Sorabii, Kaikhosru Shapurji (actually, Leon Dudley)
Sorabii, Kaikhosru Shapurji (actually, Leon Dudley)
Sorabii, Kaikhosru Shapurji (actually, Leon Dudley), remarkable English pianist, writer on music, and composer of unique gifts; b. Chingford, Aug. 14, 1892; d. Wareham, Dorset, Oct. 14, 1988. His father was a Parsi, his mother of Spanish-Sicilian descent. He was largely self-taught in music. After appearing with notable success as a pianist in London, Paris, Vienna (1921–22), Glasgow, and Bombay, he gave up the concert platform and began writing on music. Through sheer perseverance and an almost mystical belief in his demiurgic powers, he developed an idiom of composition of extraordinary complexity, embodying within the European framework of harmonies the Eastern types of melodic lines and asymmetrical rhythmic patterns, and creating an enormously intricate but architectonically stable edifice of sound. His most arresting work is his magisterial Opus Clavicembalisticum, completed in 1930, taking about 5 hours to play and comprising 3 parts with 12 subdivisions, including a theme with 49 variations and a passacaglia with 81 variations; characteristically, the score is dedicated to “the everlasting glory of those few men blessed and sanctified in the curses and execrations of those many whose praise is eternal damnation.” Sorabji gave its premiere in Glasgow under the auspices of the Active Society for the Propagation of Contemporary Music on Dec. 1, 1930. Wrathful at the lack of interest in his music, Sorabji issued in 1936 a declaration forbidding any performance of his works by anyone anywhere; since this prohibition could not be sustained for works actually publ., there must have been furtive performances of his piano works in England and the U.S. by fearless pianists. Sorabji eventually mitigated his ban, and in 1975 allowed the American pianist Michael Habermann to perform some of his music; in 1976 he also gave his blessing to the English pianist Yonty Solomon, who included Sorabji’s works in a London concert on Dec. 7, 1976; on June 16, 1977, Solomon gave in London the first performance of Sorabji’s third Piano Sonata. Gradually, Sorabji’s music became the cynosure and the lodestone of titanically endowed pianists. Of these, the most Brobdingnagian was the Australian pianist Geoffrey Madge, who gave the second complete performance in history of Opus Clavicembalisticum at the 1982 Holland Festival in Utrecht; he repeated this feat at the first American performance of the work at the Univ. of Chicago on April 24, 1983; 2 weeks later he played it in Bonn. True to his estrangement from the human multitudes and music officials, Sorabji took refuge far from the madding crowd in a castle he owned in England; a notice at the gate proclaimed: Visitors Unwelcome. Yet as he approached his 90th birthday, he received at least 2 American musicians who came to declare their admiration, and allowed them to photocopy some of his MSS.
Works
orch.:8 indefinitely numbered piano concertos (1915–16; 1916–17; 1917; 1918; 1922; Simorg-Anka, 1924; 1924–25; 1927); Chaleur (1920); Opusculum (1923); Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orch. (1951–55); Opus Clavisymphonicum for Piano and Orch. (1957–59); Opusculum Claviorchestrale for Piano and Orch. (1973–75). CHAMBER: 2 piano quintets: No. 1 (1920) and No. 2 (1949–53); Concertino non Grosso for 4 Violins, Viola, 2 Cellos, and Piano (1968); II tessuto d’Arabeschi for Flute and String Quartet (1979; Philadelphia, May 2, 1982). keyboard: Pi a n o: 6 sonatas:No.0(1917),No. 1 (1919), No. 2 (1920), No. 3 (1922), No. 4 (1928–29), and No. 5, Opus Archimagicum (1934–35); 2 pieces: In the Hothouse and Toccata (1918, 1920); Fantaisie espagnole (1919); Prelude, Interlude and Fugue (1920–22); 3 Pastiches: on Chopin, Bizet, and Rimsky-Korsakov (1922); Le Jardin parfumé (1923); Variations and Fugue on “Dies Irae” (1923-26); Valse-Fantaisie (Hommage à Johann Strauss) (1925); Fragment (1926; rev. 1937); Djâmî, nocturne (1928); 4 toccatas: No. 1 (1928), No. 2 (1933–34), No. 3 (1957), and No. 4 (1964–67); Opus Clavicembalisticum (Glasgow, Dec. 1, 1930, composer soloist); Symphonie Variations (1935–37); 6 solo syms.: No. 1, Tantrik (1938–39), No. 2 (1954), No. 3 (1959–60), No. 4 (1962–64), No. 5, Symphonia Brevis (1973–75), and No. 6, Symphonia Magna (1975–76); Gulistan, nocturne (1940); 100 Transcendental Studies (1940–44); St. Bertrand de Comminges: “He Was Laughing in the Tower” (1941); Concerto per suonare da me solo (1946); Seauentia Cyclica on “Dies Irae” (1949); Un nido di scatole (1954); Passeggiata veneziana (1956); Rosario d’arabeschi (1956); Fantasiettina (1961); Symphonic Nocturne (1977–78); 11 grido del gallino d’oro (1978–79); Evocazione nostalgicaVilla Tasca (1979); Opus secretum (1980–81); Passeggiata arlecchinesca (1981–82). O r g a n: 3 solo syms.: No. 1 (1924), No. 2 (1929–32), and No. 3 (1949–53). VOCAL: Sym. No. I for Orch., Chorus, Organ, and Piano (1921–22); 5 sonetti del Michelangelo Buonarroti for Voice and Chamber Orch. (1923; Toronto, Feb. 2, 1980); Jâmī, sym. for Orch., Baritone, Chorus, Organ, and Piano (1942–51); Symphonic High Mass for Orch., Solo Voices, Chorus, Organ, and Piano (1955–61); songs.
Writings
Around Music (London, 1932); Ml contra fa: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician (London, 1947).
Bibliography
B. Posner, S.(diss., Fordham Univ., N.Y., 1975); P. Rapoport, Opus Est: 6 Composers from Northern Europe (London, 1978, and N.Y., 1979); idem, ed., S.: A Critical Celebration (Aldershot, 1992).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire