I am thrilled to announce that my recording of Sorabji’s Toccata terza – the first recording of this work – has been released by the Piano Classics label in April 2024. This represents the final step and culmination of a project that spanned several years since the discovery of the manuscript in 2019. After preparing a critical edition of the work, I gave the world premiere in 2022.

Composed in 1955, the manuscript of Toccata terza had been missing for almost six decades and it was considered to be a lost work until it was suddenly discovered in a private collection.

Toccata terza, written in ten movements and lasting just over two hours, is one of the most ambitious piano works of the 1950s. It expands the vocabulary of Sorabji’s two earlier toccatas by means of a more audacious harmonic language and an unusual, asymmetric formal plan in which a gigantic passacaglia dominates the first half, a fugue of modest proportions is placed in the middle, and the last five movements form an extended epilogue. As usual in Sorabji, the music combines diverse elements in a large coherent whole: languorous lyricism, fiery virtuosity and complex polyphony.

Going even further than its predecessor, Toccata seconda (1934), which I recorded in 2020, Toccata terza amplifies the concept of the baroque toccata and fugue to an entirely new dimension.

Many, many thanks and congratulations to the wonderful team at Estudio Uno for their splendid job in recording and postproduction!