Contemporary Piano III - Sequentia cyclica super Dies irae

The English composer, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) was one of the twentieth century’s most prolific composers, a major contributor to the piano repertoire, a fiercely witty writer of essays and musical criticism, and an unarguably fascinating, not to mention misunderstood, personality. Yet, despite these merits, only a fraction of his vast body of work (over 11,000 pages of music) has been performed. The long silence of this remarkable voice has several causational factors, but was largely a result of self-imposed obscuration. Sorabji impishly fed false information to nosing lexicographers, wrote music that bewildered the eyes and ears of music critics, and gradually developed a stingy opposition to public performances of his music, famously stating, “No performance at all is vastly preferable to an obscene travesty.” After living through the Blitz and retiring to the quietude of Dorset, he entered a kind of creative hermitage, shrouded from all except those very few whom he held dear. His reticence thawed slightly in the 1970s, but since then, nearly thirty years after his death, a growing number of manuscript editors, musicians, musicologists, and general enthusiasts have begun the long arduous process of reviving this long dormant oeuvre. New critical performance editions are emerging rapidly, more accurate biographical works have been published, world premieres are occurring, and now there are dozens of commercial recordings available, all of which, accumulatively, are providing the public better access than at any time previously to this remarkable and profound talent.