Concert | Piano solitaire
Polyphony, notes spread across up to six systems and works lasting up to six hours: the idiosyncratic, extremely complex style of the legendary pianist and composer of British-Parsi origin, Kaikoshru Sorabji, initially seems to defy interpretation and listening. Concerts of Sorabji's extremely demanding and equally unique piano works are extremely rare. It was not until 1982, fifty years after his own premiere of Opus Clavicembalisticum, gave pianist Geoffrey Madge permission to perform it publicly and prepared the pianist intensively for the 3½-hour performance in the run-up to the concert tour, including practical aspects such as the touch quality of the respective instrument. Since then, Madge has repeatedly performed Sorabji's piano works in concert. Nevertheless, performances of the composer Sorabji, whose piano works rank alongside the great works of Bach and Beethoven and follow in the tradition of Busoni, whom he met in his younger years, are rather rare.
In the context of the Piano Solitaire series, Opus Clavicembalisticum marks a historical point between Johann Sebastian Bach, the old master of cyclical piano works (The Well-Tempered Clavier), and La Monte Young's monumental, antipodal 6½-hour work The Well-Tuned Piano.
Defying the extreme density of the movements and the high technical demands, Madge's goal in playing the work is to keep the energy invested in Opus Clavicembalisticum to a minimum so that the work – as if by itself – what is hidden in the density in the form of fine singing lines emerges, creating a special kind of multiple transparency that allows both non-European rhythms to shine through and the contours of the underlying construction logic to be recognised by the listener.
Kaikoshru Sorabji
Opus Clavicembalisticum (1932)
Geoffrey Madge – piano