< World Premiere >
KAIKHOSRU SORABJI : Opus Clavicembalisticum, KSS50
Monday 1 December, 1930 - Stevenson Hall, Glasgow, Scotland
Kaikhosru Sorabji, Piano
J.Curwen and Sons Ltd., 1931
“It is so difficult to know how to convey to those who are unfamiliar with Sorabji's work just how strange and profoundly rewarding he can be. In many respects it could be said to be a new, and thus far quite distinct, form of music. His 'Opus Clavicembalisticum' is a major, if little appreciated, piece of twentieth century abstract modern art, being to music what Joyce's 'Ulysses' is to literature, or Pollock's 'Lavender Mist' is to painting. It is music as stream of consciousness, and to understand it one must arguably learn new ways of listening, to hear the music of the music, so to speak. Its sheer scale and duration insist that one can only engage with it as ritual, requiring one to set aside a chunk of life in which to be with it.”
— John Ferngrove
– Pars Altera, VII. Cadenza I :