would not say that Sorabji was consciously attempting to do precisely that, any more than, say, Mahler, Wagner or Beethoven were; he himself would doubtless have said that he was too busy doing it to allow himself time to think about the whys and wherefores of the rationale behind it.
was it that sorabji was in the process of 'freeing his spirit' after his 80th birthday - only to have it locked up again as pianists continued to play his pieces?
No - not that I really understand quite what it is that you seek to suggest here. I do not think that Sorabji's creative spirit was ever "locked up" anywhere at any time, even though he did choose to lock himself largely away from the gaze of the music profession in order to concentrate his energies upon the products of that free spirit.
i should like to see what he does (perhaps much like mr hearst) knocking around the castle and occasionally going on piano forum - but not much caring what people say - as the music speaks for itself.
Er - pardon? Sorabji died 18 years ago and never participated on an internet forum! What exactly do you mean here?
Anyway - you've just typed 477 words about Sorabji, me, ingterpretation of piano works, etc. without a single direct mention of anythying religious; why do you post so much wholly non-religious material in a thread specifically about religious people? ("just kidding", as you yourself would say!).
Best,
Alistair
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