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Home , Elliott Carter, Erik Chisholm, Metric modulation, Nocturne, Opus clavicembalisticum, Toccata

SORABJI SEQUENTIA CYCLICA Super Dies Irae ex Missa Pro Defunctis

JONATHAN POWELL KAIKHOSRU SHAPURJI SORABJI 1892-1988 SEQUENTIA CYCLICA SUPER DIES IRAE EX MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS

1 Theme 11 IX Capriccioso 11’27 24 XXII Passacaglia 36 XXVI Largamente pomposo Largo Legatissimo sempre 12 X Il tutto in una sonorità [with 100 variations]: e maestoso 16’24 e nello stile medioevale piena, dolce, morbida, Variations 1–11 9’43 XXVII Fuga quintuplice a due, detto ‘organum’ 4’29 calda e voluttuosa 33’13 25 Variations 12–24 10’57 tre, quattro, cinque e sei 2 I Vivace (spiccato assai) 7’59 13 XI Vivace e secco 2’19 26 Variations 25–36 11’09 voci ed a cinque soggetti 3 II Moderato 8’01 14 XII Leggiero a capriccio 7’16 27 Variations 37–49 12’09 37 Fuga [prima a due voci] 13’43 4 III Legato, soave e liscio 8’30 15 XIII Aria: Con fantasia e 28 Variations 50–59 9’58 38 Fuga seconda a tre voci 6’24 5 IV [ Tranquillo e piano] dolcezza 22’16 29 Variations 60–65 6’00 39 Fuga terza a quattro voci 9’53 (part 1) 50’27 16 XIV Punta d’organo 26’48 30 Variations 66–75 9’49 40 Fuga quarta a cinque voci 8’53 6 IV [ Tranquillo e piano] 17 XV Hispanica 13’08 31 XXII Passacaglia 41 Fuga quinta a sei voci, (part 2) 14’18 18 XVI Marcia funebre 4’34 [with 100 variations] Stretto e Coda 41’04 7 V Ardito, focosamente 8’23 19 XVII Soave e dolce 3’24 (cont.): 8 VI Vivace e leggiero 3’30 20 XVIII Duro, irato, energico 10’27 Variations 76–89 14’58 9 VII [L’istesso ] 2’27 21 XIX Quasi Debussy 7’28 32 Variations 90–100 12’45 10 VIII Tempo di Valzer con molta 22 XX Spiccato, leggiero 3’43 33 XXIII Con brio 12’21 fantasia, disinvoltura e 23 XXI Legatissimo, dolce 34 XXIV Oscuro, sordo 10’47 eleganza 20’54 e soave 8’49 35 XXV Sotto voce, scorrevole 2’16

Jonathan Powell piano First Recording SORABJI’S SEQUENTIA CYCLICA: AN INTRODUCTION (starting in 2000) making editions of these and performing them. It was Alistair by Jonathan Powell Hinton who sent the heavy parcel to Brixton; given that at the time I was busy preparing performances of Sorabji’s per suonare da me solo and One morning during the late Spring or early summer of 2002 a large parcel Sonata No.4, he had good reason to imagine that one day I might perform this was delivered to my flat in Brixton, south . Inside was a facsimile of the piece. In 1999 the American pianist and Justin Rubin had performed manuscript of Sorabji’s Sequentia cyclica super Dies irae ex Missa pro Defunctis a few extracts of the work in Duluth, Minnesota; ‘covering the territory’ is how which, as its title suggests, is a set of variations on the ‘Dies Irae’ plainchant he described his reading to me years later. Reading through the score that from the Latin Requiem Mass – but a set of variations like no other. It contains afternoon I could readily understand why Sorabji considered it his best piano no fewer than 27 variations – not perhaps, an enormous quantity in itself; after work, and it was then I realised that I would perform it one day. Busy with other all, Bach’s ‘Goldberg’ Variations are 30 in number, two of Beethoven’s variation- projects (during 2004 and 2005 I performed Sorabji’s Opus clavicembalisticum sets, that in C minor and the ‘Diabelli’ Variations, contain 32, and Reicha wrote several times, and made recordings of several other of his works, in addition two variation-sets each with 57. But it’s the scale of the variations in Sorabji’s to more conventional pianistic activities), some years passed until in 2006 Sequentia cyclica that makes the difference: although some are over relatively I approached Alexander Abercrombie with the idea of making a typeset swiftly, many of them are much more expansive , and three of them are each edition of the work, and the following year a large section was completed; over an hour in length. I set about learning the theme and first thirteen variations and presented I’d first come across Sorabji’s name in my early teens while perusingThe them in an informal concert in December 2008 in central London. Over the Oxford Companion to and the entry on him intrigued me. A year or so next year, the edition was completed, and so in January 2010 I presented later I heard Yonty Solomon give a captivating and charismatic performance variations 14–22 at the same venue; during the following summer I gave a of Sorabji’s Sonata No.1 on BBC radio and this propelled me to find the score private performance in Wimbledon of the whole work, a week or so before of this and several other pieces with the help of staff at the music department to the public world premiere, at University on 18 June. I have since of Birmingham Central Library (the source of much of my musical education). given complete performances in Maastricht, Seattle, Denver and Chicago and a I was soon attempting to play these pieces.1 In 1987 I made contact with partial performance (of some four hours of music) in Gent, and so the present Alistair Hinton, friend of the composer and founder of the Sorabji Archive, recording is the result of many years’ acquaintance with and preparation of this and it was during our long phone conversations that he made me aware of music. the Sequentia cylica. In the meantime, I obtained from him copies of Sorabji’s pieces still in manuscript (and, until recently, most of them were), eventually Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892–1988) was the son of a Parsi civil engineer began to produce performances, broadcasts and commercial recordings which from Mumbai and an English soprano. He completed over 100 pieces between at last laid to rest the long-standing myth of the music’s unplayability. 1915 and 1984, including orchestral works, a large number of and other pieces for piano and , , songs for voice and piano, Authorship of the ‘Dies Irae’, the thirteenth-century Latin chant, is generally three colossal organ and many works for piano solo. He was also attributed to Tommaso de Celano (1200–60/70?), a friend, fellow-friar and active as a pianist (until 1936) and critic (until the later 1940s). A few scores biographer of St Francis of Assisi. What first drew Sorabji to it appears not were published between 1919 and 1931; since the 1990s new editions of most of to be documented although perhaps its appearance in the piano music of his works have been made and are available from the Sorabji Archive.2 Sorabji Rachmaninov and Godowsky5 may have been particular catalysts. In 1923 received no formal training at a music conservatoire but when he began to Sorabji embarked on a substantial set of variations and a for piano on the compose in the mid-1910s he was already au courant with an enormous amount theme, intended to be dedicated to Busoni although, as the latter died in 1924 of new European music, not least works by Schoenberg, Debussy, Skryabin, and the 201-page score of this work was not completed until 1926, the eventual Szymanowski, Busoni and others. A disastrous performance in 1936 of part of dedication was an elaborate one to Busoni’s memory. It seems improbable that, his Opus clavicembalisticum led him to strongly discourage any further public with the passage of time, a composer could forget about having composed a airings of his music, explaining that ‘no performance at all’ is vastly preferable work of such enormity, but that nevertheless seem to have been the case; the to ‘an obscene travesty’;3 although such a protective instinct is understandable composer told Alistair Hinton sometime in the 1970s that he was cleaning out in principle, Sorabji is perhaps the only composer of note ever to have given a broom cupboard in his home one morning when it fell off a shelf and hit him expression to it and then to have attempted to see it through in practice. He on the head;6 he did not recall having seen it in decades! Sorabji described was well aware that ‘performers with the sheer grit, determination and staying this work as ‘not very good. Much too obvious in many places’.7 His rather power ever to attempt his very forbidding scores’ would be such ‘raræ aves deprecatory view of these early variations may be understandable from a that they may be relied on to deduce, from internal evidence, what sort of distance of more than four decades, and no doubt his opinion was particularly treatment the music calls for’. The notes to be mastered, for him, were ‘a pretty influenced by the memory of theSequentia cyclica from the later 1940s: already effective barrier to the typical artistic incompetence and nincompoopery of the in 1930 Sorabji had come to dislike the earlier work and toyed with the idea of many-too-many of the virtuoso tribe’.4 However, in 1976 Sorabji finally relented destroying it and of writing ‘an entirely new work thereon’.8 in favour of the pianist Yonty Solomon, whom he had heard in BBC broadcasts It is known that Sorabji had already started work on the Sequentia cyclica that impressed him greatly. Solomon’s subsequent performances of several of in January 1948, when he wrote to the Dutch-German pianist Egon Petri Sorabji’s works led to increasing international interest: many more performers (1881–1962), describing his current project as a setting of the ‘entire motive’ for piano alone, consisting of 27 variations, ‘some very short, some of great length, unclear whether Petri ever actually saw a copy of the manuscript of Sequentia hardly to be called variations in the ordinary sense’.9 After his unsuccessful cyclica, although it is just possible, as many of Sorabji’s scores were microfilmed encounter with variation form in the 1920s, Sorabji – now a mature composer in USA in the 1950s at a time when Petri was teaching at Mills College in – had returned to the genre a decade later, with the Symphonic Variations for California.11 In a letter to the composer dated 16 February 1949 (almost ten Piano (on an original theme, 1935–37). This work, as yet unperformed, is almost weeks before the completion of the work), Petri wrote: certainly even larger than Sequentia cyclica and must surely be intended to be performed over three evenings; unlike Sequentia it lacks the advantage It is really difficult for me to accept all those flattering epithets from of possessing a theme that is highly recognisable. Like its 1920s predecessor, you, most of which I feel I hardly deserve. But, in spite of that, it is a the Sequentia cyclica super Dies iræ ex Missa pro defunctis ad clavicembali real satisfaction to know that a man of your culture, intelligence and usum (to give it its full name) is a set of variations and a fugue. The dedication accomplishments holds me in such esteem and remembers me with such to Busoni on the score of the earlier Variations is paralleled in the equally appreciation and warmth. Nothing could give me more pleasure and confer a fulsome one in the Sequentia cyclica manuscript inscribed to Busoni’s most greater honor upon me than your intention to dedicate your new piano work distinguished student, Egon Petri, which reads: to me.12

To Egon Petri: the greatest and most powerful intelligence Sorabji finished work on theSequentia cyclia on 27 April 1949; at the end of the the most transcendental Master among final page of the manuscript, he drew a cross and wrote: living Pianists in deepest admiration and regard. Deo gratias et laudes in excelsis: In Nomine Patris et Filii ET Spritus Sancti AMEN. Sorabji had reviewed a number of broadcasts, recordings and recitals by Egon FINIS. 6.15 p.m. 27.IV.MCMXLIX. A.D. Petri in London in The New Age and The New English Weekly, for which he 175 Clarence Gate Gardens. was music critic between 1924 and 1945; his criticisms were invariably most London. N.W.1. favourable. Sorabji saw Petri, like many others, as ‘the only one who can in any Tempo freddivo [sic] brutto ventoso di primavera inglese. sense be called the heir of the Busoni tradition’.10 Petri was delighted when Sorabji presented to him a copy of his then recently published score of Opus A fortnight later he wrote to his old friend, the Scottish composer Erik clavicembalisticum in 1932; apparently, he expressed a desire to perform it. Chisholm, reporting that: The two men became friends in the 1930s, although they met infrequently. It is since finishing theJami I have completed the Sequentia cyclica The 27 variations can be classified and subdivided into a number of types. The on Dies iræ, a series of 27 movements on D.I. terminating in a gigantic 5tuple work as a whole can be regarded as a compendium of Sorabji’s writing for the fugue with the most intricate Stretto Mæstrale that I have ever written! This piano, with the variations ranging in scope from the tropical nocturne to the was finished a week or two ago during a sharp attack of malaria (my 3rd).13 fugue and passacaglia. The three massive variations that take Baroque forms as starting points, each over an hour in length, act as milestones: No.4, a chorale The score is often densely written, with music on as many as six staves. prelude track 5, No.22, the passacaglia with 100 variations tracks 24-28/track However, many decisions regarding interpretation are left to the insight of 31, and No.27, the quintuple fugue, stretta and coda tracks 37-41. These genres the performer; indeed, Sorabji added a note on the paucity of performance are given a post-Busonian treatment in a manner that pays hommage at once indications at the beginning of the score: to Petri’s teacher and to the formative influence on Sorabji. Occupying a central position between these three huge landmarks is a group of slow movements The comparative lack of what are quaintly called ‘expression marks’ in – variations 10 track 12, 13 track 15 and 14 track 16 (together of more than an this work is thus explained. The composer considers that the music itself hour’s duration) – and they collectively constitute an area of comparative calm makes clear what ‘expression’ is needed, if any, in a particular passage. The at the heart of the work. The remaining movements can be divided into several ‘intelligence’ of the player will do – or undo – the rest. And, though usually categories. The opening track 2 is echoed in a number of brief moto to trust to the intelligence of performers is to lean upon a broken reed upon perpetuo variations such as Nos. 6 track 8, 7 track 9, 11 track 13, 20 track 22 and which, if a man – or composer [–] lean it will pierce his hand – and ruin his 25 track 35. A series of often muscular, energetic and improvisatory capriccii music – the enormity of Sequentia cyclica is such as to place it mercifully high also appear at regular intervals along the length of the piece: Nos. 5 track 7, 9 out of danger of the mob of gentlemen (and perfect pansies) who play with track 11, 12 track 14, 18 track 20 and track 32 23. In addition to the longer slow ease (as it were a nasal catarrh). movements mentioned above, Sorabji also includes shorter, arioso-type pieces: variations 3, 17, 19, 21 and 24. These all vary considerably in character, but like In 1953 Sorabji regarded the work as ‘the climax and crown of his work for the the series of capriccii and moti perpetui, the reappearance of recognisably piano and, in all probability, the last he will write’.14 This evaluation he retained similar treatments of the theme throughout the piece provides stylistic lines for the remainder of his life, as is evident from a remark to that effect which he of reference and gives the overall impression of a journey through a spiral, made to Alistair Hinton in 1988 shortly before his death at the age of 96. revisiting the familiar material of the Dies irae through a series of familiar guises.15 A few character pieces complete the picture: the concert-waltz (No.8), alternate fragments of the themes with scales in a bewildering variety of possibly pays hommage to Godowsky; Ispanica (No.15) to Albéniz; the Marcia patterns; they are punctuated in the bass by staccato statements of the chant funebre (No.16) recalls Alkan, and the slow movement of his Symphonie in with prolonged minor chords often held with the middle pedal. The metre particular, with which it shares the key of F minor. Another act of homage – fluctuates between passages of some regularity and others in which units Quasi Debussy, Variation 19 – is one of the highlights of the whole work. of three-, four-, five- and six-semiquaver length are more freely combined. also plays an important role in many sections (such as 0:59 et seq.). Sorabji winds down the activity to 3:31 where a rising pattern over a bass A GUIDE TO SORABJI’S SEQUENTIA CYCLICA A flat eventually culminates in the peals of bells at 5:02 over a pedal A, and then 5:30 over a D flat. From this point, the predominant minor tonality is replaced Theme by a major one, particularly in the section over a pedal C at 6:17. A final scurry in The statement of the theme track 1 ‘should be played in the style of the quintuplet time brings the music from the outer edges of the keyboard to meet organum’.16 Over a drone of C sharp–F sharp–C sharp, both hands outline the at the centre before a final plummet. in sixths; the composer Ilya Levinson remarked that each four-note chord used contains each interval of perfect fifth and major and minor sixths Variation 2 in different combinations.17 Like his previous set of variations on this theme, The theme is stated sotto voce in octaves in the middle register [3] while Sorabji uses not only the opening of the chant but all of it, decoration, at first subdued, gradually expands to fill the entire keyboard; when the fifth phrase (identical with the first) is reached, it is statedmezzo forte in though without its repetitions. Therefore, the first nine of the 15 phrases double octaves before the texture undergoes a complete change (at 3:07). correspond to tercets 1, 3, and 5 of the chant. Stanza 17 (‘Oro supplex et After a section of some contrapuntal and rhythmical complexity, Sorabji returns acclinis’) is skipped, and phrases 10–15 match the rest of the sequence, to the initial texture (at 4:07) but adds increasingly developed fioriture in the including the Amen. This section and all [other] phrases end on the tonic decoration. Paring the texture down once again to a sparser statement in the except the tenth one, which reaches the fifth above.18 tenor/bass registers (5;19) the atmosphere gradually takes on a nocturnal tone (at 6:24) before the movement disappears amid the pealing of bells (7:11). Variation 1 The first variationtrack 2, the most extensive of six moto perpetuo treatments, Variation 3 is prefaced by the marking Vivace – staccato assai and alla toccata. Flurries Although generally relaxed in tone, this short variation [4] has considerable of semiquavers (in single and double lines, in similar and contrary motion) expressive range and is punctuated by a series of dramatic outbursts over a gently undulating landscape. At the opening (in D flat major), patterns of freer rein, especially in the section marked moderamente adagio beginning four, five, six and seven semiquavers in the right hand, continually hinting at 22:41. A new setting of the theme is heralded by a break in the music and new, the outlines of the chant, are pitted against triplets in the left hand which pick simplified texture at 28:26. After some fireworks, a steady pulse is established at out longer . As the tessitura widens towards the extremities of the the beginning of strophe 6 (31:39) marking the start of a lengthy and climactic keyboard, a stark chord of D major in first inversion (at 2:14) heralds a new section that contains some of the most volcanic of Sorabji’s piano-writing and section in which rhetorical material alternates with brief re-statements of the ends at 36:14. A new setting starts at 39:42 with a series of pedal points – F, opening (at 2:40, 3:04 and 3:18) before descending to a statement of the incipit D, C, C sharp and finally A, the last of which established the tonality of the of the theme in low trills. There follows a luxuriant development of the opening following rather Baroque section. The final setting begins at 2:33 (on CD2) in material (from 3:42) that hints at the nocturnal music of variations 10, 13 and a thick texture low in the piano, gradually building to the last climax (in D flat 14. At 5:25 a final interruption occurs, this time with the theme superimposed major) at 5:55. The wind-down to the conclusion contains several impressive on a rhythmic quasi trillo (recalling the opening of Sorabji’s Tāntrik Symphony), moments, not least the cathedral-like strophe 13, morbido e pieno (9:22), which builds to another D major-type chord at 5:58 (with added tritone in the and the finalAmen itself (12:16) at the end of which there is a glimpse of the treble) and a series of chords in dotted . The drama has burnt itself out concluding tonality of the whole work (C minor). by 6:21, where a low sustained D in the left hand acts as an anchor to waves of chords that fan out towards the top of the piano. At 7:00 the original material Variation 5 returns, transfigured, before a descent to the final Amen. Marked ardito, focosamente, this is the first of five variations (the others being Nos. 9, 12, 18 and 23) that treat the material in a rhapsodic, often energetically Variation 4 virtuosic manner (Variation 12 slightly less so). The roots of this style of writing This vast chorale prelude is the first of the four major landmarks that outline in Sorabji’s work may be found in his early Sonata No.1 (1919); later examples the shape of Sequentia cyclica, the others being the cluster of slow movements include the often huge opening movements of his piano symphonies labelled (variations 10, 13 and 14), the passacaglia (No. 22) and the final fugue and Intrecciata (Italian for ‘plait’ or inter-weaving)19 which combine sometimes stretta (No. 27). The treatment of the theme is polyphonic without being large numbers of themes in a freewheeling manner. Variation No.5 is split into fugal, and the texture post-Bachian with a nod to Reger. The first obvious two halves. The first is rhetorical and broadly consists of four sections, each of break in the music comes at 13:05 after four weighty bell strokes. The texture which is introduced by the arresting opening gesture (or a variant of it): a group is then simplified (with a crotchet countermelody moving against a very slow of fast chords which hurl towards a final, accented one (at 0:01, 1:03, 2:01 and statement of the theme) and, if in the first section the writing is more obviously 3:43). The second half starts at 4:28 and is initially reflective. Sorabji gradually post-Baroque, it’s in this second part that Sorabji’s pianistic imagination is let increases the degree of complexity in metre and dissonance of harmony until he starts to re-introduce elements of the first part until, starting at 7:47, there septuplet line, the establishment of a pedal A (at 1:50) signals the beginning are no fewer than five iterations of the opening motif during the remaining 30 of mounting excitement (accompanied by wide leaps and ) seconds of music. culminating at 2:23. From here, with hands at the extremity of the keyboard, Sorabji winds down the movement, reducing it to a single line in the lowest Variation 6 register. A moto perpetuo variation, this movement starts in two-part , with the theme heard mostly in quavers against a wide-ranging counter-melody in Variation 8 semiquavers. Metric changes occur throughout the first section: the first group Variation 8 (Tempo di valzer, con molta fantasia, desinvoltura e eleganza), sets of these sees the pulse transformed from simple to compound (at 0:38), then the entire theme seven times. Like the waltz paraphrases, transcriptions and triplet, until the appearance at 1:09 of an extended pedal note sees the pulse fantasies of Tausig, Godowsky, Dohnányi, Rosenthal and others, it is riven with settle once more. Bravura octave writing gradually predominates, with a passage contrapuntal detail, unexpected turns of harmony and virtuosic demands, but of emphatic chords being interrupted (at 2:08) by filigree counterpoint recalling all the while keeps a decidedly lighter tone than most of the rest of the work.20 the opening. A final section (2:26) returns to the opening key (F minor) but It is in two distinct parts separated by a brief (at 7:47) almost exactly a with embellished counterpoint; after a closing sweep across the keyboard this third of the way in. resumes in the lower register. The variation finishes abruptly but not without an The first part is in D flat major; the key is stated explicitly at the opening intimation of the one that follows. and predominates for the first two minutes of music. It is also heard at the start of several sections (1:58, 3:05, 4:11, 7:15 and 5:07 with the relative minor) Variation 7 while its subdominant G flat frequently plays a supporting role. However, the This is another moto perpetuo variation, but unlike its predecessor it is highly opening accompaniment figure alternates D flat with A major, and this contrast regular and has an almost uninterrupted septuplet pulse throughout. Fragments of ‘flat’ and ‘sharp’ is magnified onto a larger scale with ‘brighter’ (or sharp) of the main theme can be heard in the detail of the right-hand figuration keys gradually appearing and being alternated with ‘softer’ flat ones in the (and imitated in some way in the left hand). The harmony changes with each subsequent sections, starting logically with A minor (2:46), then proceeding crotchet beat and, more often than not, moves in thirds, alternating major to A major (3:12), F sharp minor (3:29), A major (4:38) and C major (5:40), etc. and minor: in bar 1 one hears F sharp minor, D major, F minor, A minor, etc. The A major heard at the outset is also structurally significant as it is on A that At 1:16 Sorabji changes tack by keeping the septuplets in the right hand, but an extended pedal point is established in the cadenza that acts as a bridge introducing a countermelody (firstly in triplets, then in a dotted ) in the between the two halves of the variation; it also conveniently provides a perfect left before reversing this arrangement. After reducing the texture to a single cadence onto the tonality of the opening of the second section (D major). Reversing the process of the first part, the second gradually introduces ‘flat’ somnolence with a few fireworks before settling on a low C which not only keys until the triumphant statement of the first strophe of the theme, in the serves as a pedal for rising sequences of chords (as in Variation 1), but also as home key, at 14:50. There follows a gradual disintegration of the waltz metre a flattened supertonic facilitating a kind of Neapolitan cadence onto the final by means of extreme thickening of the texture with ornamentation; a jaunty, tonality of B – one which has been insinuated throughout but never made almost macabre section (perhaps a nod to the true context of the material) explicit. follows at 17:37, which leads, somewhat circuitously, to a coda marked brioso: con grandezza at 20:04. Although most of this last passage is notated in D flat, Variation 10 Sorabji reconciles the opposing harmonic forces at play in this variation with an This is the first and most extended of the three large slow movements that enharmonic sleight of hand, penning the final chord in its ‘sharp’ equivalent, C occupy the centre ground of Sequentia cyclica. Each is an essay in a different sharp major, with a gesture remarkably similar to the tumultuous close of the ‘idea’ of the slow movement as typified in Sorabji’s thinking: Nocturne, Aria and 81st and final variation of the Passacaglia fromOpus Clavicembalisticum. Punta d’organo. By the time of writing this tenth variation, Sorabji had come a long way in writing nocturne-type piano works: starting with Le Jardin parfumé Variation 9 (1923), composed when he was just beginning to find his voice as a composer, This ebullient capriccioso variation continues the same vein as No.5; it even he went on to write Nocturne: Djâmi (1928) and Gulistān (1940), the latter he possesses a very similar opening, with a flourish of faster notes (comprising a himself regarded as among his most successful works, and these in addition to partial statement of the first strophe of the theme) leading up to an accented many slow movements of larger works, the most notable of which must surely chord. As with No.5, this motif occurs throughout, though here often when include ‘Count Tasca’s Garden’ (from Sonata No.4 of 1928) and ‘The Garden of Sorabji commences treatment of a new strophe (0:45, where treatment of the Iram’, Variation No.27 from the Symphonic Variations (1935–37). What these second strophe begins, 1:12 for the third, 3:22 for the fourth, etc.). Amidst highly pieces have in common is a Persian (or Sicilian in the case of Sonata No. 4) athletic and florid embellishments, however, there are moments of stillness extra-musical starting point, and a type of piano-writing that recalls that of that lend perspective to the overall shape: a series of slow chords at 2:06 is Szymanowski, and occasionally Ravel, Debussy and Florent Schmitt in their answered by a single line in octaves, silence, then the low B flat that serves as most opulent moments. Sorabji wrote that these pieces an anchor for the sotto voce opening of the next section; at 5:19 there is a D minor statement of a fragment of the theme pianissimo (before the opening can just, only just be played by human fingers… no noise, but a dense humid motif kicks off a statement of the eleventh strophe); and, lastly, there is a more forest of twining lianas, undergrowth, and a green twilight overhead shutting extended period of calm, again in the lower register and in D minor starting all in a green hot miasma steamy with heavy perfumes that drown the mind 8:50. At 9:57 the opening motif, marked risvegliato, awakens the music from and engulf the soul… not at all healthy’.21 The bass is usually slow-moving, with large arpeggiated chords being sounded Rachmaninov’s treatment of the same theme in his The Bells. The next section at the beginning of each phrase; usually, one melodic line should be made (di nuovo tranquillo; insinuante dolce e morbido) begins with a quasi-reprise prominent above others, sometimes several are present at once, often moving of the opening but also ends vigorously, this time joyously at first (29:50) and at different speeds. But what is astounding about the writing is the almost ever- latterly rather severely. The final section (beginning 30:26) sees a return to present and super-abundant ornament, the form and detail of which is forever tropical climes and the establishment of a B flat pedal over which the music changing and presenting in microcosm one or other fragment of the theme. In gradually evaporates. the late 1950s Sorabji justified his aesthetic position (perhaps with particular reference to this aspect of his style): Variation 11 A brief moto perpetuo movement with more than a hint of humour, Variation Why do I write as I do? Why did (and do) the artists-craftsmen of Iran, India, 11 starts unassumingly in the bass register: a variation of the theme is drily China, Byzantine-Arabic Sicily (in the first and last of which are my own picked out by the left hand, punctuated by short syncopated chords in the ancestral roots) produce the sort of elaborate highly wrought work they did? right. Fragments of melody appear in legato then staccato octaves in the treble, That was their way. It is also mine.22 the pulse constantly shifting, the harmony undecided between major and minor. Whereas Variation 6 presented swift changes between related metres, Although the texture is mostly seamless and awash with sound across the whole Variation 11 offers a more sophisticated development: the device known as of the keyboard, there are points at which it changes very noticeably (including metric modulation and long associated with the music of Elliott Carter.23 In punctuations of the music by silence), providing useful markers in the perception Sorabji’s variation, such a phenomenon occurs at 1:20 where the previous triplet of the architecture of the work. The first section (markedIl tutto in una sonorità becomes the new quaver beat which, after two groups of three, then appears piena, dolce, morbido, calda e voluttuosa) sets the scene and ends with the last in groups of five and four (which would be also describable as 5/12 and 4/12). phrase of the whole theme (G–B–C–B flat–A flat–G–A flat) being slowly intoned This new quaver duration is subsequently (1:33) itself made into a triplet, thus in octaves in the bass before a brief silence; the second section ends with two producing a 4/9 of the original quaver (2x2/3x3). Although no sequences of cascading bell-like flourishes (13:52); the third section begins further modulations occur, Sorabji further challenges the sense of pulse with a espressivamente cantando (14:19) and ends with a lengthy melodic melisma 5:3 ratio at 1:58 before the variation ends tersely, in strict time. over an undulating drone A (18:57), before dissolving into an unaccompanied line. The latter part of the variation sees two abrupt and violent changes of Variation 12 mood: the fourth section is relatively brief but culminates with an unexpected Marked Leggiero, a capriccio, here the whole theme is set three times, with explosion of bells (23:48; precipitandosi con violenza) that has more than a hint minor variations. All three sections apply double-dotted rhythms to the melody, the overall treatment changing – either gradually or completely – for comes at the start of the fifteenth strophe (15:02), again with an F sharp minor each strophe. The music therefore has a distinct feel of being composed in chord. The following passage, in octaves at the extremes of the keyboard, sentences. The first setting uses all fifteen strophes in their original order, and clearly delineates the end of this setting. As the fourth setting progresses from a modest start builds to more expansive textures. The second setting the mood becomes increasingly ecstatic, especially from its seventh strophe (2:02) omits the final strophe, but in the first five introduces quintuplet rhythms, (17:47) onwards. Although the fourteenth strophe (20:43) has an appropriately later returning to more simple ones before the sense of pulse melts away at valedictory character, the unanticipated fortissimo ending is entirely fitting the end of the section. The third setting (4:09) establishes a B flat/F pedal in given the nature of the following variation. the bass, over which are placed a shifting chorale-like procession of triads and, at the top register, the theme in syncopated double-dotted fragments. The Variation 14 pedal shifts to C (5:01) for the fifth strophe, before reaching a G for the eighth This Punta d’organo, is one of many in Sorabji’s œuvre,24 and like the others, it (5:50) where the music momentarily comes to a halt. After an upward flourish is a slow movement, here forming the last part of the trilogy of slow music that (a transformation of the ninth strophe), the remainder of the variation is for a forms the core of Sequentia cyclica. As the name implies, a single pitch – in this while more expansive before quickly building to a brilliant conclusion. case B, subdominant of F sharp, the starting tonality, and leading note to C, the final one – is held and repeated throughout, all other material therefore existing Variation 13 in harmonic relation to this. According to the Sorabji scholar Marc-André This Aria: con fantasia e dolcezza sets the entire theme four times. For the Roberge, it is first ten strophes of the first complete setting (ending at 3:59) the texture is unvarying: the melody occupies a tessitura of over two octaves in the treble, written mostly in nocturne style […]. Throughout […] one hears the note while an accompaniment is provided by a running line lower in the keyboard; B sounded like a tolling bell, as in ‘Le Gibet’ from Ravel’s Gaspard de la additional counterpoint is kept to a minimum and is added gradually from the nuit. After an unaccompanied opening statement, the variation is divided eleventh strophe. From the start of the second setting, the previously active into (1) three subsections made up of fifteen numbered phrases, all but a and distinct accompaniment is gradually transformed so that it blossoms into few consisting of a single long bar each, and (2) a final, fourth subsection a polyphonic web of slower moving voices; the melody is now often doubled stopping at the end of the twelfth phrase.25 with octaves so that it stands out over the denser texture. The seamless start of the third setting (10:09) is not marked by any change of treatment; if anything, The first setting expands in range from its beginning on a single note and the texture gradually increases in profusion until the diminuendo to the F sharp moves into the second setting seamlessly. The texture is pared down again by minor chord at the start of the eighth strophe (12:48). A more noticeable break the tenth strophe (11:16); the end of the second setting (13:16) is remarkably similar to the opening section of Sorabji’s nocturne Djâmi (1928) with the masterworks of Spanish piano music, Albéniz’ Iberia and Granados’ Goyescas, descending triplets in the bass. The tenth strophe of the third setting (16:47) is the elaborate counterpoint, piquant impressionist harmony and rhythmic vitality of particular note for its use of the habanera rhythm, prefiguring its importance of which are all reflected and enlarged upon in Sorabji’s own Spanish pieces. in the following variation. The last strophe of this setting (19:16) is particularly Sorabji’s identification with Spain went as far as him falsifying Spanish ancestry atmospheric with harmonies rising like smoke under a tolling bell (the repeated via his mother, who was really 100% English. But in addition to these echt- B having reached the higher register of the piano). The fourth setting starts Spanish examples, another important source was Ravel’s Rhapsodie espagnole wrapped in filigree, the B still right at the top of the instrument, with C sharp of which Sorabji made two different transcriptions for solo piano (in 1923 and major chords intoned below. By the end of the fourth strophe Sorabji reduces 1945, i.e., shortly before starting this piece). the texture again to just one note (22:14). This period of calm lasts for almost Hispanica is divided into two distinct sections, separated by a cadenza. two minutes; during the last phrase of the sixth strophe Sorabji quotes the The first section, markedcon brio, leggiero, impertinente, is in A major and subject of Fugue I from his Opus clavicembalisticum before a characteristic its sprightly 6/8 time approximates to a Jota; it is interrupted at 1:27 by a upward sweep announces the arrival of the final part of this settingun pochino more contrapuntal passage in F major marked con una desinvoltura languido risvegliato. The final two pages contain some of the most profusely ornamented e[d] elegante before the Jota returns, this time in C sharp major (creating an writing in the whole piece. At the end of the twelfth strophe and, indeed, the augmented triad relation between the three tonalities), at 2:43. When music end of the variation, ‘the bass becomes a B flat, on which note the entire pedal shifts to D minor where (at 3:58) Sorabji skilfully highlights the similarity point concludes. Curiously, Sorabji first reverted to B natural for the last octave, between the ninth strophe of the Dies irae and the falling melody found at bars but crossed out the natural signs and added the flats, thus [effecting a] radical 33–34 of the ‘Prélude à la nuit’ of Ravel’s Rhapsodie espagnole, the ‘Feria’ of change’.26 This alteration may have been made in light of Sorabji’s decision this work having already been alluded to moments before in the sequential C to start the following variation in A major, thus making the bass move in step major passage at 3:39. After the tumult rises to its peak, the cadenza (starting chromatically (B–B flat–A), as he does between other pairs of variations.27 5:02) consists of three elongated, rhetorical melodies based on various strophes, all preceded by massive rising swirls of harmony. Variation 15 After a hasty reprise of the Jota, the remainder of the variation is devoted Hispanica (recte: Ispanica) continues in the vein set by Sorabji in two of his to a lengthy habanera. It starts simply in D minor – sharing a key with Busoni’s earliest piano works – Quasi Habanera (1917) and Fantasie espagnole (1919) – treatment of the Habanera in his Sixth Sonatina, the Kammer-Fantasie über and, in a more developed form, the large Fantasia ispanica (1933) and No.84 Bizets ‘Carmen’– and the music moves through sections in G and E flat major of the 100 Transcendental Studies entitled ‘Tango Habanera’ (early 1940s). before (at 9:30) a sequence of falling chords and motifs (over a B flat pedal) All these works demonstrate his fondness for and familiarity with the two temporarily abandons the metre, only to regain it in a much more relaxed mood at 9:48 in the key, once more, of C sharp major. Signs that the work will Variation 17 not conclude in a nocturnal atmosphere appear only gradually: the arpeggiated Marked soave e dolce this short variation has the character of both arietta chromatic chord over A at 11:57 signals a return to action, the variation ending (with its elongated melismas) and barcarolle (a metre that often suggests 6/8 decisively but in peremptory manner in F sharp major. or 9/8 with liquid accompaniment). The texture is limpid and uncomplicated throughout: a single melodic line (occasionally joined by a supporting one) Variation 16 in the upper part of the keyboard is counterbalanced by steady semiquaver This Marcia funebre sets strophes 1–12 of the chant sequentially, but inserts movement in the lower (and this line at times suggests the presence of a tenor the fourteenth strophe between the eleventh and twelfth and appends a voice). Discretely placed low triads (as at 0:55 and 1:47) give respite to the short coda. Only in the eighth strophe does Sorabji diverge significantly from uniformity of texture, while as the piece draws to its close the melody gains the intervallic character of the original, and it is only here that he elaborates in rhythmic freedom and complexity with the appearance of 5:3, 5:4 and 4:3 the phrase through elongation. The rhythmic treatment is very simple and, . Low triads reappear at the end of the piece; these three, however, seem apart from a very occasional dotted rhythm, would pass muster in a liturgical to offer little sense of closure. setting. In addition to the chordal treatment of the melody (in both hands), one hears what is perhaps the imitation of slow drum beats preceded by a Variation 18 three-note drag or flam – firstly at the lowest range of the piano – moving This is another boisterous and technically demanding variation – marked duro, from the distance to up close as the music continues its inexorable crescendo. irato, energico – and it’s full of extrovert bravura, continuing the vein of Nos. 5 The tonality of F minor strongly suggests that Sorabji was paying either direct and 9. It sets the entire theme twice, although the point at which the theme starts or subconscious homage to Alkan, whose music he admired enormously. The again is not marked by a noticeable break in the music. In fact, Sorabji adopts second movement of Alkan’s Symphonie pour piano seul, Op.39, Nos. 4–7, a quite the opposite strategy: the amen (fifteenth strophe) is heard in the bass in work Sorabji knew well and which he heard Petri play, is a Marcia funebre sulla octaves at 3:43, but instead of this marking the end of a section, the first strophe morte d’un Uomo da bene.28 Alkan’s penchant for unexpected and dissonant (since the theme is set twice) appears at 4:09 at the beginning of sequential harmonic turns accompanied by macabre gesture (especially at the end with writing that will culminate in the sonorous passage starting at 4:27, the harmonies his imitation drum roll) finds full flight in his étude; it is precisely these aspects of which are highly suggestive of Messiaen. The anticipated break in the variation of Alkan’s œuvre that had especial appeal to Sorabji. If Alkan’s uomo da bene is therefore delayed and only appears at 5:20, by which point the fourth strophe was perhaps his father, Alkan Morhange, who died in 1855, it’s no huge stretch has been reached. The next minute of music is reflective and uncomplicated, and of the imagination to suggest that for both Sorabji and Petri, it was Busoni.29 it ends with a device Sorabji uses frequently in this work to signal the end of a section: a melody heard in slow octaves in the bass. When the music comes back to life, it has on the whole a softer edge than the opening, with Sorabji delaying a with writing of great intimacy and tenderness (at, for example, the ninth return to the initial brilliance until 8:56. strophe at 4:30).

Variation 19 Variation 22 This succinct variation consists of a single setting of the entire chant: the theme Sorabji’s first attempt at a passacaglia dates from 1929 with his unfinished is heard in the treble throughout. In the middle of the keyboard, harmony (which Introduction, Passacaglia, Cadenza and Fugue, the impetus behind which may is lucid throughout) is provided by pairs of alternating chords,30 while the whole well have been the publication the previous year of Godowsky’s Passacaglia, is underpinned by long, slow-moving bass notes. The final bass note A leads with which Sorabji’s work shares both key and metre. Although it appears effectively to the tonality and opening of the next variation. that Sorabji never contemplated another stand-alone passacaglia,31 the genre remained important to him for the rest of his composing career, with Variation 20 passacaglias appearing almost routinely in his multi-movement works from The twentieth variation – marked Spiccato, leggiero – has the appearance of Opus clavicembalisticum (1930) onwards. Sorabji favoured long themes in his an hommage to the Paganini-Liszt ‘Campanella’. It is another moto perpetuo passacaglias, and the one in Sequentia cyclica is no exception: he uses the first with wide leaps in both hands and a dry staccato texture almost throughout. three strophes of the Dies irae, setting them in G sharp minor, and with the Starting in G sharp minor, it ends unexpectedly in the relative major, B. last note of each being a semibreve on the tonic. He also favoured the use of Although the tempo remains largely unchanged and there are only very squared or cubed numbers for the quantity of variations, in this case 100. There occasional appearances of triplets, the piece is rhythmically complex and are natural breaks after variations 36, 49, 75 and 89, the most obvious of which unpredictable, continuing the technique used in the first variation of freely is the second: Roberge writes ‘there is a clear division in two equal halves, with combining metrical groups of 2, 3, 4 and 5 semiquavers. The theme is set in its the theme being stated in the top voice with a simple counterpoint in crotchets entirety, and is heard in conspicuous major or minor chords. underneath (No. 51); from this point onwards, the theme is often heard clearly at the top of a rather delicate texture’.32 Many variations within the passacaglia Variation 21 reference other variations within the piece – it contains miniature toccatas, This short and discursive variation sets strophes 1–13 of the theme chorale , capriccii, moti perpetui, canons, a waltz and . consecutively. Overall, the mood sits somewhat between the more restrained Consecutive variations usually contrast rather than run into each other moments of the chorale prelude (No.4) and the aria-barcarolle (No.17). The seamlessly. Ones to listen out for include No.8 saltando e leggiero track 31 6:36) initial marking legatissimo soave e dolce does not tell the whole story: there are which requires very deft use of the middle (sostenuto) pedal; No.13 sordamente fleeting moments of drama (especially near the end) which contrast sharply oscuro ([2] 10:31), a miniature brooding punta d’organo; No.23 vivace ([2] 18:59) recalling the zest and uncompromising energy of variations 5, 9 [1] and uninterruptedly and are characterised by the use of double-dotted rhythms. 18 [2]. No.31 ([3] 26:14) is a study in octaves, whereas Nos. 33 ([3] 27:48) and There is only a short pause for breath at the beginning of the fifth (1:43). A 34 share a punta d’organo of C sharp; from No.43 (calmo: dolce at [4] 36:49) real break occurs at 2:58 at the end of the sixth strophe; here, the intensity is onwards there is a slow crescendo and increase in energy until the explosive suddenly reduced, only picking up again with the cascading ornamentation and acrobatic No.48 ([4] 41:33) and triumphant No.49 that closes the first half over the eighth strophe at 4:29. However, this awakening is only temporary of the movement. and the ninth strophe – with peals of parallel fifths – is surely meant to be With the theme now in the treble, the second half starts modestly, and there performed piano33 and unhurriedly (4:57). It is not until strophe No.11 that the is now frequent recourse to nocturne-like moods of which No.58 ([5] 51:33) action picks up again, this time with a heroic recitative underscored by arpeggii is the first extended example. A series of canons [5]–[6]( Nos. 59–61) in strict (6:23). A sequential semiquaver passage at the start of strophe No.14 (10:35) counterpoint separates this section from the erratico, ritmo grottesco of No.62 signals the final ascent to the summit reached with the chords at 11:33; the ([6] 55:15) after which peace returns for several more variations. No.67 ([7] variation, perhaps surprisingly, ends quietly in D sharp minor. 1:00:33) is another a capriccio, while Nos. 72 ([7] 1:05:10) and 73 provide calm before the festive excitement of No.75. Although Sorabji does not wind down Variation 24 the movement linearly, there is a noticeable change of gear in the last quarter. Marked oscuro, sordo, this introverted variation sets the entire theme once. This is typified by a pair of nocturnes – Nos. 80 [6]( 3:53) and 81 – the gently Quietly polyphonic, three voices (some in double notes) interweave mostly in flowing No.85 [6]( 10:00) and the hypnotic Nos. 86 ([6] 11:22) and 87. No.88 is the middle and lower registers. The tonality of F sharp major is never far away, unique in using only the first phrase of the theme; it serves as a bridge passage and its relative minor (D sharp) is firmly stated in the climactic passage at 5:27, to No.89, marked grandioso. Another nocturne, No.94 marked dolce e soave exactly half way through the variation. The following passage climbs from the ([6] 19:10), precedes the final burst of energy found in No.96saltando: vivace lower register, reaching a moment of intensity at 7:47; here, a Phrygian mode (track 37 22:07). Unlike the shattering conclusion of the passacaglia in Opus over C predominates, and after this point F sharp is gradually re-established clavicembalisticum, the one in Sequentia cyclica adopts the opposite strategy – the assertive statement of strophe 14 at 10:06 ushering in the enharmonic of receding into the distance. dominant D flat – only to be left with an ending which, though in F sharp, is nonetheless inconclusive. Variation 23 The last of the capriccio or intrecciata pieces, this variation sets the entire Variation 25 theme once. Each strophe is treated freely – some are elongated, with particular Another étude-like moto perpetuo, this variation is one of the shortest and melodic fragments being developed at length. The first six strophes run employs sparkling, iridescent figuration throughout, all of it connected in some way to the theme. A motif derived from part 10 of the theme features as Second Symphony for Piano are striking exceptions in that they feature many accompaniment in the section starting 1:12. It breaks briefly into a tarantella34 ’36. Although it has been claimed that the ‘themes have no clear link at 1:27. to the Dies irae except for the first two slurred groups, which use the first four pitches’37, closer familiarity does expose layers of links to the theme: the subject Variation 26 of the first fugue, for example, continues with a stepwise downwards figure (the The penultimate variation starts in D flat major, with the first eleven strophes first part of strophe two), followed by a condensed version of strophe three, being given a grandiose chorale prelude treatment. It ‘draws on a chordal finishing with something that could be described as the opening motif from texture to create a majestic build-up to the final fugue; it is interrupted by a the amen followed by a return to the starting pitch of B flat. The whole of the “‘Quasi Cadenza-fantasiata’”35 at 7:29 which consists initially of scales (single subject of fugue two is based on the second strophe; the correlation between and then doubled) that combine conventional diatonicism with chromatic and the contours of the subject of fugue three and strophe four are striking; its synthetic segments; later (from 8:50) themes from the chant are interwoven countersubject takes strophe seven as its starting point. Again, fugue four mines into passagework the prototype of which could well be that in Busoni’s Piano strophe four for material but presents it in a radically different manner, while its Concerto, Op.39. The culmination of this section is a manic ringing of bells countersubject uses the beginning of strophe one very obviously. The fifth fugue starting at 10:38 in which the first strophe is enunciated amidst the clamour. is no less oblique in its references: the four descending notes of its first phrase The chorale prelude material resumes with the twelfth strophe, high in the are clearly identifiable as the beginning of strophe fourteen, while the second keyboard in F sharp major; bright major sonorities gradually predominate as the phrase corresponds to the end of the same strophe. Its final phrase is, fittingly, a tessitura broadens over the entire keyboard. The sonority of the final chord – direct quotation of the amen. Overall, this last subject possesses an unmistakable with D major over a C bass (both a semitone from the opening D flat – is surely ‘resemblance to Gregorian chant with its long values and narrow range’.38 intentionally provisional. The first fugue commencesppp sotto voce, and its monotony is not dispelled until two-thirds of the way in (8:16) when each voice in turn breaks Variation 27 into delightfully Busonian semiquavers. The initial texture returns until the A series of five followed by astretta and a coda conclude Sequentia stretto (10:45); Sorabji first doubles each voice (in sixths, so recalling the first cyclica. Each successive fugue has one more voice than its predecessor, so that statement of the Dies irae at the beginning of the whole work), then turns them Sorabji starts with a stark two-voice fugue and ends with the richly intricate into triads, before they are also doubled at the octave in a clamorous end to the six voices of the fifth. The fugues are far more varied than those inOpus fugue. clavicembalisticum, Sorabji’s most intensely fugal piece and, indeed, those found The second fugue occupies more familiar territory with its semiquaver- in most of his other works; the ‘subjects found in Sequentia cyclica and the infused texture, although the rhythmic regularity is offset almost from the outset by the presence of triplets in the countersubject. The lower register (7:48), the fugue concludes with a fanfare at the top of the keyboard. of the piano is mostly avoided until the coda where the subject is heard in The knockabout character of the fourth fugue is left behind with the augmentation (5:02), first in quavers, then in minims) in bass octaves in a otherworldly calm of the fifth. Its meditative introspection morphs gradually passage that – harmony aside – could have come straight from one of Busoni’s into enlightened exaltation; its final moments (from 21:54) have a Brucknerian or Liszt’s transcriptions of Bach. expansiveness. A series of eight stretti – four in minims, two each in crotchets The third fugue is again very different from its predecessor: the subject and quavers – forms a link to a Stretto maestrale (26:30). After a lengthy and consisting only of long notes each prefaced by two very short ones (the last naturally very dense passage that brings together elements of all five fugues, of these groups being rhythmically displaced so the second short note falls on the texture is broken at 31:24 by an unaccompanied statement of the subject the strong beat) is contrasted by a countersubject in flowing quintuplets. Here, of the fifth fugue in bass octaves. From this point on, Sorabji juxtaposes very Sorabji’s harmony is unusually clear (for his fugues) and has a plaintive, elegiac dense and starker sections: following two shorter episodes over massive quality. At the halfway point (5:06) Sorabji introduces the subject of the second sustained chords (the second marked quasi mixtures at 32:13), thicker fugue, thus adding another layer of rhythmical complexity; the subsequent counterpoint returns with the left hand playing both themes from Fugue three abandonment of the countersubject for an extended passage starting at 6:59 (but with the countersubject rhythm mutated to 10:7 rather 5:4 to allow time makes its reappearance for the final entries (7:57, in which the conventional to play the short notes at the end of each beat of the subject), and the right order of subject-countersubject is reversed) all the more striking, alongside the taking care of fugues one, two and five. A shattering cadenza-like passage at subject in augmentation (again in the bass). 33:51 again interrupts the counterpoint, which returns only with added vigour Again, the character of the fourth fugue could not be more different from its at 34:17, this time with the quintuplet theme heard in canon amidst four other predecessor. An unruly gigue with a double-dotted countersubject, it is both voices. A period of rhythmic stability starting at 34:55 ushers in the final intellectually and technically a challenge for the performer. Respite is on hand at appearance of the subject of the fourth fugue at 36:36. The fugal texture is 1:58 with an extended episode based on the countersubject and another theme left behind at the start of the Coda (37:05) which, after an opening flourish, used in the exposition; with its obsessive use of the double-dotted figure, a consists of a series of pedal points: first C, then G, F sharp, E flat, C again, A, D slower tempo gives it the character of a stately French . With both flat and finally coming to rest in C minor, thereby creating ‘a large-scale tritone subject and countersubject heard in augmentation in the bass, the first group of relationship with the opening in F sharp minor, thus concluding with a reference middle entries (3:20) has a darker character than the outgoing exposition; after to the medieval “diabolus in musica”’.39 a second episode (4:42) Sorabji temporarily introduces elements from the third fugue (5:47), destabilising the previously regular metre; when they reappear at 7:09 they cause chaos amongst the two native themes. After a brief stretto 1 I eventually gave my first performances of a Sorabji work, again the Sonata No. 1, during the 23 The term was coined by Richard Goldman in 1951 in an article discussing Carter’s Sonata summer of 1990. (1948). The coincidence of this date of composition and that of Sorabji’s Sequentia cyclica is 2 Online at sorabji-archive.co.uk. indeed striking, although any knowledge on the part of either composer of the other’s use of this 3 Sorabji, ‘A Personal Statement’ (dated 14 October 1959), first published as ’Statement by technique is well-nigh impossible. Carter himself called the technique ‘tempo modulation’ and Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’ in Gambit: Edinburgh University Review, Summer 1965: 4. employed it in very many of his works written after 1948. 4 Sorabji, ‘Animadversions. Essay about His Works Published on the Occasion of the Microfilming of 24 Alistair Hinton lists the following movements labelled punta d’organo in Sorabji’s works: Piano Some of His Manuscripts’ (unpublished essay, 1953), pp. 9–10, all quoted from M. A. Roberge, Opus Concerto No.8 (1927–28, the third movement includes a section headed Punta d’organo); Sorabjianum (version 1.14, August 2016), pp. 282–85 (constantly updated, Opus Sorabjianum can Piano Symphony No.0 (1930–31, the second section of the second movement is marked Punta be found in revision dating from December 2017 at https://www.mus.ulaval.ca/roberge/srs/07- d’Organo: Quasi louré la mano sinistra and the fourth one of the same movement Ritournelle prese.htm). – point d’orgue); Toccata Seconda (1933–34, No.8 of its nine movements is entitled Cadenza 5 In the finale of his Piano Sonata in E minor. – Punta d’Organo); Piano Sonata No.5: Opus Archimagicum (1934–35, section 3 of the Arcana 6 This incident recalls, rather fittingly given Sorabji’s interest in Alkan, the story later debunked as Minora which constitutes Pars Prima of this work); 100 Transcendental Studies, No.69 (early myth surrounding the latter’s death resulting from his reaching for a copy of the Talmud from the 1940s, entitled La punta d’organo); Piano Symphony No.2 (1952–54, fourth section of the highest shelf of a bookcase. fourth movement is headed Punta d’organo costanziata [recte costante]); Rosario d’arabeschi 7 Written on the obverse of the title page of the manuscript. (1956, third movement); Toccata Quarta (1964–67, the third of the seven movements of which, 8 Sorabji to Erik Chisholm, letter dated 3 June 1930 (section dated 5 June). Intermezzo primo, has a central section marked Punta d’Organo); Piano Symphony No.5 (1975– 9 Sorabji to Egon Petri, later dated 25 January 1948. 76, the second of the two movements of which is divided into eight sections, the last of which, 10 Sorabji, ‘Music’, The New Age, Vol, 36, No. 18 (25 February 1925), p. 211. following a double fugue, is marked Coda-Epilogo: Punta d’organo). Hinton notes that ‘This just 11 Among Petri’s students at his Basel master-class in 1957 was , who would become a goes to show that pedal points were as much of an abiding persuasion for K. than fugues and major exponent of Sorabji’s music. passacaglias’ (e-mail to me, 26 February 2017). 12 Egon Petri to KSS, 16 February 1949. 25 Roberge, loc. cit., p. 284. 13 KSS to Chisholm, 10 May 1949. In 1960 Sorabji recalled having played his work to Erik Chisholm, 26 Ibid. whom ‘it had rolled flat’; he still considered the work ‘quite stupendous tho I sez it… and I do’. KSS 27 Variation 15 to 16 – F sharp to F; 19 to 20 – A to G sharp, etc. to Frank Holliday, 25 April 1960. 28 The movement had this name only in the first edition (1857); in all subsequent editions it is 14 In fact, he would write seven more works for piano solo of which the page count reaches three simply ‘Marcia funebre’. figures. 29 It’s worth noting that Busoni’s own musical hommage to his father, the Fantasia nach J. S. Bach, 15 A similar strategy is also employed, though more systematically than here, by Michael Finnissy in is also in F minor. his Verdi Transcriptions, a three-hour work that also comprises 27 movements. 30 This type of accompaniment was used by Debussy (though notated differently from Sorabji) in 16 This term usually refers to the harmonisation of plainchant by the addition of voices that move in the central section of ‘En sourdine’ from the Fêtes galantes; one could go as far as to claim that parallel with the main melody, often a fourth or fifth below. here Sorabji pays homage more to Debussy the composer of songs than of piano music. 17 A remark made in person to me as Levinson was looking at the score. 31 The 1929 attempt is his only known incomplete work 18 Roberge, op. cit., p. 285. 32 Roberge, 284. 19 The opening movements of piano symphonies Nos. 2, 5, 6 are marked as such; those of Nos. 0, 3 33 As with most of the piece, there is no dynamic or tempo indication here. and 4 fit in this category in all but name; likewise, the first movement of Sonata No. 4 and those 34 A dance favoured by Sorabji – examples can be found in his Passegiata veneziana (1955–56) and of other large-scale pieces are of a similar mould. Rosario d’arabeschi (1956). 20 This was not Sorabji’s first essay in this genre. HisValse-Fantaisie (1925) had been preceded in 35 Roberge, p. 285. 1922 by the first of hisTrois Pastiches, on Chopin’s ‘Minute’ Waltz, Op.64, No.1, and was followed 36 Ibid., p. 20. in 1933 by Pasticcio capriccioso (a transcription of the same Chopin waltz) and soon thereafter 37 Ibid., p. 285. by variation 24 (pp. 100–11) of the Symphonic Variations (1935–37), entitled Quasi Valse, and 38 Ibid., p. 285. No.63 of 100 Transcendental Studies (1940–44), entitled En forme de Valse; curiously, all of these 39 Ibid. share D flat major as their principal tonality (although theValse-Fantaisie ends in F sharp major). 21 Letter to Frank Holliday, dated 6 February 1940. 22 Sorabji, ‘A Personal Statement’ (dated 14 October 1959), published as ‘Statement by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’, Gambit: Edinburgh University Review, Summer 1965, p. 4. JONATHAN POWELL Chopin Academy Warsaw) and Jonathan Powell is a pianist and composer. He studied the piano with Denis Beethoven’s Sonata Matthews and Sulamita Aronovsky. After concentrating on composition No.30 in E major, during the 1990s, he then established an international career as a soloist. Op.109, Liszt’s He has a particular interest in contemporary music and of the B minor Sonata, early twentieth century, in particular the music of Scriabin and other Russian Stockhausen’s modernists, as well as Busoni, Ives, Szymanowski and others. Over the last Klavierstücke decade, concerts have taken him on a tour across the United States, to the and several Musica Sacra Festival in Maastricht, the contemporary series hosted by the performances of Fundación BBVA in Bilbao, the Musica Nova Festival in Helsinki, the Festival Sorabji’s Opus Radio France Montpellier, Borealis Festival in Bergen, the Huddersfield clavicembalisticum. Festival of Contemporary Music, recital broadcasts for Radio Netherlands The first three and Radio Deutschland Kultur, the Raritäten der Klaviermusik am Schloss months of the vor Husum in Fresia, Vredenburg Muziekcentrum in Utrecht, Willem Twee 2019—20 season toonzaal in ’s Hertogenbosch and in the Jewish Museum and Altes Rathaus have seen him perform in The Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine, , UK, in Vienna. His recent concerto appearances include Brahms’ Second (with Poland, Prague, Karlsruhe and to a full house at the Elbphilharmonie in the Slovak Philarmonic), Liszt’s Malédiction (with the Kiev Soloists), Michael Hamburg. Finnissy’s Second Concerto (at the Conservatoire) and Bent His recordings encompass the works of Felix Blumenfeld, Georgiy Conus, Sørensen’s Second (with the Prague Philharmonia under Marian Lejava). Issay Dobrowen, Konstantin Eiges, Alexander Goldenweiser, Egon Kornauth, In 2013 he made international tours featuring Messiaen’s Vingt regards sur Alexander Krein, Jānis Mediņš, Joseph Marx, Leonid Sabaneyev, Alexander l’enfant Jésus and Albeniz’ Iberia respectively, and in late 2014 he made an Skryabin, Jean Sibelius, Kaikhosru Sorabji and others. eight-concert tour of the United States, taking in Seattle, Denver, New York Master-classes, lecture-recitals and coaching have taken h-m to the and Chicago. During 2015 he gave numerous performances of Beethoven’s Janáček Academy in Brno, Oxford University, the Guildhall School and Music Hammerklavier Sonata and Reger’s Bach Variations. Recent activities have and Drama in London, Cornish College of Arts in Seattle, and Det Jyske included a tour featuring the complete piano works of Xenakis (including the Musikkonservatorium, in Esbjerg and Odense, Denmark, among others. As a chamber musician, he has worked with the cellist , violinist Ashot Sarkisjan, flautist Matteo Cesari, and sopranos Svetlana Sozdateleva, Irena Troupova and Sarah Leonard. He has also worked with several of the more prominent composers of today, in particular Claudio Ambrosini and Michael Finnissy. He is currently awaiting a new solo work from Arturas Bumšteinas. Indeed, Jonathan Powell is himself a self-taught composer, and has recorded several of his own works for BBC broadcasts and has received performances by the , the , Valdine Anderson and among others. He is, moreover, a scholar and a writer: his doctorate, undertaken at the in London, examined the music of the post-Skryabin ‘Silver Age’ in Russia, and his articles on many aspects of Russian music appear in the New Grove Thanks to Joel Baldwin (manager of the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building), John Grimshaw, Joe Taylor, Adaq Khan, Alexander Abercrombie (for his excellent typeset edition of the work), Dictionary of Music. He lives in southern Poland. David Hackbridge Johnson (for his generous hospitality during the recording sessions), Alistair Hinton (curator of the Sorabji Archive), and for the many people who over the years made possible performances of Sequentia cyclica: Sylvester Beelaert, Stijn Boeve, Kevin Bowyer, Kent Devereaux, Lukas Huisman, Sebastian Huydts, Chappell Kingsland, Ilya Levinson, Sean Owen and Tricia McKay, and Tom Westcott. Especial thanks are due to my wife Irena.

Recorded on 23, 25, 30 September, 29 November, 6 and 11 December 2015 at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, St Hilda’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom Piano: Steinway D serial no. 906001 Piano Technician: Joseph Taylor Recording engineer and mastering; Adaq Khan Editing: Adaq Khan and Jonathan Powell Mastering; Adaq Khan Producers: Adaq Khan and Jonathan Powell Executive Producer: Martin Anderson Cover: Shutterstock/mg1408 ℗ & © 2020 Piano Classics Piano Classics is a trade name of Brilliant Classics B.V.