seen on the green - kaikosru shapurji sorabji
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8/3/2019 Seen on the Green - Kaikosru Shapurji Sorabji
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Seen on the Green
Famous Faces From Chingfordby Thom Goddard
This Month: Kaikosru Shapurji Sorabji
Genius is seldom created individually. Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton all workedwith groups of people to hone and perfect their work. Chingford-born Kaikosru Shapurji Sorabji did theexact opposite as he explained in a letter to his friend Peter Warlock, “You claim that I write monstrositieswhich only the composer can play. What if they were only meant for the composer?”
Leon Dudley Sorabji would become known as the Howard Hughes of classical music but he was not borninto money in Chingford, then in Essex, on 14 August 1892. His father was a civil engineer of Parsiparentage from Bombay and his mother, Madeline, English. The young boy was an exceptional pianistfrom a young age and as a composer, largely self-taught. It is known he loved the composers Busoni,Rakhmaninov and Mahler but due to Sorabji’s closely guarded family history it is unknown what happenedto the family in those early years. In the early 20th century they came to a great deal of money and movedto St. John’s Wood.
By 1911, Leon Dudley had become Kaikhosru Shapurji to reflect his Parsi origins and he was studying inLondon with a view to becoming a music critic. However in 1913 Sorabji wrote his first classicalcomposition, Number 1 Piano Concerto, and the floodgates of his imagination opened. In a prolific career he would write 111 extant compositions. Kaikhosru Sorabji’s most celebrated work was written in 1930and is Opus Clavicembalisticum, a solo piano piece that takes 4 hours and 45 minutes to play. This wasonce listed by the Guiness Book of World Records as the longest piece of single piano music ever written.Other amazingly detailed pieces include ‘The Second Symphony for organ’ that lasts 9 hours.
In 1936 Sorabji decided to withdraw all his works from public performance and no-one heard a single notefor 40 years. Between 1936 and 1945 he became a music critic for The New Age and The New EnglishWeekly magazines. During this time Kaikhosru continued to create compositions but had become a virtualrecluse after moving to Dorset from London. The gates to his house had a famous sign that is still there tothis day and reads: “Visitors unwelcome”. Sorabji was bidding to work unhindered but this behaviour led
to him being nicknamed the ‘Howard Hughes of classical music’.
Thanks to the, almost nagging, work of Yonty Solomon, from 1976 Kaikhosru Sorabji’s music began to beplayed again. The 1980 performance of Opus Clavicembalisticum is said to be the crowning glory of JohnOgden’s career as pianist and Sorabji’s piano solos, orchestral works, songs, string trios, quartets andquintets are played all over the world.
So keep a look out for any amazing people you meet in the Mount or have seen on the Green!
If you spot anyone contact: [email protected]