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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > 20th Century > Sorabji appreciation
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Author Topic: Sorabji appreciation  (Read 5124 times)
Biroc
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« Reply #90 on: 22:15:16, 20-07-2007 »
Quote from: roslynmuse on 22:12:59, 20-07-2007
I wonder if Sorabji ever shared a macaroon with Alan Bennett...

mmmmmmmm...macaroons...
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"Believe nothing they say, they're not Biroc's kind."
ahinton
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« Reply #91 on: 16:57:34, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 22:00:20, 20-07-2007

Are "we" supposed to laugh at - or be puzzled by - or just ignore - this? for it certainly seems not even to make, let alone prove, any point. Or, alternatively, should "we" return to a consideration of the fellow portrayed in the "Who's reading the paper here?" thread in the "News and Current affairs" section?

Best,

Alistair
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ahinton
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« Reply #92 on: 16:58:21, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: roslynmuse on 22:12:59, 20-07-2007
I wonder if Sorabji ever shared a macaroon with Alan Bennett...
I don't. He didn't.

Best,

Alistair
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ahinton
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« Reply #93 on: 17:06:59, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: Jonathan Powell on 16:53:03, 20-07-2007
I am amused by the fact that someone finds the appearance of a bar in 7/8 unnatural amidst all the activity on this page. Is the number seven unnatural? Many flowers, for instance, have seven petals. There are ladybirds with seven spots, even! There is, as far as I know, lots of folk music that uses seven beats in a "bar" (such as that which inspired many pieces of Bartok and Vladigerov from Eastern Hungary and Bulgaria). Or is it not the number of quavers in this bar but the appearance of this bar in this context that this commentator is disturbed by? I quite like that bar, by the way, and feel it serves as an elegant and understated transition from the initial material to the stuff that comes at the bottom of the page. Also, I don't really think a comparison with a Beethoven sonata would be very useful here. It would, to my mind, be about as useful as comparing the Sorabji, or the Beethoven for that matter, to an artichoke. Perhaps comparing it to other single-movement piano sonatas from the early 20th century would be more instructive. Or perhaps that's just a bit obvious ...
All excellent common sense, of course, although I have to add that the person who claims that he "finds the appearance of a bar in 7/8 unnatural amidst all the activity on this page" rather hard to take seriously when he writes as he did in that instance; I just hope that he doesn't get even more upset either by Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the man going to St. Ives or the Book of Revelations. What surely matters here is what is on that opening page of Sorabji's first self-acknowledged piano sonata (there is a slightly earlier one by him which he never sought to have published and this, like the official "first" sonata here and that work's two successor piano sonatas, is also in a single movement).

Anyone who doesn't already know this sonata may be interested to find out about it by obtaining a CD single of it played by Marc-André Hamelin some 17 years ago (still available); this is likely to remain the only commercial recording of the work until one is made by - well, you know who you are! And the sooner the better, thanks!

Best,

Alistair
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Sydney Grew
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« Reply #94 on: 18:11:58, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: ahinton on 17:06:59, 21-07-2007
. . . a bar in 7/8 . . .What surely matters here is what is on that opening page of Sorabji's first self-acknowledged piano sonata . . .

But there are three 7/8 bars on this page are there not? - although the rhythm changes so much here that the concept of a bar becomes self-destructive. Should a listener wishing that the composer might settle down to a steady beat and stop chopping and changing be blamed for a lack of sophistication or praised for an adherence to musical fundamentals we wonder? Bach in many of his smaller organ works gave us a good deal of syncopation but it was always founded upon a steady beat. There may well be among the Members some who find that a more satisfactory approach. . . .
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increpatio
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« Reply #95 on: 18:34:35, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: Sydney Grew on 18:11:58, 21-07-2007
But there are three 7/8 bars on this page are there not? - although the rhythm changes so much here that the concept of a bar becomes self-destructive. Should a listener wishing that the composer might settle down to a steady beat and stop chopping and changing be blamed for a lack of sophistication or praised for an adherence to musical fundamentals we wonder? Bach in many of his smaller organ works gave us a good deal of syncopation but it was always founded upon a steady beat. There may well be among the Members some who find that a more satisfactory approach. . . .

It feels to me that the barring makes most of itself in terms of the phrasing (or certainly that's the most obvious way it makes sense).  The introduction sounds quite Scriabinisch, if you ask me.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #96 on: 19:36:03, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: Jonathan Powell on 16:53:03, 20-07-2007
I am amused by the fact that someone finds the appearance of a bar in 7/8 unnatural amidst all the activity on this page. Is the number seven unnatural? Many flowers, for instance, have seven petals. There are ladybirds with seven spots, even! There is, as far as I know, lots of folk music that uses seven beats in a "bar" (such as that which inspired many pieces of Bartok and Vladigerov from Eastern Hungary and Bulgaria). Or is it not the number of quavers in this bar but the appearance of this bar in this context that this commentator is disturbed by? I quite like that bar, by the way, and feel it serves as an elegant and understated transition from the initial material to the stuff that comes at the bottom of the page.
I'm a bit puzzled by this. 7/8 isn't only in one transitional bar: the piece starts in 7/8, and indeed I'd be more inclined to hear the 4/4 bar as a sort of notated rubato within the overall 7/8 context of the first four bars.

I'd also add that flowers have about as little as Beethoven to do with what may or may not be good about the Sorabji. We don't experience petals in time, which means (a) that there's no hierarchy of petals in the way the beats of a bar of 7/8 time and (b) that we don't get to the 7th petal and then start counting again from 1 in the way we do with bars of 7/8. There is indeed a lot of folk music with irregular rhythms which an ethnomusicologist might notate as 7/8 etc., but I think it might be fair to say they're more to do with short-short-long (or short-long-short, or long-short-short) patterns than with prime numbers as such. I don't think Sorabji's use of the metre is directly comparable, which is by no means to say that I think there's anything wrong with his use of it!
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roslynmuse
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« Reply #97 on: 21:17:19, 21-07-2007 »
note to self: Sorabji does not do humour...

 Sad
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increpatio
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« Reply #98 on: 21:27:27, 21-07-2007 »
Quote from: roslynmuse on 21:17:19, 21-07-2007
note to self: Sorabji does not do humour...

 Sad

Yes he does!  I think.  (His Concerto per suonare da me solo is...at least rather bitingly cynical on paper and the third movement at least is a little bit queer in parts).
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Poivrade
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« Reply #99 on: 23:26:22, 04-08-2007 »
I've read this thread with great interest. When I was very young I wandered into OUP in Great Conduit Street as it was then and bought everything that was available then-pretty much all the published works- for about a fiver. Fantastic engraving, though often not too accurate as has been observed. I've heard plenty of performances and play some at home for fun sometimes-very physically pleasurable and not as hard as one might think. I really like the music. The problem in the end is that it is utter drivel, in a really profound sense-a sort of definition of drivel, which while listening to as opposed to playing induces immediate somnolence. Oddly this is not meant as a criticism. His writings are of course hilariously obnoxious, but I think not to be taken too seriously except as an expression of an unclubbable nature.
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increpatio
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« Reply #100 on: 00:30:54, 05-08-2007 »
Quote from: Poivrade on 23:26:22, 04-08-2007
The problem in the end is that it is utter drivel, in a really profound sense-a sort of definition of drivel, which while listening to as opposed to playing induces immediate somnolence.

You would say this of all of his works that you have heard?  As I've said before, there are many works by him that I really have trouble listening to, but there are several that I am on good terms.
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Poivrade
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« Reply #101 on: 00:39:35, 05-08-2007 »
Yes-even the shorter ones, though as I say, no criticism intended- it takes all sorts to make an interesting world.
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autoharp
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« Reply #102 on: 00:56:50, 05-08-2007 »
Quote from: Poivrade on 23:26:22, 04-08-2007
His writings are of course hilariously obnoxious, but I think not to be taken too seriously except as an expression of an unclubbable nature.

But he's been proved right about a good number of composers who were little known/unfashionable at the time, hasn't he ?
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Poivrade
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« Reply #103 on: 09:21:24, 05-08-2007 »
Yes-I was thinking more of his social attitudes here.
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autoharp
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« Reply #104 on: 22:21:24, 05-08-2007 »
Sorabji's social attititudes have been done to death in this forum. More on his musical attitudes please.
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