{"id":4582,"date":"2021-12-27T18:07:33","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T22:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=4582"},"modified":"2021-12-28T12:40:59","modified_gmt":"2021-12-28T16:40:59","slug":"pianists-and-new-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2021\/12\/27\/pianists-and-new-things.html","title":{"rendered":"Pianists and New Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tAn old college friend stopped by last night. Was nice to talk about piano music with an informed professional for the first time in I don’t even know how long. Informed talk about piano lights up something in my brain, something that had stagnated for a number of years.<\/p>\n

Solon Pierce<\/a><\/strong> passes through NYC every year or so, but last year time was limited and there was little time to discuss the curiosities of Alkan’s banalities before I proudly introduced him to Lubomyr Melnyk<\/a><\/strong>, whose work and personality seemed to have genuinely piqued his interest.<\/p>\n

I was momentarily envious (but then not) that he made it to Chicago back in March to see Jonathan Powell play Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s Sequentia Cyclica<\/em>, a 5+ hour concert of monstrously complex and difficult piano that was attended by an audience of about a dozen. There were two intermissions, and during one of them Solon had to sneak out to the lobby to eat a sandwich just to keep his concentration going. Even at that he humorously described having to re\u00ebnter that concert in progress and wait for the pianist to play a loud passage so that he could continue eating the damn sandwich without disturbing other audience members — or the pianist himself, for that matter.<\/p>\n

To his Sequentia Cyclica<\/em> I countered that I had seen Mr. Powell perform Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum<\/em> at Merkin concert Hall here in New York in 2004. Solon was surprised and even incredulous, thinking maybe I had mistaken Mr. Powell for some other pianist (Michael Habermann?). Solon’s incredulity stemmed from an encounter he had with Mr. Powell (a couple of beers at a local pub), who seemed to have implied in their conversation that he had never performed any Sorabji repertoire in New York.<\/p>\n

I was not playing any kind of brinkmanship with this anecdote but as a hoarder of paper detritus documenting my purchases and travels I quickly provided evidence to support my claim: a ticket stub from that concert<\/a> posted to my receipts<\/a>. I also spilled several memories and recollections of that event which are unverifiable but which one would have no real reason to disbelieve.<\/p>\n

\"Sorabji,<\/a>

Sorabji, Opus Clavicembalisticum, Jonathan Powell, Markin Concert Hall.<\/p><\/div>\n

I remembered how Geoffrey Douglas Madge’s premiere of Sorabji’s Opus Clavicembalisticum<\/em> was also in Chicago, to be reminded that Kenneth Derus, a friend of both Sorabji and our mutual friend Don Garvelmann<\/a>, is a Chicagoan and Sorabji enthusiast largely responsible for such a relatively vibrant presence of the composer’s music being performed in that city.<\/p>\n

As he prepared to leave he surprised me by playing the opening measure of a piano piece I wrote in the early 1990s, a Sonatina of which I had no memory. It’s been so long since I’ve been around pianists and those interested in piano music that I forgot there was a genuine and legitimate interest in what I used to do in that realm, specifically the different and unusual things involving exotic repertoire and original compositions.<\/p>\n

I’ve revisited the craft of original compositions again, thinking it is time once and for all to move on from being a re-creator of others’ music and focus instead on making my own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An old college friend stopped by last night. Was nice to talk about piano music with an informed professional for the first time in I don’t even know how long. Informed talk about piano lights up something in my brain, something that had stagnated for a number of years. Solon Pierce passes through NYC every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[297,330,503,506],"class_list":["post-4582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-piano-music","tag-jonathan-powell","tag-lubomyr-melnyv","tag-solon-pierce","tag-sorabji","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/sorabji_oc_0406201-1.jpg?fit=680%2C292&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-1bU","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4582"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31206,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4582\/revisions\/31206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}