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91 Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments and its intended performance by Norah Drewett and the Hart House String Quartet Marc-AndrC Roberge Abstract This article attempts to reconstruct the history of what was to be the first per- formance of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments (1919-20), which was scheduled to be given on 29 November 1925 at Aeolian Hall in New York by the pianist Norah Drewett and the University of Toronto's Hart House String Quartet as part of a concert sponsored by Edgard Varese's International Composers' Guild. The performance never took place for reasons that are not entirely clear but have to do mostly with the work's difficul- ties. The article also provides an introduction to the work itself, which Sorabji dedicated to his friend, the composer Philip Heseltine. Most people who have heard of Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988), the Parsi composer and pianist active who lived as a recluse in England for most of his career, know that performances of his often massive and extremely difficult works have been extremely rare as a result of a so-called ban.l The thirteen scores that Sorabji published between 1921 and 1931 contain the following warning: "All rights including that of performance, reserved for all countries by the composer." The score of his 248-page Opus clavicembalisticum (1929-30), his longest and most often cited work, contains the additional admonition: "Public performance prohibited unless by express consent of the composer." Various statements in letters make it possible to say that, in the late thirties, Sorabji had decided to turn down all requests for public performance either by himself or by others. As he later indicated in a letter to the pianist Egon Petri: "I have set my face against ANY PUBLIC PERFORMANCE OF MY WORK FOR GOOD AND ALL EVERYWHERE."2 It is true that he did not have to turn 92 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments down offers very often, since they were very few and far between. The visual aspect of most scores was forbidding enough to scare potential performers away. Up to December 1936, Sorabji had been heard in public at least ten times in various cities (London, Vienna, Paris, Glasgow), giving the first performances of five works for piano solo and playing the piano part of his Trois pokmes pour chant et piano. He had also allowed two friends- the pianist Harold Rutland (1900-1977) and the organist E. Emlyn Davies (1885-1951)- to play a work each. He had not approved, however, of a performance of pars prima of his Opus clavicembalisticum by John Tobin (1 891-1960). The severe inadequacies of this performance, which took place at Cowdray Hall in London on 10 March 1936, were instrumental in bringing the composer to his decision of not allowing hearings of his music. Even though there were a few scattered performances af- ter 1936, it is only in 1976, thanks to the persistence of a number of friends, es- pecially Alistair Hinton, that Sorabji began to give permission for official per- formances to a few selected pianists, namely Yonty Solomon, Michael Haber- mann, and Geoffiey Douglas Madge.3 Since that time, other musicians (mostly pianists) have been drawn to the intricacies of Sorabji’s music and public hear- ings of several short- and medium-size works have become more freq~ent.~ A few recordings have also been produced, all offering sound proofs of the great beauty and artistic validity of the music. Sorabji never made any real efforts to promote performances of his music. It zppears that only one performance (except for Tobin’s) was organized without his close involvement, namely, the premikre of the Quintet for Piano and Quartet of Stringed Instruments (1919-20) by the pianist Norah Drewett and the Uni- versity of Toronto’s Hart House String Quartet. This performance was to be given in New York in 1925 but failed to materialize. Another performance of the same work, scheduled for October 1992 in Cambridge, did not take place either. The work is still unperformed even though it is available in print (or rather has been, since the remaining copies have been sold). It is the purpose of this article to give an account of the work and to document the sequence of events surround- ing its cancelled first Performance by the Canadian ensemble, a project that had to be filed away due to the vagaries of new music programming and to the diffi- culties posed by a new compositional idiom.5 Sorabji’s musical output consists of 11 1 works totalling more than 1 1,000 manuscript pages.6 This total can be broken down as follows: 61 works for pi- ano (including 7 transcriptions), 3 for organ, ll for piano and orchestra, 7 for or- chestra (with or without voices), 7 for chamber ensemble (including 2 with Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 93 voices), 20 for voice and keyboard, one for carillon and one for unidentified forces. The music for chamber ensemble, to which this article is limited, spans almost all the composer's creative career. Below is a chronological list, with some useful data, of the works comprising this ~ategory.~ Like the works in the other categories, they range in length from the tiniest (2 pp.) to the mightiest (432 pp.). Some are written for traditional ensembles while others have a more peculiar scoring. Only three have received a first (and only) performance. The sole work to have been published in an engraved edition is the Piano Quintet No. I (as it will be called from now on, despite its original title), which is the object of this article. Chronological List of Sorabji's Works for Chamber Ensemble Music to "The Rider by Night" (1919); for voices and small orchestra; 54 pp. Quintet [No. 11 for Piano and Quartet of Stringed Instruments (1919-20); 72 pp.; publ. London and Continental Music Publishing, 1923 (62 pp.). The title of the published edition reads Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments. Cinque sonetti di Michelagniolo Buonarroti (1923); for baritone and small or- chestra; 40 pp. First performance: Toronto, University of Toronto, Walter Hall, New Music Concerts, 2 February 1980. Quintet I1 for Piano and String Quartet (1932-33); 432 pp. Concertino non grosso for String Septet with Piano obbligato quasi continuo (1 968); for piano, 4 violins, viola, and 2 cellos; 48 pp. The manuscript contains music for one cello only even though it appears to call for two. I1 tessuto d'arabeschi (1 979); for flute and string quartet; 32 pp. First perform- ance: Philadelphia, Old Pine Street Church, Delius Society (Philadelphia branch), 2 May 1982. Fantasiettina atematica (1981); for flute, oboe, and clarinet; 2 pp.; publ. Sorabji Archive, 1989 (ed. Anthony Burton-Page). First performance: London, City University, 9 March 1995. 94 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments Sorabji wrote his Piano Quintet No. 1 in the years following World War I. Several noted composers have written works for the same forces during that pe- riod, such as Dohnsinyi (1919), Faure (No. 2, Op. 117, 1919), Martin (1919), Pierne (Op. 41, 1919), Bax (1922), Bloch (No. 1, 1923-24), Korngold (Op. 15, 1924), Vieme (Op. 42, 1924), and d'Indy (Op. 81, 1925).8 In the field of string quartet composition, which accounts for most works involving the strings, im- portant periods at the beginning of the century were 1905 to 1913 (Schoenberg, Bartok, Webern) and 1926-28 (Berg, Bartok, Schoenberg). Prior to the composi- tion of Sorabji's works, the most notable work is Bartok's String Quartet No. 2 (1917); at about the same time as Sorabji, Stravinsky wrote his Concertino (1920)? When he attacked the composition of his quintet, Sorabji already had some experience of writing for the strings: he had composed the orchestral poem Chaleur (ca. 1916-17), four piano concertos (1915-16, 1916-17, 1918, 1918), and the Music to "The Rider by Night" (1 9 19). The one-movement Piano Quintet No. 1 is dedicated "To my very good friend Philip Heseltine." The composer and writer Philip Heseltine (1 894-1930) had been a friend of Sorabji since 1913 when they began an interesting correspon- dence which dates up to 1922; it is one of the rare sources documenting Sorabji's early career. Prior to the Quintet, Sorabji had already dedicated to Heseltine his first piano concerto (completed in June 1916).12 In his obituary notes written shortly after Heseltine's death in 1930, Sorabji described his friend as one of the finest musical minds of our time, a critic and writer of un- paralleled brilliance, insight, and subtlety. What I owe personally to his early encouragement, sympathy, and championship I can never ade- quately express, except to say that here and now [it] is my bounden moral duty to express that obligation as best as I can. The Quintet, which is printed on oblong paper (or landscape format, in modem parlance), has a piano part written throughout on three-stave systems. The tempo and expressive markings are written in French throughout; indeed, Sorabji had been using French not only for evocative titles but for generic ones as well, such as concerto, and had been setting several poems in French since his earliest works in 1915. As in most of his works, the top stave of the piano part uses a symbol (here a fraction composed of the Roman numerals I and VIII) to indicate that the contents of this stave have to be played an octave higher than written. l5 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 95 Another conspicuous feature is the almost constant change of meter throughout the 281 long measures. The following time signatures are used: 211; 2, 3, 412; 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1014; 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 2018; 15/8 [or] 5/4% (see meas. 66), 2%/4 (see meas. 265). The initial boldface tempo marking "ModCr6" ap- plies until meas. 235 (p. 54), where "Lent suave" appears, followed at meas. 240 (p. 55) by "Tres large." Elsewhere, various agogical markings such as "Ralenti" or "En s'animant et augmentant" shape the work. Given the long measures containing up to fifteen and twenty beats, Sorabji had the good idea of providing an index of beats," which is a series of numbers aligned underneath the piano part. The index, however, is missing for twenty measures; this is probably an oversight of both the composer and the engraver. A final visual peculiarity of the score is the use of unusual rehearsal numbers. Sorabji uses letters from A (meas. 6) to Z (meas. 131), then from Aa (meas. 136) to Zz (meas. 260). Then, instead of tripling letters, he resorts to symbols for the last four instances: a downward pointing arrow cutting across a circle (meas. 265), a right-pointing arrow cutting across a rectangle (meas. 269), a symbol re- sembling "OL8". (meas. 274), and an inverted version of the swastika (meas. 279). These symbols are closely related to those used by Schoenberg in Die gluckliche Hand, op. 18 (1910-13, full score publ. 1916) to indicate exactly where a stage direction takes effect. The piano has always held a central place in Sorabji's compositional activity. It is not only the instrument to which he has devoted most of his production, but the medium which was most congenial to him. It is true that'he was a great amateur of singing, but his songs, many of which are early works, are not truly idiomatic. Several examples in his music confirm the preeminent place held by the piano. A note in the separate piano part of his Opus clavisymphonicum: Con- certo for Piano and Large Orchestra (1957-59; 333 pp.) reads: "This work re- volves around the Piano as the Solar System round the Sun." His Symphony I1 for Piano, Large Orchestra, Organ, Final Chorus, and Six Solo Voices (1930-3 1; 333 pp. [also]) exists only in a piano part.18 The Symphonic Variations exist in two versions: one for piano only (1936-37; 484 pp.), and one for piano and or- chestra (1953-56; 540 pp.), which is an orchestral version of the first of the three volumes of the first incarnation. Rapoport has remarked that Sorabji nearly al- ways wrote the piano part of his concertos first, then proceeding to the orchestral fabric; he also suggests that this was the case with the Piano Quintet No. l.19 This is quite likely since the piano part is continuous from beginning to end; there are only very short rests in meas. 44, 59,63,85, and 148. A performance of 96 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments the piano part alone would probably not be unsatisfactory. Sorabji therefore ap- pears as a quite unique example of a modem composer who uses a technique re- lated to the successive counterpoint of the medieval composers. As in most works written around 1920 (and after, for that matter), Sorabji uses in the Piano Quintet No. 1 a free chromatic language based on bitonal combina- tions of standard chords (often with added notes) and chords built on fourths and featuring numerous chromatic runs using irrational rhythmic values.20 The mu- sic often reminds one of the highly sensuous melodic lines and harmonies of works by Skryabin and Szymanowski. Until the work is performed and recorded, one may have a good idea of its sound by listening to the recording of a piece written at exactly the same time, the Sonata No. 1 (1 9 1 9).2 Three contemporary critics have published brief comments about the work; in all cases they had to rely solely on the score, since there had been no perform- ance. A certain "F.B.," who is most probably the Italian-born English critic and composer Ferruccio Bonavia (1877-1950), paid special attention to the index of beats: A Quintet for pianoforte and four stringed instruments [...I deserves special mention as the first work in which the thoughtful composer has provided an index of beats" for the benefit of the performer. That the index is much needed a single glance suffices to prove. When bars fol- low one another in this order, 2018, 414, 614, 414, 514, &c., it is evident that some little guidance is sure to be welcomed by the harassed reader: harassed not only by time-signatures but by the accidentals which adorn every chord, by the three staves of the pianoforte (the upper stave is to be played an octave higher), by the frequent directions, by the unusual demands the composer makes on his string players. Thus the reader will be grateful for the index. For this relief many thanks- especially as it happens to be the only relief worth mentioning. The actual music, alas, is aptly defined in the directions printed over the last bar, Enigmatique equivoque. Whether anyone will care to solve that problem is not our affair.22 Another reviewer, writing in an as yet unidentified and unfortunately incomplete source found in the composer's papers, also seems to have had difficulty with Sorabji's unusual style: Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 97 This is one of those excessively modem works that stagger the re- viewer and leave him flat. Personally I must acknowledge that I hesitate to pass judgment upon it. I can only say that it appears to me to be highly interesting. the harmony is very dissonant, but I seem to feel the direction of the passing chords and altered chords, the appoggiaturas, which seem logical, though I am often at a loss to explain them. By way of elucidation I may say that there is no harm in dissonance provided it has a logical association with basic harmonies. The diffi- culty I find in this Sorabji quintet is that (for me) the association with the basic harmonies is rather vague. Yet I am dimly conscious of it, and I can readily conceive of more alert ears, more modernly attuned ears, grasping it in its entirety. Certainly, the construction of it is masterly. Certainly, too, the brief bits of melody, or theme, show real invention. All of the parts are tremen- dously difficult, and its [source breaks]23 Philip Heseltine, the dedicatee of the work, wrote some comments about the work in 1923 (i.e., not long after his correspondence with Sorabji stops). They are obviously partial to the composer, who was a friend, but they are neverthe- less worth reprinting here, for they give a glimpse into Sorabji's composition method and shed light on the style of the work: His music is written down, without any preliminary sketches, bar by bar into the fair copy; there is no improvisation or any use of the piano at any stage of the composition, nor is there any rewriting or alteration when a work is completed. This is the more remarkable by reason of the fact that the texture of the music is of the utmost complexity, both of harmony and rhythm. The effect of a first hearing or reading is be- wildering in the extreme; but with familiarity there comes the convic- tion that we are dealing with a composer who is nothing short of a phe- nomenon in musical history.24 Sorabji's Piano Quintet No. 1, as mentioned earlier, has yet to be performed; in- deed, the two performances that were to take place were cancelled. The most re- cent possibility of hearing the work would have been on 9 October 1992, at a concert presented by Orchid Music in association with the Cambridge New Mu- sic Players and the pianist Ben Morrison in the Great Hall, Blackheath Halls, Lee 98 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments Road, Blackheath, London. The program was to feature Sorabj i's work alongside Cage's Europera 5 and works by Xenakis, Clapperton, Shaman, Allauca, Red- gate, Hughes, and Pyne. Practical problems prevented the ensemble from re- hearsing the piece and the performance had to be cancelled. The cancelled performance that will be dealt with here in some detail was scheduled to be given on 29 November 1925 by the Hart House String Quartet at Aeolian Hall in New York, as part of a concert sponsored by the International Composers' Guild.25 At the time of its formation in 1923, the Hart House String Quartet, which is considered to have been Canada's most famous chamber music ensemble in the first half of the twentieth century, was composed of the violinists Geza de Kresz (1882-1959) and Harry Adaskin (b. 1901), the violist Milton Blackstone (1 894- 1974), and the cellist Boris Hambourg (1 885- 1954), all of whom were foreign-born musicians. There were subsequent changes in the members until the ensemble gave its last concert in 1946; only Hambourg re- mained with the ensemble throughout its life. The Hart House String Quartet, which was associated with the University of Toronto, is reputed to have been "one of the dozen or so best on the international scene.ff26 The piano part of Sorabji's work was to be played by de Kresz's wife, the English pianist Norah Drewett (1 882- 1960), who had been a pupil of Victor-Alphonse Duvernoy (1 842-1 907) in Paris and of Bernhard Stavenhagen (1 862- 19 14) in Munich.27 The history of the cancelled premiere of Sorabji's Piano Quintet No. 1 can be reconstructed in some detail (though not with as much precision as would be de- sirable) using the correspondence between the composer and Norah Drewett (which is limited to one letter from each party)?8 the memoirs of the ensemble's second violin, Harry Ada~kin,~~ and clippings from the Toronto newspapers in the months preceding the date set for the intended concert. The concert at which Sorabji's Piano Quintet No. 1 was to be performed was organized by the International Composers' Guild (ICG), which had been founded by Edgard Varese. This society had been established in 1921 and was to give eighteen concerts between 1922 and 1927.30 It is not known how the Guild be- came aware of Sorabji's quintet, which had been published in 1923. However, it could have received a recommendation from two musicians who were on the Advisory Committee of the Guild in 1924: Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), who had given Sorabji a letter of recommendation in 1919 to help him find a pub- lisher for his Sonata No. 1,31 and Bernard van Dieren (1887-1936), to whom Sorabji had given for Christmas 1923 an inscribed copy of his Concerto for Pi- Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments ano No. 5, which had recently been published as Concerto 11. Van Dieren's name, however, seems to be a safer guess, since Busoni was seriously ill in 1924; furthermore, a recommendation by Busoni would have to have been made before his death in July 1924, whereas one by Van Dieren could have been pos- sible anywhere thereafter. There are two dates on which a concert could have taken place. It was first announced in the musical press that "[tlhe second concert on Feb. 8 [1925] will introduce a Hindu [sic] composer, Kaikhosru S~rabji."~~ Sorabji's name was eventually dropped from the programme at an unknown date. According to a flyer published by the ICG announcing its programmes for the fourth season, the concert was to feature works by Auric, Bartok, Casella, Salzedo, Malipiero, Sorabji, Still, Webern, Zanotti-Bianco. The performers listed were Greta Tor- padie (voice), Marie Miller (harp), Hyman Rowinsky (piano), and Carlos Sal- zed0 (piano).33 Since no quartet is mentioned in the flyer, several works by Sorabj i could have been performed. Yet the actual concert featured additional artists: Henry Cowell (thunderstick), the Letz Quartet, and the conductor Vladimir Shavitch. Sorabji had disappeared from the programme, as had Auric, Casella, and Malipiero, who had been replaced with Acario Cotapos and Henry ~owe11.34 The presence of a quartet and of two pianists suggests that Sorabji's quintet could have been the work that the ICG had in mind. It is not known if the Hart House String Quartet had been approached to play at that concert, only to be re- placed by the Letz Quartet. It is a known fact, however, that they were hired to play the quintet at the latest in the Spring of 1925. On 21 May 1925, the Toronto Globe announced that "[tlhe Hart House String Quartet has been engaged by the International Composers' Guild to present a modern work by Khaikhosru [sic], the Hindu composer [sic], who is residing in London, England."35 In his memoirs, Harry Adaskin recalls that the ensemble had received an offer for a free debut in New York if they would play Sorabji's quintet. As he puts it, the cost of a New York recital (about $4,000) was such that, "to get it for nothing we would cheerfully have undertaken to decipher and play a Sumerian Quod- libet."36 Three months later, it was reported that "[tlhe Hart House String Quar- tet are practising five hours a day all this summer in Newcastle, where all the players are living until early Se~tember."~~ Indeed, the ensemble seems to have had much difficulty with the work. Adaskin recalls that "[tlhe daunting intricacy of the freely interweaving lines of his work demanded a total rhythmical control 100 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments on the part of the players. This, alas, we couldn't supply, as neither de Kresz nor his wife had any rhythm." He adds: "In conventional works we just had near misses. But in the free-structured highly involved labyrinth of Sorabji, the best we could achieve was pandemonium." Adaskin then recalls how they worked several hours during thirteen weeks and managed to play up to the end of the first page of his part, which corresponds to meas. 49 (p. 9), "without seriously falling out." He concludes by saying "So we never learned to play it, and we didn't get our free New York recital."38 The rehearsal difficulties mentioned by Adaskin are well documented in their copy of the full score and parts which were donated in 1969 to the Edward John- son Library of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto by Milton Blackstone, the ensemble's violist. The performing material must have been provided to the ensemble by the International Composers' Guild, since the cover of the score and the initial pages of the parts are marked as being their property. The piano part, especially, contains several markings, mostly written in black pencil, some with a thick greasy orange pencil, some with a similar blue pencil. The most detailed (and interesting) examples read as follows: "Metronome indi- cation is imperiously needed. 'Modtre' means nothing at all, theoretically not actually" (p. 3); 'I?!?" with reference to fermatas above each member of a series of chords placed underneath a measured tremolo (meas. 87, p. 21); "Help!!" with reference to a difficult left-hand tremolo; "Index of beats, mostly needed here" (meas. 253, p. 54); "Help!" with reference to the indication "Pesant, sestencieux" [recte "sentencieux" (sententious)]; "Index of beats please" (meas. 246-47, p. 57); "how!" and "?! impossible" with reference to chords that cannot be grasped by one hand (meas. 255, p. 59; meas. 273, p. 63). The first page of the score is reproduced as an illustration showing the free, mellifluous writing that is charac- teristic of the score. Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments, p. 3, meas. 1-5 (with annotations by the members of the Hart House String Quar- tet). London and Continental Music Publishing Co. Ltd., 1923. From the collec- tion of the Edward Johnson Library, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto (accession number 32,420). [see opposite page] Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 101 102 Roberge: Kaikhosm Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments It is obvious that Drewett, the ensemble's pianist, was baffled by Sorabji's un- usual writing; actually, anyone at that time was- and many modern traditional practitioners - still gasp when shown a page from one of his scores. In Drewett's defence, it should be added that most of Sorabji's published scores as well as his manuscripts contain (very) numerous mistakes and inconsistencies; indeed, modern editors of his music constantly have to decide which note Sorabji actu- ally intended to write.39 The string parts show that the players did at least at- tempt to work through the piece: there are various position markings, cues, solu- tions for metrical problems for the whole quintet. On 6 June 1925, it was announced that the Hart House String Quartet was to play at Aeolian Hall on 29 November.40 The concert was supposed to feature a chamber orchestra of thirty players conducted by Eugene Goo~sens.~~ The va- garies of the programming of contemporary music modified the announced plans: Goossens conducted on 24 January 1926 and there seems to have been no chamber orchestra of thirty players. The ensemble finally played at Aeolian Hall not on 29 but 28 November. Their recital, which was favourably reviewed by the New York Times, seems to have been given independently of the ICG; it fea- tured works by Debussy, Bartok, and Beethoven.42 The Hart House String Quartet thus most probably paid for their New York debut since they did not play Sorabji's work. Back in Toronto, on 19 December 1925, Drewett wrote to Sorabji to explain that Salzedo, who was a member of the ICGs Technical Board, "had changed the dates & had also published the en- closed circular with no mention either of your work or our co-operation." The letter, which is reproduced in full below, suggests that the ensemble would have liked to play it elsewhere. Dear Mr Sorabji, I have still to thank you for your kind letter with all the detailed expla- nations. We have undergone a great disappointment for after having studied your interesting work very intensively, we discovered that h4r Salzedo had changed the dates & had also published the enclosed circu- lar with no mention either of your work or our co-operation. We had some correspondence with Mr Salzedo, & also a friendly discussion with him during our stay last month in New York, but nothing definite has happened. It is of little avail to introduce your work at an ordinary recital before the ordinary audience - these societies have been founded to gather together the different elements interested in "modern" music. Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 103 But we want to ask you if, in principal [sic], should we find a good op- portunity to play the Quintet either in New York or elsewhere, we will have no difficulties from your side. I really consider it rather unfair of the I.C.G. to have acted thus. Since the Hart House String Quartet had an exceptional success at its initial concerts in N.Y. & Boston & is playing there again in January, I believe the opportunity mentioned be- fore will certainly occur, with or without the I.C.G. I meant to write to you at once but have been so busy with various things. With kind regards from my husband & myself. Sincerely yours [unsigned, but the name "Norah Drewett" is part of the letter- head] In May 1928, in one of his articles for The New Age, Sorabji, who had just fin- ished reading A Final Burning of Boats Etc. by the English composer and writer, Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1948)$3 referred to the author as a victim of "persistently relentless efforts to down her" and gives two examples of problems he had faced with the reception of his music. The letter also makes clear that he had been contacted by the "head of an organisation for the performance of new music" (Varese, Goossens, Salzedo?) for a copy of his score. As I have said before, I know how people without what I have called the correct back-ground, no matter what their gifts and accomplish- ment, are pushed on one side, passed over, ignored in favour of nonen- tities who possess the "background." This affects men just as much as women. I, too, can speak from personal experience. I remember some years ago calling, at the instance of a distinguished critic and musician, upon a friend of his, also a leading critic, armed with his recommenda- tion, and being met with an unconditional refusal to either look at or listen to my work. Also after being urgently requested by the head of an organisation for the performance of new music for a copy of a work of mine for performance in New York, and receiving glowing messages from him and from the leader of the quintet engaged to work upon it as to their admiration, I discovered that it had been dropped- not at the instance of the performers - on the score of insufficient time for work, 104 Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments but entirely unknown to them as to myself, and without a word of ex- planation from that day to thk44 The last item shedding some light on the sequence of events surrounding the cancelled premiere of the Piano Quintet No. 1 is a letter from Sorabji to Drewett, written on 3 November 1929. Dear Madame de Kresz Or should I say Drewett? I suspect you will remember me if not in per- son yet perhaps through my piano quintet that you were once going to play in New York chez the International Composers' Guild under the auspices of Monsieur Carlos Salzedo. From him I have never from that day to this, some years ago[,] had any explanation as to why my work was dropped. While I well remember a letter from you which I still possess telling me of the dropping of the work (dated 19.12.25). I have heard so many strange stories as to the reason why the workwas dropped that I am making a collection of them. One, from a well known English composer whom I have no reason to believe [he] loves me, that you all found the work impossible of performance and that it was dropped for that reason, a story so fantastic and absurd that it may be dismissed as the invention of malignant stupidity. Another reason al- leged is such that it is an insult to such a body of artists as yourself and the Hart House Quartet to reprint it. Yet a third ascribed this very rea- son as the motive of the removal of this work from the I.C.G. pro- grammes. It is all profoundly intriguing and ambiguous. I doubt not that you have still more diverting tales of supposed "reasons"? It would a pleasure to hear from you again. With kind regards. Yours sincerely. Kaikhosru Sorabji It appears from this letter that Sorabji and Drewett met at least once, obviously in London, since Sorabji never visited North America. They could have met in 1929, in which year the letter was written, for the Hart House String Quartet had gone on a European tour in that year (including England and BBC broadcast^).^^ There is no indication in Sorabji's reviews that he attended one of their London Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 105 concerts; therefore, the reference to "such a body of artists as yourself and the Hart House Quartet" may have been made simply out of politeness. Finally, the reasons for which the work was dropped from the ICG programme were not clear, even for the composer. The history of the (non)performance of Sorabji's Quintet for Piano andQuar- tet of Stringed Instruments is not entirely clear. The above paragraphs have tried to reconstruct it on the basis of the documents that are known to have survived. There may be other letters which would clarify the intricate course of events re- lated to the work's history. It is sad that, twenty years or so after the "lifting of the ban," no ensemble has managed to bring the work to the public's ears- at least, one intended to. Obviously, an ensemble like the Hart House String Quar- tet - whose daily bread consisted of standard pieces from the Classical and Ro- mantic periods, with occasional forays into the works of Bartok, Hindemith, Kodaly, Prokofiev, and Schoenberg - could have difficulties with Sorabji's counterpoint of free, mellifluous lines. Several quartets can now play highly complex works like those of Brian Femeyhough, which leave Sorabji as much behind as Sorabji's did leave other works in the 1920s. There are now also sev- eral pianists able to play Sorabji's piano part- and the piano part is pretty easy by Sorabjian standards. So far, our recorded aural experience of Sorabji's music is limited to a handful of piano works (including the great Opus clavicembalisti- cum) and a major organ work. Performances and recordings of at least the shorter works from his chamber and orchestral production are badly needed if we are to assess his contribution properly. It remains to be hoped that the next planned premiere will not fall prey to the unfortunately too frequent problems associated with the performance of modern music. 106 Notes Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. For a detailed explanation of the so-called ban, see Paul Rapoport, "Sorabji: A Continuation," Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, ed. Paul Rapoport, Aldershot, Hampshire: Scolar Press, 1992; 2nd printing, 1994, pp. 58-87; 75-83. Letter, Sorabji to Egon Petri, 23 January 1948 (Sorabji Archive). Alistair Hinton (b. 1950) is a Scottish composer who became Sorabji's closest friend during the last fifteen years of his life. In 1988 he founded the Sorabji Music Archive (since 1993 the Sorabji Archive, located at Easton Dene, Bailbrook Lane, Bath, England, BA1 7AA), which makes available photocopies of all of Sorabji's scores (manuscripts, original publications, mod- em editions). For an extensive list of performances of Sorabji's music between 1919 and 1991, see Marc- Andre Roberge, "Un tessuto d'esecuzioni: A Register of Performances of Sorabji's Works," Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, pp. 425-51. I would like to thank Robin Elliott (Toronto), Louise Hirbour (Universite de Montreal), Gordana Lazarevich (University of Victoria), R. Allen Lott (School of Church Music at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas), Kathleen McMorrow (Edward Johnson Li- brary, University of Toronto), and Ben Morrison (Geneva) for their help in the preparation of this article. I also extend my warmest thanks to Alistair Hinton, curator of the Sorabji Archive (Bath), who provided copies of essential documents and gave me permission to reproduce the excerpts quoted from Sorabji's writings and music. Sorabji was also a prolific writer. He wrote more than 650 reviews for two English magazines (The New Age and The New English Weekly) as well as more than 200 letters to the editors of various newspapers and magazines in addition to his books of collected essays, Around Music, London: Unicorn Press, 1932; repr. ed., Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1979, and Mi contra fa: The lmmoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician, London: The Porcupine Press, 1947; repr. ed., New York: Da Cap0 Press, 1986. Further details will be found in Rapoport, "'Could you just send me a list of his works?,"' Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, pp. 93-192, most of which consists of "A 'Complete Provisional' Chronological Catalog of Sorabji's Compositions." For a more complete list, see Wilhelm Altmann, Kammermusik-Katalog: ein Verzeichnis von seit 184 1 veroffentlichten Kammermusikwerken, 6th ed., Hofheim and Taunus: Friedrich Hof- meister Verlag, 1945, pp. 123-29. Sorabji's work is listed on p. 128. For a useful chronological list of strings quartets, see Paul Griffiths, "Appendix Two: Chronol- ogy," The String Quartet, London: Thames and Hudson, 1983, pp. 232-37. The second piano concerto (1916-17) is known only through a two-piano reduction. It is not known whether it was actually orchestrated. See Kenneth Derus, "Sorabji's Letters to Heseltine," Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, pp. 195- 255. The friendship between Sorabji and Heseltine is too briefly covered in Barry Smith, Peter Warlock: The Life of Philip Heseltine, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. The dedication reads "a Monsieur Philip Heseltine: en tCmoignage d'amitie." Sorabji, "Music," TheNew Age 48, no. 11 (15 January 1931): 128-29; 128. Three-stave systems are standard in Sorabji's music, which often laid out on four- or five-stave systems. In later works, Sorabji uses a capital I with a caret (i). This time signature is to be understood as a 15/8 time signature which is equivalent to one com- prising five dotted quarter notes. Sorabji was to use such unnecessarily complex fractional time signatures again in his setting of Baudelaire's L'irremediable (1927). Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments 107 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. The index is missing for meas. 26, 30-31, 42, 46-47, 54-55, 154-55, 220-21, 235-36, 246-47, 252-53,275-76. The composer eventually wrote the following comment on the title page of the Symphony 11: "Got Bored with this: and no wonder! A grotesque extravaganza." Rapoport, "'Could you just send me a list of his works?,"' Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, p. 192. It is impossible to confirm this on the basis of the handwriting since the composer's manuscript is not extant; only a copyist's copy with annotations by the composer has survived (located at the Central Music Library, Westminster, London). Maurice Hinson, The Piano in Chamber Ensemble: An Annotated Guide, Bloomington and Lon- don: Indiana University Press, 1978, p. 483, describes the work thus: "Changing meters, har- monic fourths in flowing figuration, tremolo. Enormous climax suddenly drops to pp and ppp with the indication 'Enigmatique equivoque' Complex and D[ifficult]." Sorabji's Sonata No. 1 has been recorded by Marc-Andre Hamelin on Altarus AIR-CD-9050 (issued in 1990). F.B. [Ferruccio Bonavia?], "New Music: Chamber Music," The Musical Times 44, no. 965 (1 July 1923): 480. "London and Continental Publishing Co., Ltd. / Quintet for Piano and Strings by Kaikhosru Sorabji," 1 p. (incomplete). Philip Heseltine, "Music," The Weekly Westminster Gazette, 18 August 1923: 14-15. Aeolian Hall was located at 34 West 43rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Helmut Kallmann, "Hart House String Quartet," Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2nd ed., ed. Helmut Kallmann and Gilles Potvin, Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 1992, pp. 589-90 (includes a picture of the ensemble). For a history of string quartet perform- ance in Canada, see Robert William Andrew Elliott, "The String Quartet in Canada" (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1990). See Ruth Pincoe, "GCza de Kresz," Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, p. 353 (includes a picture of de Kresz and Drewett). For more on the de Kresz couple, see Maria Kresz and Peter Kiraly, The Violinist and Pianist Geza de Kresz and Norah Drewett: Their Life and Music on Two Con- tinents, Including Parts of Norah Drewett's Memoirs, n.p.: George Hencz, 1989. Letter, Norah Drewett to Sorabji, Toronto, 19 December 1925 (The Sorabji Archive, Bath); let- ter, Sorabji to Norah Drewett, London, 3 November 1929 (Edward Johnson Library, University of Toronto). Harry Adaskin, A Fiddler's World: Memoirs to 1938, Vancouver: November House, 1977, pp. 84-85, 139-40. A second volume was published in 1982 as A Fiddler's Choice: Memoirs, 1938 to 1980. For more on the history of this society, see R. Allen Lott, "'New Music for New Ears': The In- ternational Composers' Guild," Journal of the American Musicological Society 36, no. 2 (Summer 1983): 266-86. About the links between Sorabji and Busoni, see my article "Producing Evidence for the Beatifi- cation of a Composer: Sorabji's Deification of Busoni," The Music Review (forthcoming). "International Composers' Guild Plans Brilliant Season," Musical Courier 89, no. 20 (13 No- vember 1924): 35. The same text also appeared as "Composers' Guild Will Present Modern Works: Organization Announces Three Concerts of Advanced Compositions in Aeolian Hall," Musical America 41, no. 11 (15 November 1924): 33. Photocopy of a document provided by Louise Hirbour. See the program in Lott, "'New Music for New Ears': The International Composers' Guild," 285. "To Play in New York," The Globe (Toronto), 21 May 1925. Adaskin, A Fiddler's World, 1: 84. 108 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano and Four Stringed Instruments "Quartet in Newcastle," Toronto Star, 22 August 1925. Adaskin, A Fiddler's World, 1: 85. For example, the critical report of my edition of Sorabji's Pastiche on the Hindu Merchant's Song from "Sadko" by Rimsky-Korsakov (1922), which was published in 1992 by the (then called) Sorabji Music Archive, contains 69 entries for a 72-measure piece in triple time. Saturday Night 49, no. 29 (6 June 1925): 10. "Toronto Quartet Abroad," The Toronto Daily Star, 6 June 1925. "String Quartet Plays: Hart House Organization Justifies an Excellent Reputation," New York Times, 29 November 1925,29. Ethel Smyth, A Final Burning of Boats Etc., London: Longmans, Green, 1928. Sorabji, "Music," The New Age 43, no. 4 (24 May 1928): 44. The "distinguished critic and mu- sician" is likely to be Philip Heseltine and the "leading critic" Ernest Newman; see Derus, "Sorabji's Letters to Heseltine," Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, pp. 252-55 (in an appendix titled
91
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano
and Four Stringed Instruments and its intended performance
by
Norah Drewett and the Hart House String Quartet
Marc-AndrC
Roberge
Abstract
This article attempts to
reconstruct
the
history
of
what was
to
be
the
first
per-
formance
of
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's
Quintet
for Piano and Four
Stringed
Instruments (1919-20),
which
was
scheduled
to
be
given
on 29 November 1925
at
Aeolian Hall
in
New York
by
the pianist
Norah
Drewett and
the
University
of
Toronto's Hart House String Quartet
as
part
of a concert sponsored
by
Edgard
Varese's
International
Composers' Guild. The performance never took
place
for
reasons that are
not
entirely clear
but
have
to
do mostly
with
the
work's
difficul-
ties.
The
article also
provides
an
introduction
to
the
work
itself,
which Sorabji
dedicated
to
his friend, the
composer
Philip Heseltine.
Most
people
who have heard
of
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
(1892-1988),
the
Parsi
composer
and
pianist active
who
lived
as
a
recluse in England for most
of
his
career,
know
that performances
of
his
often massive
and
extremely
difficult
works have been extremely rare
as
a
result
of a
so-called
ban.l
The
thirteen
scores that Sorabji published between 1921
and
1931
contain the
following
warning: "All
rights
including that
of
performance, reserved
for
all
countries
by
the
composer."
The score of his
248-page
Opus clavicembalisticum
(1929-30),
his
longest
and most
often
cited work,
contains the additional admonition:
"Public
performance prohibited unless
by
express
consent
of
the
composer."
Various
statements
in
letters make
it
possible
to
say
that,
in
the late thirties,
Sorabji had
decided
to
turn
down all
requests for
public performance
either
by
himself
or
by
others.
As
he later indicated
in
a letter
to
the pianist
Egon
Petri:
"I
have
set
my
face
against
ANY
PUBLIC
PERFORMANCE OF
MY
WORK
FOR
GOOD
AND
ALL
EVERYWHERE."2
It
is true that
he
did not have
to
turn
92
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji’s
Quintet
for Piano
and
Four Stringed Instruments
down offers
very often,
since
they were very few and far between.
The
visual
aspect
of
most scores
was
forbidding enough
to
scare
potential performers
away.
Up to
December 1936, Sorabji
had been heard
in
public at least ten
times
in
various cities (London,
Vienna, Paris, Glasgow), giving
the
first
performances
of
five works for piano
solo
and playing
the piano
part
of
his
Trois
pokmes
pour
chant
et
piano.
He
had
also
allowed
two
friends-
the pianist
Harold Rutland
(1900-1977)
and the organist
E. Emlyn Davies
(1885-1951)-
to
play
a
work
each.
He
had not
approved,
however,
of a
performance
of
pars prima
of
his Opus
clavicembalisticum by John Tobin (1
891-1960). The severe inadequacies
of
this
performance, which took place at Cowdray Hall
in
London on
10 March
1936,
were
instrumental
in
bringing
the
composer
to
his decision
of
not
allowing
hearings of his
music.
Even though
there were
a few
scattered
performances
af-
ter 1936, it
is only
in 1976,
thanks
to
the
persistence
of a number of
friends, es-
pecially
Alistair Hinton,
that
Sorabji
began
to
give permission for official per-
formances
to
a
few selected pianists, namely Yonty
Solomon,
Michael Haber-
mann, and
Geoffiey Douglas
Madge.3
Since
that time,
other
musicians
(mostly
pianists)
have
been drawn
to
the
intricacies
of
Sorabji’s music and
public hear-
ings
of
several
short-
and medium-size
works
have become more
freq~ent.~
A
few recordings
have
also
been produced, all offering sound proofs
of
the great
beauty and
artistic
validity
of
the
music.
Sorabji never made any
real efforts
to
promote performances
of
his music.
It
zppears that
only
one
performance (except for Tobin’s) was
organized
without
his
close involvement,
namely,
the
premikre
of
the
Quintet
for
Piano and
Quartet
of Stringed Instruments (1919-20)
by
the
pianist Norah Drewett and
the
Uni-
versity
of
Toronto’s Hart House
String
Quartet.
This
performance was
to
be
given in
New York
in 1925 but failed
to
materialize. Another performance
of
the
same work, scheduled for
October 1992
in
Cambridge, did not take
place
either.
The work is
still unperformed
even
though it
is
available
in
print
(or
rather
has
been,
since
the
remaining copies
have been
sold).
It is
the
purpose
of
this article
to
give
an
account
of
the
work and to document
the
sequence
of events
surround-
ing
its
cancelled
first Performance by
the
Canadian ensemble,
a
project that
had
to
be
filed away
due to
the
vagaries
of
new music
programming and
to
the
diffi-
culties
posed by
a
new compositional idiom.5
Sorabji’s
musical
output consists
of
11
1
works totalling
more
than
1
1,000
manuscript pages.6
This
total can be broken down
as
follows: 61
works for
pi-
ano (including 7
transcriptions),
3
for
organ,
ll
for piano and orchestra,
7 for
or-
chestra (with
or
without voices),
7
for chamber ensemble
(including 2
with
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed
Instruments
93
voices),
20
for
voice and
keyboard,
one
for carillon
and
one
for unidentified
forces. The
music
for
chamber ensemble,
to
which
this article is
limited,
spans
almost all the
composer's creative career. Below
is a chronological
list,
with
some
useful data,
of
the works comprising this
~ategory.~
Like
the works
in
the
other
categories,
they range
in
length from
the tiniest (2 pp.)
to
the mightiest
(432 pp.).
Some
are
written for traditional
ensembles while others have a more
peculiar
scoring. Only
three have received
a
first (and
only)
performance. The
sole
work to have been published in
an
engraved edition is the
Piano Quintet
No.
I
(as
it
will
be
called from
now
on,
despite its
original
title), which
is
the
object
of
this article.
Chronological
List
of Sorabji's
Works
for
Chamber Ensemble
Music to
"The Rider
by
Night" (1919);
for voices and
small
orchestra;
54
pp.
Quintet
[No.
11
for
Piano and Quartet
of
Stringed Instruments (1919-20);
72
pp.;
publ. London and
Continental
Music
Publishing, 1923
(62
pp.).
The title
of
the
published
edition
reads Quintet for Piano
and
Four Stringed Instruments.
Cinque sonetti di Michelagniolo
Buonarroti (1923);
for
baritone
and small
or-
chestra;
40
pp. First performance:
Toronto,
University
of Toronto,
Walter
Hall,
New Music Concerts, 2
February 1980.
Quintet
I1
for
Piano
and String
Quartet (1932-33); 432 pp.
Concertino
non
grosso
for
String
Septet with Piano
obbligato
quasi
continuo
(1
968);
for piano,
4
violins, viola,
and 2 cellos;
48
pp.
The
manuscript
contains
music for
one cello
only
even
though it
appears
to call for two.
I1
tessuto
d'arabeschi
(1
979); for
flute
and string
quartet;
32
pp. First perform-
ance: Philadelphia, Old Pine
Street
Church, Delius Society
(Philadelphia
branch),
2 May
1982.
Fantasiettina
atematica
(1981); for flute,
oboe, and
clarinet;
2
pp.; publ. Sorabji
Archive,
1989
(ed. Anthony Burton-Page). First performance:
London,
City
University,
9
March 1995.
94
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed
Instruments
Sorabji wrote
his
Piano Quintet No. 1
in
the years following World War I.
Several noted
composers
have written works for the same forces during
that
pe-
riod, such
as
Dohnsinyi
(1919), Faure
(No.
2,
Op. 117, 1919), Martin (1919),
Pierne (Op. 41, 1919), Bax (1922), Bloch (No.
1,
1923-24), Korngold (Op. 15,
1924),
Vieme
(Op.
42, 1924), and d'Indy (Op. 81, 1925).8
In
the field
of
string
quartet composition, which accounts for most works involving
the
strings, im-
portant
periods at
the beginning of
the
century were 1905
to
1913 (Schoenberg,
Bartok, Webern) and 1926-28 (Berg, Bartok, Schoenberg). Prior
to the
composi-
tion
of
Sorabji's works,
the
most notable work
is
Bartok's
String
Quartet No. 2
(1917); at
about the same time
as
Sorabji, Stravinsky wrote his Concertino
(1920)?
When he attacked the composition
of
his
quintet, Sorabji already
had
some
experience
of
writing for
the
strings: he had composed the orchestral poem
Chaleur (ca. 1916-17), four piano concertos (1915-16, 1916-17, 1918, 1918),
and
the
Music
to
"The Rider
by
Night"
(1
9 19).
The
one-movement Piano Quintet
No.
1
is
dedicated
"To
my
very good friend
Philip Heseltine."
The
composer and writer Philip Heseltine
(1
894-1930)
had
been a friend
of
Sorabji
since
1913 when they began an interesting correspon-
dence
which
dates
up
to
1922; it is
one
of the rare sources documenting Sorabji's
early career. Prior
to
the Quintet, Sorabji
had
already dedicated
to
Heseltine
his first
piano
concerto (completed
in
June 1916).12
In
his obituary notes written
shortly
after
Heseltine's death
in
1930, Sorabji described
his
friend
as
one
of
the
finest musical minds
of
our time, a critic and writer
of
un-
paralleled brilliance, insight, and subtlety. What I owe personally
to
his
early encouragement, sympathy, and championship
I
can never ade-
quately express, except
to
say that here and now [it]
is
my
bounden
moral
duty
to
express that obligation
as
best
as
I can.
The Quintet, which
is
printed
on oblong
paper (or landscape format,
in
modem
parlance),
has
a piano part written throughout
on
three-stave systems.
The
tempo and
expressive markings are written
in
French throughout; indeed, Sorabji
had been
using
French not only for evocative titles but for generic
ones as
well,
such
as
concerto,
and
had been setting several poems
in
French since his earliest
works
in
1915.
As
in
most
of
his works, the
top
stave
of
the piano part uses a
symbol (here a fraction composed of the Roman numerals
I
and VIII)
to
indicate
that
the contents
of
this
stave have
to
be
played an octave higher than written.
l5
Roberge: Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed
Instruments
95
Another conspicuous feature
is
the almost constant change
of
meter throughout
the
281
long
measures.
The
following time signatures are
used:
211;
2,
3,
412;
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
1014;
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12, 14,
15,
2018;
15/8
[or]
5/4%
(see
meas.
66), 2%/4
(see
meas.
265).
The
initial boldface
tempo
marking
"ModCr6"
ap-
plies
until
meas.
235
(p.
54),
where
"Lent suave" appears, followed
at
meas.
240
(p.
55)
by "Tres large."
Elsewhere, various agogical markings
such
as
"Ralenti"
or
"En
s'animant et augmentant" shape the
work.
Given
the long measures containing
up
to
fifteen
and twenty
beats,
Sorabji
had
the
good
idea
of
providing an
index
of
beats,"
which
is
a series
of
numbers
aligned underneath the piano part. The index,
however, is
missing for
twenty
measures;
this
is probably an oversight of
both
the composer and the engraver.
A
final
visual peculiarity
of
the score is the use
of
unusual
rehearsal numbers.
Sorabji uses letters
from
A (meas.
6)
to
Z
(meas.
131),
then from Aa
(meas.
136)
to
Zz
(meas.
260).
Then,
instead
of
tripling
letters,
he resorts
to
symbols
for the
last
four instances: a downward pointing arrow cutting across a circle (meas.
265),
a right-pointing arrow cutting across
a
rectangle (meas.
269),
a
symbol
re-
sembling
"OL8".
(meas.
274),
and
an inverted
version of the swastika (meas.
279).
These
symbols are
closely related
to
those
used
by
Schoenberg
in
Die
gluckliche Hand, op.
18
(1910-13,
full
score
publ.
1916)
to
indicate exactly
where a stage direction takes
effect.
The
piano has always held a
central
place
in
Sorabji's compositional activity.
It
is not
only the instrument
to
which
he
has
devoted
most
of
his
production,
but
the
medium which was
most
congenial
to
him. It
is
true
that'he
was a great
amateur
of
singing, but his songs,
many
of
which
are early works, are
not
truly
idiomatic. Several examples
in
his
music confirm the preeminent place held
by
the piano.
A
note
in
the separate piano
part
of
his
Opus
clavisymphonicum: Con-
certo
for
Piano and Large Orchestra
(1957-59;
333
pp.)
reads: "This work
re-
volves around the Piano
as
the Solar System
round
the
Sun."
His Symphony
I1
for
Piano, Large Orchestra, Organ,
Final
Chorus,
and
Six
Solo
Voices
(1930-3
1;
333
pp. [also]) exists only
in
a piano
part.18
The
Symphonic Variations
exist
in
two
versions: one
for
piano only
(1936-37; 484
pp.), and
one
for
piano
and
or-
chestra
(1953-56;
540
pp.), which
is an orchestral
version of
the
first
of
the
three
volumes of the
first
incarnation.
Rapoport has
remarked
that Sorabji nearly
al-
ways wrote the
piano part
of
his
concertos
first,
then proceeding
to
the
orchestral
fabric;
he
also suggests that
this
was the case
with
the Piano Quintet
No.
l.19
This
is
quite
likely since the piano
part is
continuous
from
beginning
to
end;
there are only
very
short rests
in
meas.
44,
59,63,85,
and
148.
A performance
of
96
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji Sorabji's
Quintet for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
the
piano
part
alone
would probably not be unsatisfactory. Sorabji
therefore
ap-
pears
as
a quite unique example
of
a modem
composer
who
uses
a technique re-
lated
to the
successive counterpoint of the
medieval composers.
As
in
most works written
around 1920
(and
after,
for that
matter),
Sorabji uses
in
the Piano
Quintet
No.
1
a free
chromatic
language
based on bitonal
combina-
tions
of
standard chords (often
with added notes) and chords built
on
fourths
and
featuring numerous chromatic runs using
irrational rhythmic values.20
The
mu-
sic
often reminds one of the
highly
sensuous
melodic lines and
harmonies
of
works by Skryabin
and Szymanowski. Until
the
work
is
performed and
recorded,
one
may
have
a good idea of
its
sound
by listening
to
the
recording
of
a piece
written
at
exactly
the
same time, the
Sonata
No.
1
(1
9 1
9).2
Three contemporary critics
have published brief
comments about the
work; in
all
cases they
had
to
rely solely on
the
score,
since
there had been
no
perform-
ance. A certain
"F.B.,"
who
is
most probably
the
Italian-born English
critic
and
composer Ferruccio Bonavia
(1877-1950), paid special attention
to
the index of
beats:
A
Quintet for pianoforte
and four stringed instruments
[...I
deserves
special mention
as the
first work in which
the
thoughtful
composer has
provided
an
index
of
beats" for
the
benefit
of the
performer.
That the
index is
much
needed a single
glance
suffices
to prove. When bars fol-
low
one
another
in
this
order,
2018,
414,
614,
414,
514,
&c., it
is
evident
that some little guidance is
sure
to
be
welcomed
by
the
harassed reader:
harassed
not only
by time-signatures but
by
the
accidentals which
adorn
every chord,
by
the
three staves of the
pianoforte
(the
upper
stave is
to
be
played
an
octave
higher), by
the
frequent directions,
by
the unusual
demands the composer
makes
on
his
string
players.
Thus the
reader will
be
grateful
for
the
index.
For this
relief many
thanks-
especially
as
it
happens
to
be the
only relief worth mentioning.
The
actual music, alas,
is aptly defined
in
the
directions printed over
the
last bar,
Enigmatique
equivoque.
Whether
anyone
will care to
solve that
problem
is
not
our
affair.22
Another reviewer,
writing
in an
as
yet unidentified and unfortunately incomplete
source found
in
the composer's
papers,
also seems
to
have had
difficulty
with
Sorabji's unusual style:
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji's Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed
Instruments
97
This
is
one
of
those excessively modem works
that
stagger
the
re-
viewer
and
leave
him flat. Personally
I
must
acknowledge that
I
hesitate
to
pass
judgment
upon
it.
I
can only say
that
it
appears
to me to be
highly interesting.
the
harmony
is
very
dissonant,
but
I
seem
to
feel
the
direction
of
the passing chords
and
altered chords,
the
appoggiaturas,
which seem
logical,
though
I
am
often at
a loss
to
explain
them.
By way
of
elucidation
I
may
say that there is
no
harm in
dissonance
provided
it
has
a
logical
association
with basic
harmonies.
The
diffi-
culty
I
find
in
this
Sorabji quintet
is
that (for
me) the association with
the
basic
harmonies is
rather vague. Yet
I
am dimly
conscious
of
it,
and
I
can
readily
conceive
of more
alert
ears,
more
modernly
attuned ears,
grasping
it
in
its
entirety.
Certainly, the
construction
of
it
is
masterly.
Certainly, too,
the
brief
bits
of
melody, or
theme,
show
real invention. All
of
the parts are tremen-
dously difficult, and its
[source breaks]23
Philip Heseltine, the dedicatee
of
the
work, wrote
some comments about
the
work in
1923
(i.e., not long after
his correspondence
with
Sorabji
stops).
They
are
obviously
partial
to
the
composer,
who was a
friend, but they
are
neverthe-
less
worth reprinting
here, for they
give a glimpse
into
Sorabji's composition
method
and shed light
on
the style
of
the
work:
His music is
written down, without
any
preliminary
sketches,
bar by bar
into
the
fair copy; there
is no
improvisation
or
any
use
of
the
piano
at
any stage
of
the
composition, nor is there any
rewriting
or alteration
when
a work
is completed.
This
is the more
remarkable by
reason
of
the
fact
that the
texture of
the
music is of
the
utmost complexity,
both
of harmony and
rhythm.
The
effect
of
a
first
hearing
or
reading is
be-
wildering
in
the
extreme; but with familiarity
there comes
the
convic-
tion
that
we
are dealing
with
a composer
who
is nothing short
of
a
phe-
nomenon
in musical history.24
Sorabji's Piano Quintet
No.
1,
as
mentioned earlier,
has yet
to
be
performed;
in-
deed,
the two
performances that
were
to
take place
were
cancelled.
The
most
re-
cent
possibility
of
hearing the
work would
have
been
on
9
October
1992,
at
a
concert presented
by
Orchid Music
in
association
with
the
Cambridge
New
Mu-
sic Players
and
the
pianist
Ben Morrison
in
the Great
Hall,
Blackheath Halls, Lee
98
Roberge:
Kaikhosru Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
Road, Blackheath, London. The program was
to
feature Sorabj i's work alongside
Cage's
Europera
5
and
works
by
Xenakis, Clapperton,
Shaman,
Allauca, Red-
gate, Hughes,
and
Pyne. Practical problems prevented the ensemble from re-
hearsing the
piece and
the
performance
had
to
be
cancelled.
The
cancelled performance that will
be
dealt with here
in
some detail
was
scheduled
to
be
given
on
29 November 1925
by
the Hart House
String
Quartet
at
Aeolian Hall
in
New
York,
as
part
of
a
concert sponsored
by
the International
Composers' Guild.25
At
the time
of
its
formation
in
1923,
the
Hart House
String
Quartet, which is considered
to
have been Canada's most famous chamber music
ensemble
in
the first half
of
the twentieth century, was composed of
the
violinists
Geza
de
Kresz
(1882-1959) and Harry Adaskin (b. 1901), the violist Milton
Blackstone
(1
894- 1974), and the cellist Boris Hambourg
(1
885- 1954), all of
whom were foreign-born musicians. There were subsequent changes
in
the
members until the ensemble gave its last concert
in
1946; only Hambourg re-
mained
with the
ensemble throughout its life. The Hart House
String
Quartet,
which
was
associated with the University
of
Toronto,
is
reputed
to
have been
"one
of
the
dozen or
so
best
on
the international
scene.ff26
The piano part
of
Sorabji's work
was to
be
played
by
de
Kresz's wife, the English pianist Norah
Drewett
(1
882-
1960), who
had
been
a
pupil
of
Victor-Alphonse Duvernoy
(1
842-1
907)
in
Paris
and
of
Bernhard Stavenhagen
(1
862-
19
14)
in
Munich.27
The history
of
the
cancelled premiere
of
Sorabji's Piano Quintet
No.
1
can
be
reconstructed
in
some
detail (though not with
as
much precision
as
would
be
de-
sirable)
using
the correspondence between the composer and Norah Drewett
(which
is
limited
to one
letter from each party)?8 the memoirs of
the
ensemble's
second violin, Harry
Ada~kin,~~
and clippings from the Toronto newspapers
in
the months preceding the date
set
for the intended concert.
The concert at
which Sorabji's Piano Quintet
No.
1
was
to
be
performed was
organized
by
the
International Composers' Guild (ICG), which
had
been founded
by
Edgard Varese.
This
society
had
been established
in
1921 and was
to
give
eighteen
concerts
between 1922 and 1927.30 It
is
not known how
the
Guild
be-
came
aware
of
Sorabji's quintet, which had been published
in
1923. However,
it
could have received
a
recommendation from two musicians who were
on
the
Advisory
Committee
of
the Guild
in
1924: Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), who
had
given Sorabji
a
letter
of
recommendation
in
1919 to help
him
find
a
pub-
lisher for
his
Sonata
No.
1,31 and Bernard van Dieren (1887-1936),
to
whom
Sorabji had given for Christmas 1923 an inscribed copy
of
his
Concerto for
Pi-
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
ano
No.
5,
which had recently been published
as
Concerto
11.
Van Dieren's
name, however,
seems
to
be
a safer
guess,
since
Busoni was
seriously ill in
1924; furthermore,
a
recommendation
by
Busoni would have
to
have been
made
before
his death
in
July
1924, whereas
one
by
Van Dieren
could
have
been
pos-
sible anywhere
thereafter.
There are
two
dates
on
which
a
concert could
have taken
place.
It
was first
announced in
the
musical
press
that
"[tlhe second
concert
on
Feb.
8
[1925] will
introduce a Hindu
[sic] composer, Kaikhosru
S~rabji."~~
Sorabji's
name
was
eventually dropped
from
the
programme
at
an unknown date.
According
to
a
flyer published
by
the ICG announcing
its programmes for
the fourth season,
the
concert
was
to
feature works
by
Auric, Bartok, Casella,
Salzedo,
Malipiero,
Sorabji, Still, Webern, Zanotti-Bianco.
The
performers listed were
Greta
Tor-
padie
(voice), Marie Miller (harp),
Hyman Rowinsky
(piano),
and
Carlos
Sal-
zed0
(piano).33 Since
no
quartet
is
mentioned
in the
flyer,
several works
by
Sorabj
i
could
have been performed. Yet
the
actual concert featured
additional
artists: Henry
Cowell (thunderstick), the
Letz Quartet, and the conductor
Vladimir
Shavitch.
Sorabji had disappeared from
the
programme,
as
had Auric,
Casella,
and Malipiero,
who
had been replaced with Acario
Cotapos and Henry
~owe11.34
The
presence
of
a
quartet and
of two
pianists
suggests that
Sorabji's
quintet
could
have been
the
work that
the
ICG had
in
mind. It
is
not known if
the Hart
House
String
Quartet
had been approached
to
play
at
that concert,
only
to
be
re-
placed by
the
Letz
Quartet.
It
is
a
known fact, however, that they
were hired
to
play
the quintet
at
the
latest
in
the Spring of
1925. On 21 May 1925,
the Toronto
Globe announced that "[tlhe
Hart House
String
Quartet has been
engaged
by
the
International
Composers'
Guild
to
present
a
modern work
by
Khaikhosru
[sic],
the Hindu composer
[sic], who
is
residing in
London,
England."35
In
his memoirs, Harry Adaskin recalls that the ensemble had received
an
offer
for a free debut
in
New
York if they would play Sorabji's quintet.
As
he
puts
it,
the
cost
of a New
York recital
(about
$4,000)
was such that,
"to
get
it for nothing
we would cheerfully have undertaken
to
decipher and play
a Sumerian Quod-
libet."36
Three months
later, it was reported that "[tlhe Hart House
String Quar-
tet are practising
five
hours a
day all
this summer
in
Newcastle, where
all the
players are living
until early
Se~tember."~~
Indeed,
the ensemble seems
to
have
had much
difficulty
with
the
work. Adaskin recalls
that "[tlhe daunting
intricacy
of the
freely
interweaving
lines
of
his work demanded
a
total rhythmical
control
100
Roberge:
Kaikhosru Shapurji
Sorabji's Quintet
for Piano
and
Four
Stringed
Instruments
on the
part
of
the
players. This,
alas, we
couldn't supply,
as
neither
de
Kresz nor
his wife had any
rhythm."
He
adds: "In conventional
works
we
just
had near
misses.
But in the
free-structured highly involved labyrinth
of
Sorabji,
the
best
we
could
achieve was
pandemonium."
Adaskin
then recalls
how they
worked
several
hours during thirteen
weeks and managed
to
play
up
to
the
end
of
the
first
page
of
his
part, which
corresponds
to
meas.
49 (p. 9),
"without
seriously
falling
out."
He concludes
by
saying
"So
we never learned
to
play it,
and
we
didn't
get
our
free New York
recital."38
The rehearsal
difficulties
mentioned by
Adaskin
are well
documented
in
their
copy
of
the
full
score
and
parts
which were
donated
in
1969
to
the Edward John-
son Library
of
the
Faculty
of Music
at
the
University
of
Toronto
by
Milton
Blackstone,
the
ensemble's
violist.
The
performing material must have been
provided
to the
ensemble
by
the
International Composers' Guild,
since
the
cover
of
the score and
the
initial
pages
of
the parts are
marked
as
being
their property.
The piano
part,
especially, contains
several markings, mostly
written
in
black
pencil,
some
with
a
thick
greasy
orange
pencil,
some
with
a similar blue
pencil.
The
most
detailed (and
interesting)
examples
read
as
follows:
"Metronome
indi-
cation
is
imperiously needed.
'Modtre'
means nothing at
all, theoretically
not
actually"
(p. 3);
'I?!?"
with reference
to
fermatas
above
each member
of
a series
of chords placed
underneath
a
measured
tremolo (meas. 87,
p. 21); "Help!!"
with
reference
to
a difficult
left-hand tremolo;
"Index of
beats, mostly
needed
here"
(meas.
253, p.
54); "Help!"
with
reference
to
the
indication "Pesant, sestencieux"
[recte
"sentencieux"
(sententious)];
"Index
of
beats please" (meas. 246-47, p.
57); "how!" and
"?!
impossible" with reference
to
chords that cannot be grasped
by
one
hand
(meas. 255, p. 59; meas. 273, p. 63).
The
first page
of the score
is
reproduced
as
an
illustration showing the
free, mellifluous
writing that
is
charac-
teristic
of
the
score.
Kaikhosru
Shapurji Sorabji, Quintet for Piano
and
Four Stringed Instruments,
p.
3, meas. 1-5
(with annotations
by
the
members
of the
Hart House
String
Quar-
tet).
London and Continental Music
Publishing Co. Ltd., 1923. From
the
collec-
tion
of
the
Edward
Johnson
Library, Faculty
of
Music, University
of
Toronto
(accession number
32,420).
[see
opposite
page]
Roberge:
Kaikhosru Shapurji
Sorabji’s
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four Stringed
Instruments
101
102
Roberge:
Kaikhosm
Shapurji
Sorabji's Quintet
for Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
It is
obvious that
Drewett,
the
ensemble's pianist, was baffled
by
Sorabji's
un-
usual
writing; actually, anyone
at
that
time was- and many modern traditional
practitioners
-
still gasp
when shown a page from
one
of
his
scores.
In
Drewett's
defence, it
should
be
added that most
of
Sorabji's published
scores
as
well
as
his
manuscripts contain (very) numerous mistakes
and inconsistencies; indeed,
modern
editors
of
his
music
constantly have
to
decide which
note Sorabji
actu-
ally
intended
to
write.39
The string parts show that the players did
at
least
at-
tempt
to
work through the
piece: there
are various
position markings,
cues, solu-
tions
for metrical
problems for the
whole quintet.
On
6
June 1925,
it was announced
that the
Hart House
String Quartet was
to
play at
Aeolian
Hall
on 29
November.40 The concert was
supposed
to
feature
a
chamber orchestra
of
thirty
players
conducted by Eugene
Goo~sens.~~
The
va-
garies
of
the
programming
of
contemporary music modified
the
announced
plans:
Goossens conducted
on
24
January
1926
and there
seems
to
have been
no
chamber orchestra
of
thirty players.
The ensemble
finally played
at
Aeolian Hall
not on
29
but
28
November.
Their recital, which was favourably reviewed by
the
New
York
Times, seems
to
have been given independently
of
the ICG;
it fea-
tured
works
by Debussy, Bartok, and Beethoven.42
The
Hart
House String Quartet thus
most probably paid
for their New York
debut
since they did
not play Sorabji's work. Back
in
Toronto,
on 19
December
1925, Drewett wrote
to
Sorabji
to
explain
that Salzedo,
who
was a
member
of
the
ICGs
Technical
Board, "had changed
the dates
&
had
also published
the
en-
closed
circular with
no
mention
either
of
your work or
our
co-operation."
The
letter, which
is
reproduced in full below,
suggests
that
the ensemble
would
have
liked
to
play it elsewhere.
Dear
Mr Sorabji,
I
have
still
to
thank
you
for
your kind letter with all
the detailed
expla-
nations.
We have
undergone a great disappointment
for
after
having
studied your interesting
work very intensively, we discovered
that
h4r
Salzedo had
changed the dates
&
had
also
published
the enclosed
circu-
lar with
no
mention either
of
your work
or
our
co-operation.
We
had
some
correspondence
with Mr Salzedo,
&
also
a friendly
discussion
with him
during our
stay last month
in
New
York, but nothing
definite
has happened. It
is
of
little
avail
to
introduce your work at
an
ordinary
recital before
the
ordinary
audience
-
these
societies
have been
founded
to
gather
together
the
different
elements
interested
in
"modern" music.
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed
Instruments
103
But
we
want
to
ask
you
if,
in
principal
[sic],
should
we
find
a
good op-
portunity
to
play
the
Quintet either
in
New
York
or
elsewhere,
we
will
have
no difficulties
from
your side.
I
really
consider
it
rather
unfair
of
the
I.C.G.
to
have acted thus. Since the Hart House String Quartet
had
an
exceptional
success
at
its initial concerts
in
N.Y.
&
Boston
&
is
playing there
again
in
January,
I
believe the opportunity mentioned be-
fore
will
certainly
occur, with
or
without
the
I.C.G.
I
meant
to
write
to
you
at
once
but
have
been
so
busy
with
various
things.
With
kind
regards
from
my
husband
&
myself.
Sincerely yours
[unsigned,
but
the
name
"Norah Drewett" is part
of
the letter-
head]
In
May
1928,
in
one
of
his articles
for
The
New Age,
Sorabji,
who
had
just
fin-
ished
reading
A
Final Burning
of
Boats Etc.
by
the
English
composer
and
writer,
Dame
Ethel Smyth (1858-1948)$3 referred
to
the author
as
a
victim
of
"persistently relentless efforts to
down
her"
and
gives
two examples
of problems
he
had
faced
with
the
reception
of
his music. The
letter also
makes
clear
that he
had
been
contacted
by
the
"head
of
an
organisation for the performance
of
new
music"
(Varese,
Goossens, Salzedo?)
for
a
copy
of his
score.
As
I
have said before,
I
know how
people without
what
I
have
called
the
correct
back-ground, no matter what
their gifts
and
accomplish-
ment, are pushed on
one side,
passed
over,
ignored
in
favour
of
nonen-
tities
who possess the "background." This
affects
men
just
as
much
as
women.
I, too,
can speak
from
personal experience.
I
remember
some
years
ago calling, at
the instance
of
a distinguished critic
and
musician,
upon
a
friend
of
his,
also a
leading
critic,
armed
with
his recommenda-
tion,
and
being
met with
an
unconditional refusal
to
either
look
at
or
listen
to
my
work. Also after being urgently requested
by
the
head
of an
organisation
for
the
performance
of
new
music for
a
copy
of a
work
of
mine for performance
in
New
York,
and
receiving glowing messages
from
him and from
the
leader
of
the quintet engaged
to
work
upon
it
as
to their admiration, I
discovered that
it
had
been
dropped-
not
at the
instance
of
the performers
-
on
the score
of
insufficient
time
for
work,
104
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
but
entirely unknown
to
them
as to
myself, and without
a
word
of
ex-
planation
from
that
day
to
thk44
The last
item
shedding some
light on
the
sequence
of events surrounding
the
cancelled
premiere of the Piano
Quintet
No.
1
is
a
letter from
Sorabji
to
Drewett,
written
on
3
November 1929.
Dear Madame
de
Kresz
Or should I say
Drewett?
I
suspect you will remember me if not in per-
son
yet
perhaps through
my
piano quintet
that
you were
once going
to
play in
New
York
chez the
International Composers' Guild under
the
auspices
of
Monsieur Carlos
Salzedo.
From
him
I
have never from
that
day
to
this,
some
years ago[,] had
any
explanation
as to
why
my
work was dropped. While
I
well
remember a
letter from you which
I
still
possess telling
me
of the dropping
of
the
work (dated
19.12.25).
I
have heard
so
many strange
stories
as
to
the
reason why
the
workwas
dropped that
I
am making
a
collection
of
them. One, from
a
well
known
English composer
whom
I
have no reason
to
believe
[he] loves
me,
that
you all
found the
work impossible
of
performance and
that
it
was
dropped for that reason, a
story
so
fantastic and absurd
that
it may be
dismissed
as
the
invention
of
malignant stupidity.
Another
reason al-
leged
is
such that it is
an insult
to
such
a
body
of
artists
as
yourself and
the
Hart
House
Quartet
to
reprint it. Yet
a
third ascribed
this
very rea-
son
as the
motive
of
the
removal
of
this
work from the I.C.G. pro-
grammes.
It
is
all profoundly intriguing and ambiguous.
I
doubt
not
that
you
have still more diverting
tales
of
supposed "reasons"?
It would
a pleasure
to
hear from you again.
With kind regards.
Yours sincerely.
Kaikhosru
Sorabji
It
appears
from
this
letter
that
Sorabji and Drewett met at least
once,
obviously
in
London, since Sorabji
never visited North America. They could have met
in
1929,
in which year
the
letter was written, for
the
Hart House
String Quartet
had
gone on
a European tour
in that year
(including
England and BBC
broadcast^).^^
There
is
no
indication in Sorabji's reviews
that
he attended
one
of
their
London
Roberge:
Kaikhosru Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for Piano
and
Four Stringed Instruments
105
concerts; therefore, the reference
to
"such a body
of
artists
as
yourself and
the
Hart
House
Quartet" may have
been
made simply out
of
politeness. Finally, the
reasons
for
which
the
work
was dropped from the
ICG
programme
were
not
clear, even
for
the
composer.
The
history
of
the (non)performance
of
Sorabji's Quintet
for
Piano
andQuar-
tet
of
Stringed Instruments
is
not entirely
clear.
The above paragraphs
have
tried
to
reconstruct
it
on
the
basis of
the documents that
are
known
to
have
survived.
There
may
be other letters which would clarify the intricate course
of events
re-
lated
to
the
work's
history. It
is
sad that, twenty years or
so
after the "lifting
of
the
ban,"
no
ensemble
has
managed
to bring the
work
to the
public's ears-
at
least,
one
intended
to.
Obviously,
an
ensemble like the
Hart
House
String
Quar-
tet
-
whose daily
bread
consisted
of
standard pieces from the Classical
and
Ro-
mantic periods, with occasional forays into the works
of
Bartok, Hindemith,
Kodaly, Prokofiev, and Schoenberg
-
could
have
difficulties with Sorabji's
counterpoint
of
free, mellifluous
lines. Several
quartets can
now
play highly
complex
works like those
of
Brian Femeyhough, which leave Sorabji
as
much
behind
as
Sorabji's did leave
other
works
in the
1920s.
There are now also
sev-
eral
pianists
able
to play Sorabji's piano part- and the
piano
part
is
pretty
easy
by
Sorabjian standards.
So
far,
our
recorded
aural
experience
of
Sorabji's music
is
limited
to
a handful
of
piano works (including the great
Opus
clavicembalisti-
cum)
and a major organ work. Performances
and
recordings
of
at least the
shorter works from his chamber
and
orchestral production
are
badly needed if
we
are
to
assess his
contribution properly. It remains
to
be hoped that
the
next
planned premiere
will
not
fall prey
to the unfortunately too frequent problems
associated with the performance
of
modern music.
106
Notes
Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji
Sorabji's
Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
For
a
detailed explanation
of
the so-called
ban,
see
Paul
Rapoport, "Sorabji:
A
Continuation,"
Sorabji:
A
Critical Celebration, ed.
Paul
Rapoport, Aldershot, Hampshire: Scolar Press,
1992;
2nd
printing,
1994,
pp.
58-87; 75-83.
Letter, Sorabji
to
Egon
Petri,
23
January
1948
(Sorabji Archive).
Alistair
Hinton
(b.
1950)
is
a
Scottish composer
who
became Sorabji's closest friend during the
last fifteen years
of
his life.
In
1988
he
founded the Sorabji Music Archive (since
1993
the
Sorabji Archive, located
at
Easton Dene, Bailbrook
Lane,
Bath, England,
BA1
7AA), which
makes available photocopies
of
all
of
Sorabji's scores (manuscripts, original publications,
mod-
em
editions).
For
an
extensive list
of
performances
of
Sorabji's music
between
1919
and
1991,
see
Marc-
Andre Roberge,
"Un
tessuto d'esecuzioni:
A
Register
of
Performances
of
Sorabji's Works,"
Sorabji:
A
Critical Celebration,
pp.
425-51.
I
would like to thank
Robin
Elliott (Toronto), Louise Hirbour (Universite de Montreal), Gordana
Lazarevich (University
of
Victoria),
R. Allen
Lott (School
of
Church Music
at
the Southwestern
Baptist Theological Seminary,
Fort
Worth,
Texas),
Kathleen McMorrow (Edward Johnson
Li-
brary,
University
of
Toronto), and
Ben
Morrison (Geneva) for their help
in
the preparation
of
this article.
I
also extend
my
warmest thanks to Alistair Hinton, curator
of
the Sorabji Archive
(Bath), who provided copies
of
essential documents
and
gave
me
permission
to
reproduce the
excerpts quoted
from
Sorabji's writings
and
music.
Sorabji was also
a
prolific writer.
He
wrote more
than
650
reviews for two
English
magazines
(The New
Age and
The New English Weekly) as well
as
more
than
200
letters to the editors
of
various newspapers
and
magazines
in
addition to his books
of
collected essays, Around Music,
London: Unicorn Press,
1932;
repr.
ed.,
Westport, Conn.:
Hyperion Press,
1979,
and
Mi
contra
fa: The lmmoralisings
of a
Machiavellian Musician, London: The Porcupine Press,
1947;
repr.
ed.,
New York:
Da
Cap0 Press,
1986.
Further details
will be found
in
Rapoport,
"'Could
you
just
send
me
a
list
of
his
works?,"'
Sorabji:
A
Critical Celebration,
pp.
93-192,
most
of
which consists
of
"A
'Complete Provisional'
Chronological Catalog
of
Sorabji's Compositions."
For
a
more complete list,
see
Wilhelm Altmann, Kammermusik-Katalog: ein Verzeichnis
von
seit
184
1
veroffentlichten Kammermusikwerken,
6th
ed.,
Hofheim and Taunus:
Friedrich
Hof-
meister Verlag,
1945,
pp.
123-29.
Sorabji's
work is listed
on
p.
128.
For
a
useful chronological list
of
strings quartets,
see
Paul
Griffiths, "Appendix
Two:
Chronol-
ogy,"
The String Quartet, London: Thames
and
Hudson,
1983,
pp.
232-37.
The second piano concerto
(1916-17)
is known
only through
a
two-piano reduction.
It
is
not
known
whether
it
was actually orchestrated.
See
Kenneth Derus, "Sorabji's Letters
to
Heseltine," Sorabji:
A
Critical Celebration, pp.
195-
255.
The friendship between Sorabji
and
Heseltine
is
too briefly covered
in
Barry Smith, Peter
Warlock: The Life
of
Philip Heseltine, Oxford
and
New York: Oxford University Press,
1994.
The dedication reads
"a
Monsieur Philip Heseltine:
en tCmoignage
d'amitie."
Sorabji, "Music,"
TheNew
Age
48,
no.
11
(15
January
1931):
128-29; 128.
Three-stave systems
are
standard
in
Sorabji's music,
which
often
laid
out
on
four-
or
five-stave
systems.
In
later works, Sorabji uses
a
capital
I
with
a
caret
(i).
This time signature is to
be
understood
as
a
15/8
time signature
which is
equivalent
to
one com-
prising five dotted quarter notes. Sorabji was
to
use
such unnecessarily complex fractional time
signatures again
in
his setting
of
Baudelaire's L'irremediable
(1927).
Roberge: Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet
for
Piano
and
Four
Stringed Instruments
107
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
The index
is
missing for meas.
26, 30-31, 42, 46-47, 54-55, 154-55, 220-21, 235-36, 246-47,
252-53,275-76.
The composer eventually wrote the following comment
on
the title
page
of
the Symphony
11:
"Got
Bored with
this:
and
no wonder!
A
grotesque extravaganza."
Rapoport, "'Could
you
just
send
me
a
list
of
his
works?,"'
Sorabji:
A
Critical Celebration,
p.
192.
It
is
impossible to confirm this on the basis
of
the handwriting since the composer's manuscript
is not
extant; only
a
copyist's copy
with
annotations
by
the composer
has
survived (located
at
the
Central Music Library, Westminster, London).
Maurice Hinson, The Piano
in
Chamber Ensemble:
An
Annotated
Guide, Bloomington
and
Lon-
don: Indiana University Press,
1978,
p.
483,
describes the
work
thus: "Changing meters, har-
monic fourths
in
flowing figuration, tremolo. Enormous climax suddenly drops
to
pp and ppp
with
the indication 'Enigmatique
equivoque'
Complex
and
D[ifficult]."
Sorabji's Sonata No.
1
has been
recorded
by
Marc-Andre
Hamelin
on
Altarus AIR-CD-9050
(issued
in
1990).
F.B. [Ferruccio Bonavia?],
"New
Music: Chamber
Music,"
The Musical Times
44,
no.
965
(1
July
1923):
480.
"London
and
Continental Publishing
Co.,
Ltd.
/
Quintet for Piano
and
Strings
by
Kaikhosru
Sorabji,"
1
p.
(incomplete).
Philip Heseltine, "Music," The Weekly Westminster Gazette,
18
August
1923: 14-15.
Aeolian Hall
was located
at
34
West
43rd
Street,
between
Fifth
and
Sixth Avenues.
Helmut Kallmann, "Hart
House
String Quartet," Encyclopedia
of
Music
in
Canada, 2nd
ed.,
ed.
Helmut Kallmann
and
Gilles Potvin, Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University
of
Toronto Press,
1992,
pp.
589-90
(includes
a
picture
of
the ensemble).
For
a
history
of
string quartet
perform-
ance
in
Canada, see Robert
William Andrew
Elliott, "The String Quartet
in
Canada" (Ph.D. diss.,
University
of
Toronto,
1990).
See Ruth Pincoe,
"GCza
de
Kresz,"
Encyclopedia
of
Music
in
Canada,
p.
353
(includes
a
picture
of
de Kresz
and
Drewett).
For
more on the
de
Kresz couple, see Maria Kresz and Peter Kiraly,
The Violinist
and
Pianist Geza de Kresz
and
Norah Drewett: Their Life
and
Music on
Two
Con-
tinents, Including Parts
of
Norah Drewett's Memoirs,
n.p.:
George
Hencz,
1989.
Letter, Norah Drewett to Sorabji, Toronto,
19
December
1925
(The Sorabji Archive, Bath); let-
ter, Sorabji
to
Norah Drewett, London,
3
November
1929
(Edward Johnson Library, University
of
Toronto).
Harry Adaskin,
A
Fiddler's World: Memoirs
to
1938,
Vancouver: November House,
1977,
pp.
84-85, 139-40.
A
second volume was published
in
1982
as
A
Fiddler's Choice: Memoirs,
1938
to
1980.
For more on the history
of
this society, see
R.
Allen
Lott, "'New Music
for
New Ears':
The
In-
ternational Composers' Guild," Journal
of
the American Musicological Society
36,
no.
2
(Summer
1983): 266-86.
About the links between Sorabji
and Busoni,
see
my
article "Producing Evidence for the Beatifi-
cation
of
a
Composer: Sorabji's Deification
of
Busoni,"
The Music Review (forthcoming).
"International Composers' Guild Plans Brilliant Season," Musical Courier
89,
no.
20
(13
No-
vember
1924):
35.
The same text also appeared
as
"Composers' Guild
Will
Present Modern
Works: Organization Announces Three Concerts
of
Advanced Compositions
in
Aeolian
Hall,"
Musical America
41,
no.
11
(15
November
1924):
33.
Photocopy
of a
document provided
by
Louise Hirbour.
See the program
in
Lott, "'New Music for New
Ears':
The International Composers' Guild,"
285.
"To Play
in
New
York,"
The Globe (Toronto),
21
May
1925.
Adaskin,
A
Fiddler's World,
1:
84.
91
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's Quintet for Piano
and Four Stringed Instruments and its intended performance
by
Norah Drewett and the Hart House String Quartet
Marc-AndrC
Roberge
Abstract
This article attempts to
reconstruct
the
history
of
what was
to
be
the
first
per-
formance
of
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's
Quintet
for Piano and Four
Stringed
Instruments (1919-20),
which
was
scheduled
to
be
given
on 29 November 1925
at
Aeolian Hall
in
New York
by
the pianist
Norah
Drewett and
the
University
of
Toronto's Hart House String Quartet
as
part
of a concert sponsored
by
Edgard
Varese's
International
Composers' Guild. The performance never took
place
for
reasons that are
not
entirely clear
but
have
to
do mostly
with
the
work's
difficul-
ties.
The
article also
provides
an
introduction
to
the
work
itself,
which Sorabji
dedicated
to
his friend, the
composer
Philip Heseltine.
Most
people
who have heard
of
Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
(1892-1988),
the
Parsi
composer
and
pianist active
who
lived
as
a
recluse in England for most
of
his
career,
know
that performances
of
his
often massive
and
extremely
difficult
works have been extremely rare
as
a
result
of a
so-called
ban.l
The
thirteen
scores that Sorabji published between 1921
and
1931
contain the
following
warning: "All
rights
including that
of
performance, reserved
for
all
countries
by
the
composer."
The score of his
248-page
Opus clavicembalisticum
(1929-30),
his
longest
and most
often
cited work,
contains the additional admonition:
"Public
performance prohibited unless
by
express
consent
of
the
composer."
Various
statements
in
letters make
it
possible
to
say
that,
in
the late thirties,
Sorabji had
decided
to
turn
down all
requests for
public performance
either
by
himself
or
by
others.
As
he later indicated
in
a letter
to
the pianist
Egon
Petri:
"I
have
set
my
face
against
ANY
PUBLIC
PERFORMANCE OF
MY
WORK
FOR
GOOD
AND
ALL
EVERYWHERE."2
It
is true that
he
did not have
to
turn
92
Roberge:
Kaikhosru
Shapurji
Sorabji’s
Quintet
for Piano
and
Four Stringed Instruments
down offers
very often,
since
they were very few and far between.
The
visual
aspect
of
most scores
was
forbidding enough
to
scare
potential performers
away.
Up to
December 1936, Sorabji
had been heard
in
public at least ten
times
in
various cities (London,
Vienna, Paris, Glasgow), giving
the
first
performances
of
five works for piano
solo
and playing
the piano
part
of
his
Trois
pokmes
pour
chant
et
piano.
He
had
also
allowed
two
friends-
the pianist
Harold Rutland
(1900-1977)
and the organist
E. Emlyn Davies
(1885-1951)-
to
play
a
work
each.
He
had not
approved,
however,
of a
performance
of
pars prima
of
his Opus
clavicembalisticum by John Tobin (1
891-1960). The severe inadequacies
of
this
performance, which took place at Cowdray Hall
in
London on
10 March
1936,
were
instrumental
in
bringing
the
composer
to
his decision
of
not
allowing
hearings of his
music.
Even though
there were
a few
scattered
performances
af-
ter 1936, it
is only
in 1976,
thanks
to
the
persistence
of a number of
friends, es-
pecially
Alistair Hinton,
that
Sorabji
began
to
give permission for official per-
formances
to
a
few selected pianists, namely Yonty
Solomon,
Michael Haber-
mann, and
Geoffiey Douglas
Madge.3
Since
that time,
other
musicians
(mostly
pianists)
have
been drawn
to
the
intricacies
of
Sorabji’s music and
public hear-
ings
of
several
short-
and medium-size
works
have become more
freq~ent.~
A
few recordings
have
also
been produced, all offering sound proofs
of
the great
beauty and
artistic
validity
of
the
music.
Sorabji never made any
real efforts
to
promote performances
of
his music.
It
zppears that
only
one
performance (except for Tobin’s) was
organized
without
his
close involvement,
namely,
the
premikre
of
the
Quintet
for
Piano and
Quartet
of Stringed Instruments (1919-20)
by
the
pianist Norah Drewett and
the
Uni-
versity
of
Toronto’s Hart House
String
Quartet.
This
performance was
to
be
given in
New York
in 1925 but failed
to
materialize. Another performance
of
the
same work, scheduled for
October 1992
in
Cambridge, did not take
place
either.
The work is
still unperformed
even
though it
is
available
in
print
(or
rather
has
been,
since
the
remaining copies
have been
sold).
It is
the
purpose
of
this article
to
give
an
account
of
the
work and to document
the
sequence
of events
surround-
ing
its
cancelled
first Performance by
the
Canadian ensemble,
a
project that
had
to
be
filed away
due to
the
vagaries
of
new music
programming and
to
the
diffi-
culties
posed by
a
new compositional idiom.5
Sorabji’s
musical
output consists
of
11
1
works totalling
more
than
1
1,000
manuscript pages.6
This
total can be broken down
as
follows: 61
works for
pi-
ano (including 7
transcriptions),
3
for
organ,
ll
for piano and orchestra,
7 for
or-
chestra (with
or
without voices),
7
for chamber ensemble
(including 2
with