Ian Pace on Sorabji

[djealnla]

Directed at "lol" is a pretty good example of the enormous amount of time being spent in this thread to bolster pointless and/or stupid posts with unnecessary effort.

I agree with you on a certain level, but I nevertheless do not believe that it would have been wise to have posted only that which can be compared to replies #s 158 and 180.

[ahinton]

I wonder if given the chance Sorabji would have exterminated a few music critics.

Not really (and, after all, let's now forget that he was one himself - and quite an active one from the early 1920s to around the end of WWII); I think that he would have been - as indeed he was - far more inclined to put them it what he saw as their place in his own inimitable manner.

In chapter III of Mi Contra Fa under the heading of "Music and Muddleheadedness", he seems to have taken a dislike to a certain Sir Walford Davies. Pretty strong stuff and amusing at the same time.

And not so surprising, really...

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

Oh dear, Sorabji appears to have disliked amateurs as well as Sir Walford Davies & the musical writings of Alan Bush & Richard Strauss.

I look forward to the next chapter of his book which I shall read tonight.

I might start a "Mi Contra Fa" thread, as I find his writings fascinating.

Thal

[gep]

Sorabji appears to have disliked amateurs

Well, I am not sure (Alistair might enlighten the matter here), but I think Sorabji didn't dislike amateurs an sich, but more the kind of amateur who thinks he/she should be assessed by the amount of toil and trouble he/she has put in getting their result rather than by the actual result. Of course, it may be a bit unpleasant when, after toiling your butt of for a year, someone says "well, obviously you've worked hard, but really, you aren't up to it I'm afraid".
The reason I have never bothered learning an instrument is really because I know I would never be able to play the music I would wish to play the way that that music deserves. And I do not care to play any music below the level the music deserves, nor do I care to play (well) the music I do not care for. I only need to hear Bach's WTC played by, say, Richter to know the wisdom of my decision, at least for me.
As for Sorabji's stance, I think I read somewhere he found that some laymen did have a better (or more sincere) understanding of (or openmindedness to) his music than many a "professional". One might read some "critics" (a certain Mr. Hurwitz of Classics Today comes to mind; who judges a performance by way of how he likes the music) to know the truth in this.

As for Alan Bush, I think that Sorabji was able to take seriously a composer whose music he didn't like necessarily like. I think that he found it more importantly if a composer honestly followed his "inner nature/voice", even when the result thereof was not to his personal (i.e. Sorabji's)taste

May I add, Thal, that I am most pleasantly surprised by your ongoing Sorabjification!

all best,
gep

[thalbergmad]

As far as I can see, Sorabji did rate Bush very highly as a composer, but it was the way that Bush thought that his music could portray life and politcal convictions that Sorabji found absurd.

Alistair has mentioned that Sorabji thought the Bush piano concerto was the best written by an English composer. No doubt he had heard all the Bowen, but evidently not the Bainton

I continue to be Sorabjified. Even if I do not love the music, I am becoming ever increasingly interested in the man.

Thal
Sorabji Scholar

[ahinton]

Oh dear, Sorabji appears to have disliked amateurs as well as Sir Walford Davies & the musical writings of Alan Bush & Richard Strauss.

On the (almost) contrary, Sorabji was a strong supporter of Alan Bush's work (his reviews of Bush's piano concerto and first symphony are ample testament to that - and his enthusiastic (albeit unpublished) endorsement of Bush's final opera Joe Hill: The Man who Never Died some 35 years later evidences that his admiration for Bush's work remained a constant; as to Strauss, his attitude was somewhat ambivalent and he made little secret of his deprecation of Symphonia Domestica, but he utterly adored Salome and also publicly admitted to a change of mind to a more positive view of some other works of Strauss that has previously done little for him. Of these three men, therefore, only Sir Walford Davies struck him as vacuous.

I look forward to the next chapter of his book which I shall read tonight.

I might start a "Mi Contra Fa" thread, as I find his writings fascinating.

It's a great read, isn't it?!

Best,

Alistair

[ahinton]

Re Thal's and gep's most recent posts...

Sorabji did not dispprove of amateurs per se but dilettantes, which is a very different phenomenon; indeed, he was often at pains to point out the literal meaning of "amateurs" and how that meaning had been corrupted in the general public mind. He also stated that he had received some of the most intelligent comments about his own work from people who were unable to read music; he certainly did not write only for those who were musically literate.

Thal hits the nail squarely on the head by declaring that "it was the way that Bush thought that his music could portray life and political convictions that Sorabji found absurd"; it was likewise the fact that Strauss seemed almost to assume that he could portray a knife, fork and spoon in music that he found equally absurd. For not dissimilar reasons, Sorabji was deeply distrustful of Shostakovich in print and reserved some of his most venomous and castigatory remarks on composers for him as a consequence of having failed dismally to grasp what was going on in Shostakovich's life in Soviet Russia, the constant pressures under which he lived that life and the day-to-day climate of fear in which he was obliged to exist; such insensitivity and - yes - ignorance is as uncharacteristic of Sorabji as it is distasteful. Later in life (albeit sadly long after he had ceased to function as a professional music critic), he undertook a quite devastating reappraisal of Shostakovich and found that there was an immense amount to admire and respect on several of the symphonies and the first violin concerto; he even asked me if I thought that Shostakovich had ever read any of his "ill-considered remarks about him in Mi Contra Fa and elsewhere", to which I assured him that this would have been most unlikely. He told me that he even pondered writing a letter of apology to Shostakovich just in case - but before he could decide whether or not to do this, Shostakovich's premature death was announced. Despite all of this, Sorabji had always held a high opinion of Shostakovich's first symphony.

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

On the (almost) contrary, Sorabji was a strong supporter of Alan Bush's work (his reviews of Bush's piano concerto and first symphony are ample testament to that

I made myself terribly unclear. By musical writings, I meant what they wrote about their own compositions and not the compositions themselves.

Thal

[ahinton]

I made myself terribly unclear. By musical writings, I meant what they wrote about their own compositions and not the compositions themselves.

If you'll forgive me for saying so, I think you're still being abit unclear (at least to me); I don't quite understand what it is that you are writing here. It sounds as though you are referring to what Sorabji and Bush each wrote about their own work rather than about each others' work, yet that doesn't seem to me to be what you intended. Perhaps I'm just being dense (not for the first time!), so could you explain a little more?

Best,

Alistair

[thalbergmad]

I think the fault is mine. I am particularly unlucid tonight.

I was trying to say that Sorabji appreciated Bush as a composer, but would not tolerate what Bush claimed some of his own compositions depicted. Similarly with some of Strauss, Sorabji remarked that it would be impossible to know what events were being depicted without recourse to a programme, despite what the composer claimed.

Too late for me and I have had a few. I will close by suggesting that clearly Delius would have written far better music had he been a Christian.

Thal

[ahinton]

I think the fault is mine. I am particularly unlucid tonight.

Really? That's well less than obvious from what follows...

I was trying to say that Sorabji appreciated Bush as a composer, but would not tolerate what Bush claimed some of his own compositions depicted. Similarly with some of Strauss, Sorabji remarked that it would be impossible to know what events were being depicted without recourse to a programme, despite what the composer claimed.

And that's absolutely the point; nothing "unlucid" about your thinking here!

Too late for me and I have had a few.

A few what? (whom?)...

I will close by suggesting that clearly Delius would have written far better music had he been a Christian.

At last you let yourself down with a load of rubbish! (although Sir Walford Davies might have endorsed such sentiments and even Eric Fenby himself might on the odd occasion have entertained something not entirely dissimilar while well out of Delius's ear- and eye-shot) - but never mind, for the rest of what you write here make eminently good sense! One might as well have said that Elgar would have written far better music had he been either a non-doubting Roman catholic or an out-and-out atheist!...

Best,

Alistair