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Sorabji: Opus clavicembalisticum
 
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Sorabji: Opus clavicembalisticum [Box set]

~ Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (Composer), Geoffrey Douglas Madge (Performer)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Price: £40.09 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Performer: Geoffrey Douglas Madge
  • Composer: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
  • Audio CD (1 Jan 2000)
  • SPARS Code: ADD
  • Number of Discs: 3
  • Format: Box set
  • Label: BIS
  • ASIN: B00002R2ZV
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 306,337 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Track Listings

Disc: 1
1. I. Intoito
2. II. Preludio Corale
3. III. Fuga I Quatuor Vocibus
4. IV. Fantasia
See all 5 tracks on this disc
Disc: 2
1. VI. Interludium Primum
2. VII. Cadenza I
Disc: 3
1. Dux Primus
2. Dux Alter
3. Dux Tertius
Disc: 4
1. Toccata
2. Adagio
3. Passacaglia Cum LXXXI Variations
4. X. Cadenza II
Disc: 5
1. Dux Primus
2. Dux Alter
3. Dux Tertius
4. Dux Quartus
See all 6 tracks on this disc
On this CD:
  1. Opus clavicembalisticum
    Composed by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
    with Geoffrey Douglas Madge

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
A work with a name like this can only be unusual. The opus in question is a three-part solo piano epic, lasting a shade under four hours and of a complexity to match. Combine an all-night raga sequence with Bach's Art of Fugue and you're getting close. Is it worth the listen? Yes, if you want to give your heart and mind--not just your brain--a real workout. For all his outsize demands, Sorabji was a front-rank pianist, who understood technique as a physical end to spiritual means. There are stretches of manic complexity here, but also passages of real poetry: try the lengthy "Interludium primum" which opens Part 2, or many of the 81(!) variations which follow the magisterial "Passacaglia" in Part 3. It's music which cries out for transcendental virtuosity, and Geoffrey Douglas Madge gives it just that. He gave four performances over six years and this Chicago one from 1983 assumed mythic status among those who heard it. Remastered for CD release, it is awe-inspiring in its grasp of what's gone into this music: the audience clearly living it with the pianist every step of the way. Hear it for yourself, then why not run the marathon or climb Everest for relaxation? --Richard Whitehouse

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8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A legendary performance of a legendary piece., 22 Feb 2001
By A Customer
It may not come as a surprise to find that a British composer born Leon Dudley, who later adopted the title of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, was to write some rather extreme music.

By no means the longest of Sorabji's works, the Opus Clavicembalisticum certainly is his most notorious. First performed in Glasgow in 1930 by the composer, himself a formidable pianist, it was not the dissonance in harmonies or terrifying virtuosity required from the performer that was to shock the music scene, but the sheer length of the piece.

Sorabji conceived Opus Clavicembalisticum to be about four- and three-quarter hours in length, so maybe he would turn in his grave to find that the performance Geoffrey Douglas Madge gives is a fraction under four hours. After all, Sorabji did declare a self imposed ban on the public performance of his works after a lesser pianist played a movement from the eponymous work too slowly.

So what about the performance? Well, Madge certainly considers the musical content more so than his recorded predecessor John Ogdon, who undoubtedly sight-read most of the thing. The sound is also good, albeit a bit warm and "fuzzy" giving the impression of over pedalling on the pianist's part.

Besides the less than top quality recorded sound, the pianism is of the highest calibre and this account should remain the bench mark for many years and many brave pianists to come.

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