Kaikhosru Sorabji | In the Hothouse

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892 - 1988) was an English composer, music critic, pianist and writer whose music, written over a period of seventy years, ranges from sets of miniatures to works lasting several hours.
One of the most prolific 20th-century composers, he is best known for his piano pieces, notably nocturnes such as Gulistān and Villa Tasca, and large-scale, technically intricate compositions, which include seven symphonies for piano solo, four toccatas, Sequentia cyclica and 100 Transcendental Studies. He felt alienated from English society by reason of his homosexuality and mixed ancestry, and had a lifelong tendency to seclusion.
Sorabji was educated privately. His mother was English and his father a Parsi businessman and industrialist from India, who set up a trust fund that freed his family from the need to work. Although Sorabji was a reluctant performer and not a virtuoso, he played some of his music publicly between 1920 and 1936. In the late 1930s, his attitude shifted and he imposed restrictions on performance of his works, which he lifted in 1976. His compositions received little exposure in those years and he remained in public view mainly through his writings, which include the books Around Music and Mi contra fa: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician. During this time, he also left London and eventually settled in the village of Corfe Castle, Dorset. Information on Sorabji's life, especially his later years, is scarce, with most of it coming from the letters he exchanged with his friends.
As a composer, Sorabji was largely self-taught. Although he was attracted to modernist aesthetics at first, he later dismissed much of the established and contemporary repertoire. He drew on such diverse influences as Ferruccio Busoni, Claude Debussy and Karol Szymanowski and developed a style blending baroque forms with frequent polyrhythms, interplay of tonal and atonal elements and lavish ornamentation. Though he composed mostly for the piano and has been likened to the composer-pianists he admired, including Franz Liszt and Charles-Valentin Alkan, he also wrote orchestral, chamber and organ pieces. His harmonic language and complex rhythms anticipated works from the mid-20th century onwards, and while his music remained largely unpublished until the early 2000s, interest in it has grown since then.

[@newaccounter]

Crazy seeing Sorabji on here

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@newaccounter I really held myself back recently because I personally love this kind of music but in the end it is my channel so I thought I will play all music that I like. It's a reflection of my musical taste and understanding, this work

[@4candles]

I did not expect to see Sorabji on your channel! This is one of the few pieces by the composer I REALLY enjoy. I've heard a few other performances of this piece and I've always loved the gorgeous impressionistic, jazzy harmonies, but I've never been so attracted to the melody as you have played it here: so clear, so perfectly in tune with everything going on around it. That, coupled with the tempo you take, which gives the music much-needed breathing space, makes this a highly enjoyable interpretation. Beautifully played, as ever. And I agree with @ValseMelancolique. Thank you for this.

[@ValseMelancolique]

🫡🫡🫡

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@4candles Thanks for your kind words

[@Varooooooom]

So gorgeous

[@gabriel.lopespoesia]

Julian, I love your videos and the fact that you feature composers who are not so well known nowadays or who are rare. I heard Sorabji for the first time when I was 16, on KZbin, on John Ogdon's recordings. I also listened to Leo Ornstein. Both retained an incredible piece of my adolescence and memory. I'd never heard this one, and although I was aware of its "exploratory" nature, I couldn't have imagined hearing your interpretation of Sorabji - magnificent, as always. I loved this composition, with its debussyan and jazzy colours. Keep enchanting us with your spectacular musical taste and touch! Hugs from Brazil! ❤

[@ValseMelancolique]

Very nice presentation - I could never ‘get into’ any commercial and/or recent performances of this work, as they quickly veer off the path of the composer’s direction of tempo, which is a rare occurrence with metronomic markings in his music from what I have experienced, these ‘players’ are many and quick to run to a finish-line, completely losing the Debussian atmosphere and I am out of breath as well as a Listener from the Racehorses finishing their laps in a single breath! Maybe I will try the piece out myself after this refreshing performance.

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@ValseMelancolique Thank you!

[@gabriel.lopespoesia]

Waiting to hear your version. I love your channel

[@user-qm1xk9xk2w]

Wow, finally, I'm so glad

[@farhadnawab7642]

I listened to it twice. The second time was more enjoyable.

[@turtle945]

good music be like that

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@farhadnawab7642 Your good. I needed many more attempts

[@aardigrade]

Wow this tempo is incredible!

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@aardigrade I really did nothing else than sticking to the actual written tempo of 45 per eighth *or even less*. I choose about 42 for this - most performances I find also start with about 45 but then accelerate to 60-80 or even 100 per EN in parts. However, I can't find any markings in the score that would allow such a drastic increase in speed. Given that he denoted instructions very meticulously throughout the whole composition I wouldn't understand why such a crucial information about a drastic tempo change would not be written down, if necessary. I do like many Performances of this piece that do that, however.

[@eliseantys2040]

So happy to hear your performance of Sorabji 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@orhaneneskuzu]

Very Nice , thank you

[@deodatdechampignac]

Bravo !!

[@AzzyKujo]

this is amazing, gamma youre the best :0 youve done amazing music for years :)

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@AzzyKujo ❤️

[@ţťþtţtt]

unexpected

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@ţťþtţtt zingg

[@j.thomas1420]

Now try the second movement... 😖

[@azure5697]

Can't you directly link on your videos how you find that specific score?

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@azure5697 i googled for 20 seconds

[@bbvv2967]

its on imslp

[@Musicforever60]

Hey, good work so far. But, must say, it need much more shaping. You're playing so much of it with the same tone and directionless tempo that it gets tiring to listen to and breaks any atmosphere you're trying to create.

[@Steve_Max]

Roast my recording please😅

[@mrsnegy6001]

hmm......This "hmm" has nothing to do with you, Julian.

[@starsandnightvision]

Nope.

[@PianoScoreVids]

@@starsandnightvision Yep.

[@pompodorius]

I must not understand this, don't care for it at all.