Sorabji premières

The long-awaited world première of Sorabji's mammoth Organ Symphony No 2 is scheduled to take place on Sunday 6 June 2010 at Glasgow University Memorial Chapel, Scotland, commencing at 1pm. This performance is part of the ongoing Sorabji Organ Project, a five-year programme which is generously supported by Glasgow University Trust and which reaches its conclusion in June 2013. The entire project rests on the work of a single organist, the Englishman Kevin Bowyer; its aim is for him to create new typeset editions of all three of Sorabji's organ symphonies and perform them, initially in Glasgow University Memorial Chapel.

All three of Sorabji's organ symphonies are cast in three movements. The first, completed in 1924, was premièred in London in 1987 as part of that year's International Congress of Organists; it was recorded the following year by Kevin Bowyer, who has since played it in several countries, including one performance as part of the Sorabji Organ Project. To date, only the outer movements of the second have been performed (again as part of this project); the June 2010 performance will be the first of the entire symphony. It is arguably one of the most ambitious and challenging works ever written for the instrument and was completed in 1932. Kevin Bowyer will give a second complete performance on 20 June 2010 at het Orgelpark, Amsterdam, as part of this year's Holland Festival, and he will play extracts from the symphony in Berlin Cathedral on 10 July 2010 (the Toccata from its finale) and York Minster on 31 July 2010 (the entire first movement). Not a note of the composer's Organ Symphony No 3 has yet been heard; its edition is currently in progress and its world première is scheduled for June 2013 as the crowning event to complete the Sorabji Organ Project.

The project takes a temporary break from organ music on 18 June 2010; on this date, English pianist Jonathan Powell has been invited to give the world première of what is generally considered to be one of Sorabji's most important piano works, the Sequentia Cyclica super Dies Iræ, and the performance takes place in the Concert Hall of Glasgow University, commencing at 2.30pm.

Completed in 1949, Sequentia Cyclica was dedicated to the composer's friend Egon Petri, the distinguished Dutch pianist who had been one of Busoni's most notable students. Of the many works that have been based on or have referred to the Dies Iræ over the past two centuries, Sequentia Cyclica is undoubtedly the most far-reaching and monumental; it comprises a vast set of variations, culminating in a fugue. Jonathan Powell had divided the work into three sections for practical purposes and he has to date given parts 1 and 2 in London; this Glasgow performance will be the first in which he presents the complete work and it will be given with intervals between each of the three sections.

Jonathan Powell's peerless reputation as a Sorabji player has already passed into legend. He has to date performed far more of the composer's music than any other musician in history, from songs (with sopranos Sarah Leonard and Loré Lixenberg) to the enormous but now no longer notorious Opus Clavicembalisticum, taking in music dating from 1915-1980. He has also created several splendid typeset editions of piano works from the composer's manuscripts.

Information: www.sorabji-archive.co.uk

Posted: 12 April 2010

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