ABEL SÁNCHEZ-AGUILERA

Tag: Sorabji

  • Sorabji’s Toccata terza – world premiere!

    Sorabji’s Toccata terza – world premiere!

    I gave the world premiere of Sorabji’s Toccata terza at the Willem Twee toonzaal (‘s-Hertogenbosch) on 3 July 2022, 11 a.m. The duration of the concert was about 2 hours plus one intermission. There was a pre-concert talk by Gijs van der Meijden at 10 a.m.

    Toccata terza is one of the most ambitious piano works written by Sorabji – or any other composer – in the 1950s. Shortly after its composition the manuscript – the only copy of the work – seemed to disappear from the face of Earth. No one knew anything about the whereabouts of the score for almost sixty years and the work was believed to be lost – until, very unexpectedly, it was found in 2019 in a private collection. It is this work, so long shrouded in mystery, that will be heard in this concert for the first time, following the publication of my critical edition of the work by the Sorabji Archive earlier this year.

    As he did before in Toccata seconda, in Toccata terza Sorabji looks back to the examples of Bach and Busoni, reinvents them in his own innovative idiom, and expands the concept of the Baroque toccata into a work of monumental proportions. It is a complex, unusual two-hour long composition consisting of ten movements ranging from two short, 3-minute cadenzas to a 50-minute long passacaglia with 102 variations, it is based on the simplest possible material – the three-note motif C-G-F – which is transformed in a myriad ways.

    The concert was recorded and later broadcast by the Concertzender radio station. The recording can be listened to here.

    There was a second performance in Madrid a few days later. It took place at Hinves PianoLab on 12 July.

    Sorabji's Toccata terza, Spanish premiere in Madrid.
  • Sorabji’s Toccata seconda CD released this month

    Sorabji’s Toccata seconda CD released this month

    My first album, a double CD with the world premiere recording of the work Toccata seconda per pianoforte by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) is being released this month by Piano Classics. This is one of the most beautiful, accessible works by this enigmatic composer and a perfect introduction to his music. More info at the Piano Classics website here.

    Sorabji was a remarkably original, extremely prolific composer. He devoted most of his relatively uneventful life to the creation of an extraordinary set of works, among which are some of the longest, most complex, most exhuberant compositions ever written for the piano. Most of his music remained almost unknown until its rediscovery in recent decades. In his compositions Sorabji combines a very personal approach to the Western classical musical tradition with elements related to Eastern music (abundance of detail, rhythmic intricacy, melodic freedom); unheard-of challenges for the performer with sonorities of extreme delicacy.

    Sorabji's Toccata seconda, CD cover.
  • Interview in the Ritmo magazine (March 2019)

    Interview in the Ritmo magazine (March 2019)

    This month’s issue of the Spanish musical magazine Ritmo publishes an interview with me, in which I speak about less frequent repertoires, composers that interest me – Sorabji of course -, my past life as a research scientist, among other topics. (Apologies to non-Spanish speakers – I may post a translation of it when I get a little time.) I hope you enjoy reading it!

    Read full interview

  • Sorabji at the Conservatorio “Teresa Berganza” (14/03/2019)

    Sorabji at the Conservatorio “Teresa Berganza” (14/03/2019)

    There will be another performance of Sorabji’s Toccata seconda per pianoforte next month in Madrid:

    14 March 2019, 11:30 am
    Auditorium, Conservatorio “Teresa Berganza”
    C/ Palmípedo, 3 (Madrid)

    Admission is free (but seats are limited).

    Here is an extract from my previous performance at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building in Oxford, the first movement “Preludio-Toccata”.

  • Sorabji in Oxford (27 January 2019)

    Toccata2page

    I will perform Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Toccata seconda per pianoforte for the second time on 27 January 2019, 7 p.m., at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building (St Hilda’s College, Oxford, UK). This will be part of an afternoon of concerts celebrating Sorabji’s music, beginning with a piano and voice recital by soprano Betty Makharinsky and pianist Jonathan Powell – who will also perform several solo piano works – followed by the first UK performance of Toccata seconda since the composer himself premièred it in Glasgow in 1936 at what was going to be his last public appearance as a pianist.

    (more…)

  • Sorabji – Toccata seconda

    Sorabji – Toccata seconda

    In 2019 I will be performing the work Toccata seconda per pianoforte by Kaikhosru Sorabji (1892-1988), an English composer of Indian ancestry who wrote some of the longest, most complex – and certainly most fascinating – works in the piano repertoire. Toccata seconda (1934) is a two-and-a-half-hour-long work that has been performed in concert only twice before – the first time by Sorabji himself – and is therefore a true rarity of piano literature.

    I will play this work for the first time in Spain in Sala Eutherpe (León) on January 12, 2019, starting at 8.00 pm (not at 7.00 pm!). More information here (in Spanish only). (more…)