Biography
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Born
14 August 1892
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Born In
Essex, England, United Kingdom
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Died
15 October 1988 (aged 96)
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (14th August 1892-15th October 1988) was a pianist, music journalist, and composer of mixed Parsi and Spanish-Italian/Sicilian descent, who was born and lived in Epping, Essex, England. Although born Leon Dudley, he strongly identified with his Parsi heritage, rather than with his British birth.
His works were influenced by Charles-Valentin Alkan, Ferruccio Busoni (to whom his second piano sonata is dedicated), Leopold Godowsky, Max Reger, Karol Szymanowski, Alexander Scriabin, and Frederick Delius. He was a friend of Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) and became a music journalist in part because of their friendship.
Describing the music of Sorabji is not an easy task because of its uniqueness. One could describe it as neo-romanticism with a pantonal vocabulary. His work Opus Clavicembalisticum (1930) for solo piano takes about four and a half hours to play, and consists of three sections each divided into several movements. It was once listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest piano piece ever written. However Sorabji's Symphonic Variations, which occupies 500 pages of manuscript, takes even longer — about six hours
Characteristic of his work is the use, inspired by Busoni, of baroque forms — chorale prelude, passacaglia, and fugue — with harmonies, melodies, and approaches that are not neoclassical as usually understood.
Many pianists have tackled Sorabji's enormously difficult works. Such pianists include Michael Habermann, Donna Amato, John Ogdon, Jonathan Powell, and Marc-André Hamelin. Kevin Bowyer is noted for premiering his "impossible" organ symphony in the late 1980s, over sixty years after its composition.
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