Y'all, nobody is reading that boring *** argument. Take it outside. Alistair, you look small for getting dragged into line-by-line level pique. This thread is to promote a major musical moment in history with the release of this gargantuan piece that was for a long time just a fable!
Tranquillo e Piano: The transition into this movement makes much more sense. This is squarely in Sorabji's later style (heavily influenced by Baroque forms), though as the title suggests softer to the ears than most. The first section (up til 11:30) was well-composed, but I'm not sure how pianistic it is. I say this because this movement is the first that's direct enough for me to be able to 'interpret in my head' along with a first listen, and I almost never agreed with Powell's interp. But it seemed highly plausible in most cases that it could have been just too hard to mitigate the density in terms of getting some of what seemed to be the right/obvious affects and articulations in a classical setting. In other words, I'd say the piece is better than the recording, for this part of the movement, it being unclear whose fault that is.
The next section is more nocturnal (up to 28:30); it's all well and good, but it extends for such a period of time as to really lose all relation to the first section, and certainly wipe it completely clean from my memory. The effect of this extended nocturne sort of conflicts with an aurally intelligible structure for the movement, so I'm not sure that this should have been conceived as a single variation. I would say that this section overall is pleasant listening, but nothing especially captivating or engrossing. It's followed by a brief climax that was welcome, but which also meandered a bit, though maybe it should be considered a separate 'section' in its own right - but that doesn't really change my impression.
Around 32:50 we get a novel transformation and the start of another big section (which sounds *insanely* hard in places, props to Powell on getting a lot of nice colors in this section) which functions as the start of an enormous tension in the piece. I was fully ensconced in the piece for this section, so that probably means it's good.
About ten minutes later we got the start of a reprise of the tension built up in the previous section, and the introduction of a bell motif that comes in and out, and really reminded me of the first movement of the 2nd Mosolov Sonata. VERY close to that in terms of both form and function, though the Mosolov would have been so obscure at the time that I'm sure there could be no claim of 'borrowing.' Or actually, Alistair, do you know whether Sorabji had any familiarity with Mosolov's stuff?
So yeah, there was this massive structure all thrusting toward a huge, dramatic climax . . . but it fizzled. There was a smidge of uproar toward the end of this section, but it just wasn't enough. I was really let down. It would be like if you took the presto at the end out of the Bach Chaconne, the whole piece was propelling itself toward something and then we were denied. I guess that was his choice, but it left me simply unsatisfied.
Now at 47:30ish we're back to a more nocturnal setting, though with more sense of resolution than before by injecting more classical harmony. It seems like he was going for a Messiaen-like 'big church' sort of feel, but again it never really built to anything. Just a swamp of chords. He pulls the rug out one more time with this contrapuntal finale section (which actually often takes a Chaconne form), but it also refuses to climax. This movement needed a Viagra. I liked a lot of this ending section, especially the Lisztian modal sections with the big arpeggios which were incredibly beautiful. I liked the little 'jazz interlude' with all the Impressionist chords, too, it fit in oddly well with the rest of the piece. The ending went on FOREVER though, downright-boring.
So, overall I liked the vast majority of this movement, but it had some macro structural problems that really left me high and dry. The highlight IMO is the first section, namely up to 11:30ish. Do I think it warranted the 65 minute time stamp? Hell no. I think its enormity didn't contribute, and if anything detracted a bit by obscuring the relations between the sections.
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Topic: Sorabji vs Microwave Background Radiation Hiss