Sorabji's Transcendental Studies
 

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Sorabji: 100 Transcendental Studies, vol. I
BIS Records
BIS-CD-1373 (2006)

Sorabji: Transcendental Studies 1-25

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Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies, composed between 1940 and 1944, is the second longest work of this composer, with a total duration of at least seven hours (the longest work being his Symphonic Variations - around nine hours of music). It is thus also by far the largest collection of concert etudes in the known repertoire. I am recording the complete studies for BIS Records and have performed a large number of the studies in concert, including many world première performances. In my opinion, many of the Studies are among Sorabji's best pieces. This page includes texts and information on the pieces that may be useful for pianists and other music lovers with an interest in this remarkable composer.

Editorial work on a large number of studies for the BIS recording project has been done by Alexander Abercrombie. Studies 1-18 have earlier been edited by Marc-André Hamelin and studies 19 and 21 by Simon Abrahams. All Sorabji scores are sold by the Sorabji Archive.

    Kenneth Derus on Sorabji's Studies - an essay written especially for the BIS recording project
    My own comments on some of the individual studies
    Premiere performances and estimated durations of all the studies (pdf)
    Sound files
    Examples from Alexander Abercrombie's editions of the studies

Works are like rattlesnakes - how they strike us depends on how we grasp them. We see Sorabji's Studies on paper. We hear them. We remember what we've heard. In each case, there are limits to what we see and hear and remember. Times and sometimes places where the objects of our experience begin and end. We see part of a page and part of a table. We hear the cello but not the jackhammer. We remember just so much of an evening or a lifetime, or a jumble of experiences that existed at very different times. Memories interest me most. Memories in this case of music I've heard. I don't care about when my memories begin and end. I care about when what I'm remembering begins and ends.

When we remember, we make some of the things we remember - in particular by separating experiences which are remembered from experiences which aren't. Most things have permanent parts. Captain Hook has two hands at some times and one hand at other times, but he has most of his parts at all of his times. The things we remember hearing are literally things, even when they have no permanent proper part. The melody we remember hearing coincides with this note at this time and that note at that time; no note of it exists at more than one time, but it is nevertheless a single changing thing.¹

When I take off my glasses, the things I no longer see color the things I do see. When I remember music in less time than it takes me to hear it, not every part of the object of my memory is the object of part of my memory; but the things which find no counterpart in my memory experience nevertheless metaphorically color it. I've said this before,² but it's also true that remembering can put structure back into memory experience - by creating permanent or long-lived proper parts out of the experience we remember. This is what I mean by grasping. I can grasp the 'bass part' from any of the Studies - as part of something I heard yesterday and remember now.³ Some parts have intermittent existence. Depending on when I make the bass part begin and end - in relation to the object of memory of which it is a part - it may or may not be the object of a proper part of the memory experience I'm having now.

The times of what I'm remembering are past times. In particular, the first and last times of the proper parts, if any, of what I'm remembering are past times. But some of these first and last times are first and last times only now, and later, by virtue of my present and future grasp of past experience. My grasp may change, but I can also have an unchanging grasp of changing past experience. Past experience is limited, or bounded, at a later time.⁴

Sights have a spatial aspect. We could consider the faces we see in clouds as a function of how we grasp the things we look at. But non-spatial experiences can have more than one part at a time, because parts of experience can be superposed. Most of the chords we hear and remember consist of superposed notes.⁵

Implicit in all this is an at least one-dimensional kinematics - governing motion within memory experience scaled to motion within the things we remember. Retrospective motion - propelled in some cases by the longest limbs of musical experience. To paraphrase Clifford Truesdell on the kinematics of vorticity in relation to the laws of physics: A kinematical result is a result valid forever, no matter how time and fashion may change the way intentionality gets naturalized by cognitive science.

Georg Kreisel has reminded me that Goethe said, in effect, "How should I know?" when Eckermann asked him if Faust had a guiding idea. The best works surprise everybody, and their authors most of all. Sorabji's music serves as a basis for interesting memories, the way clouds serve as a basis for the faces we see in them; but the music gets the bulk of the credit for this, not Sorabji. Sorabji gets as much credit as I get when my children tell jokes that make people laugh.

Stanislaw Ulam was more brilliant than ever, after his attack of encephalitis, but more than ever he needed first-rate mathematical collaborators, to flesh out his ideas. Sorabji's music needs active and sophisticated collaboration in this sense. Besides performers and listeners, it needs to be finished by those of us who have heard it. Finishing, in this case, involves a paring away, not a fleshing out. Remembered properly, the music serves up none of the detail that makes it uniquely exciting to hear.

The Studies as ars memorativa. Mostly single-minded. Mostly short. Exercises for us, instead of performers. The place where we learn, in baby steps, to grasp what we've heard. One hundred rattlesnakes, on the road to a useful appreciation of the Tantrik Symphony.

Imagination can make anything out of anything, but the same can't be said for fingers. Anybody who can play the Studies must marvel at the cluelessness of those who believe that pianistic difficulties begin with Godowsky and end with Finnissy or Barrett. Douglas Taylor's quip about contrary motion for one hand isn't far from the truth. Brains are even rarer than fingers. I can barely think of anyone thoughtful enough to make sense of music such as this in the concert hall. Fredrik Ullén, obviously. The American violinist Katherine Hughes. Two or three others.

Sorabji the anti-Feldman. His symmetries are crippled in every possible way on every possible time-scale⁶ - except when we remember him. But actually hearing him can't be beat. The Studies unwind like the Latin sentences of De bello gallico - with exquisite syntactical irritability - , or like the body-motion of a high-spirited horse who knows where he's going. They leave us saddle sore, but not because it takes eight hours to hear them all. It's more a question of having to hang onto our seat while we listen.⁷

¹Every part is an improper part of itself. The only permanent part of a weakly permanent part is improper. Coincident parts are identical at times. In the jargon of ontology, I'm claiming that the impermanent objects of musical experience are nevertheless continuants, not occurrents. This is not a popular view.
²E.g. in the CD booklet for Geoffrey Madge's recent recording of George Flynn's Derus Simples, and my out-of-date contribution to Paul Rapoport's Sorabji book.
³There are no bass lines in a world of continuants, except as ways to talk about and represent parts of changing hearing experience.
⁴Limits aren't parts of experience but limits have times.
⁵Superposed parts exist at the same time and place without being identical. We can have a place without a space, even when the converse isn't true.
⁶Elastic subjects and casual procedures; but also, on paper, wrong page numbers, odd distributions - e.g. of interval-studies in the work at hand - , ambiguous notation, problematical Italian. Barely noticeable things, like the deliberate mistakes of a comic ballroom dancer.
⁷Progress is smooth everywhere except locally, in the immediate neighborhood of change. Each moment of the music leaves us painfully unprepared for the next. It's no accident. Mephisto says "Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint" and Sorabji says it too.

© Kenneth Derus 2003. Kenneth Derus is a former director of the Center for Combinatorial Mathematics and the dedicatee of piano works by Kaikhosru Sorabji, George Flynn, and Carlo Grante, among others. He has written about music for Tempo and The New Grove but is mainly concerned with the mereotopology of memory experience.

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Comments on some of the Transcendental Studies of Sorabji - by Fredrik Ullén

Most of the Transcendental Studies, in particular the pieces in the beginning of the cycle, are typical concert etudes in the sense that essentially a single technical or structural idea is explored. Later on Sorabji inserts pieces that are on a much larger scale than the traditional etude: extended, highly ornamented "nocturnes"; a huge Waltz; a Habanera; a Passacaglia with 100 variations, and which ends the present recital. The tendency towards larger and larger forms culminates with the two last etudes, a hugely expanded elaboration of J.S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and a quintuple fugue with a duration of at least 45 minutes, respectively.      The title 100 Transcendental Studies naturally alludes to Liszt's famous set of the same kind, and Sorabji may have been stimulated to write his etudes after attending a concert with Egon Petri playing the Liszt etudes. Other obvious influences are Scriabin, Busoni and Godowsky, but in his use of evolving patterns of immense textural and rhythmic complexity Sorabji by far exceeds all of his precursors. At least in this regard, it is tempting to see the Sorabji etudes as presages of the piano music of, say, Ligeti, Finnissy or Ferneyhough. However, these comparisons should not be taken too far. As composer, pianist and thinker Sorabji remains sui generis; his vast pianistical universe is compelling and strangely different from any other music before or after him. Among his mature works, 100 Transcendental Studies occupy a key position. The following brief descriptive comments on some of the individual studies were originally written for concert programs and might give a feeling for the variety of ideas explored in this work.

1. Mouvementé. A whirling, turbulent exploration of a rapid seven-note motive. The etude starts with two parts in the middle-register but soon double-notes and chords are added, and in a characteristic Sorabjian manner the musical activity extends over the whole range of the keyboard.
2. Vivace e leggiero. Pianistically a devilish piece based on large leaps in both hands; musically perhaps an ironical wink at Chopin's a minor etude op. 25 no. 4. Occasional repetitions of a figure function as structural landmarks.
3. (untitled). Melodical phrases are entwined with accompanying triplet figures in a tranquil web of sound. Basically a piece in four voices, which sometimes thicken into chordal melodies.
4. (Scriabinesco) Soave e con tenerezza nostalgica is an arabesque and a loving meditation on Scriabin's B major etude op. 8: 4. There are some interesting polymetric experiments in the later section.
5. Staccato e leggiero. A reminiscence of Liszt? Both hands play triplets of large staccato chords in a Wilde Jagd that makes effective use of the sostenuto pedal on a couple of occasions.
6. (untitled). The 100 Transcendental Studies contain double-note etudes for each possible interval. This is the first one, an etude in seconds with rich use of 3:4 polyrhythms. A scintillating will-o’-the-wisp etude in the romantic tradition.
7. Leggiero abbastanza. A brief and effective piece based on arpeggiated triads. As often in the cycle, the hands change roles on occasion.
8. (untitled). The etude in thirds. A delicate piece where elegantly flowing double-note passages are played by the right hand, the left hand or both together.
9. Staccato e leggiero. A remarkably modern piece for its time. Both hands play staccato chords, first in perfect asynchrony, later on with irregular alternations between the hands. Frequently Sorabji has one hand play only on white keys and the other only on black keys, a device used much later by e.g. György Ligeti.
10. Con brio ed impeto - Volante. Cascades of arpeggiated triads accompany demoniacal incantations à la Scriabin. The furious coda has few parallels in its wild virtuosity.
11. (Animato abbastanza.) Triplet figures ascend and descend irregularly in a winding motion round melody fragments in both hands. The music vanishes in a leggierissimo saltando that prepares the ground, as it were, for the next etude.
12. Leggerio quasi “saltando”.  A study in staccato chords, where the piano imitates the string player saltando. Occasional, accentuated phrases in longer note-values appear as brief remarks from the wind section.
13. (untitled). A remarkable study in trills and tremolos, erotic and emotionally overstrung. The demons of the late Scriabin are lurking here, as on many other places, of course; in particular, the piece evokes his etude op. 42 no. 3.
14. Tranquillamente soave. An Oriental carpet of endless, aimlessly drifting melodic lines. Sorabji’s deep originality, even relative to those composers in the Western tradition he deeply admired, is clearly revealed in pieces like this: a music of highly complex, ever-changing patterns that lacks any sense of drama or even inner directionality.
15. (untitled).  A short, sparkling etude that explores shifts between quadruple and quintuple metrics as well between leggerio and legato articulation.
16. (untitled). The brilliantly shining etude in fourths, with rich use of the upper register of the piano and sharp, accentuated rhythms. As usual in the double-note etudes, passages of double notes are written for both hands.
17. Molto accentato. A brief, homophonic intermezzo with accentuated chords that suggest trumpets and other wind instruments. The slow metronome indication is, unusally, given by Sorabji himself.
18. Liscio. Tranquillamente scorrevole. This is the etude in fifths, which contains some exquisite, sensual writing for the piano. One of the larger double-note etudes, and one of the finest inspirations among the early etudes of the collection.
19. Saltando e leggiero. A repeated, small cell of four jumping staccato chords, played first by the right hand, forms the basis of this piece. After a while the hands change roles - à la Godowsky - and the piece ends triumphantly with the main motive played by both hands. Sorabji maintains a weak sense of G major tonality throughout the piece.
20. Con fantasia. One of Sorabji's refined, mysterious nocturnes. A single, ornamented sotto voce singing line meanders above accompanying figures in the left hand. Later new strands enter to form a fabric of sound of a sensual complexity that is typical of Sorabji.
21. Con eleganza e disinvoltura. The etude in sixths. The free, almost nonchalante, character of the piece can not hide its pianistic difficulties, which are absolutely Sorabjian.
22. Leggiero volante e presto assai. The piece explores an interesting, new device for pianistic fireworks: glissandi on chords. A quick, hazardous piece that passes by leaving you in wonder of what really happened.
25. Vivace e secco. A violent etude in staccato chords: first single unison chords, later repeated chords that are distributed in various ways between the hands to build up a dramatic culmination at the end of the piece.
26. Dolcissimo. A beautiful piece of night music – incidentally also one of the several etudes of which there exists a sketchy but interesting private recording in the Frank Holliday collection, made by Sorabji himself in relatively old age. A soft high-register motive in the right hand, later varied in different ways, shimmers like moon-light above warm, arpeggiated chords and melodies in the left hand.
28. Leggiero e volante. A lively etude where a single motive and its mirror-image are developed by a gradual accumulation of new notes, until the music reaches both ends of the keyboard and terminates.
31. Vivace assai. An exploration of a rapid flow of four-note figures. As in many of the more traditional etudes, where a single technical idea is developed, Sorabji alternates the difficulties between the hands, and finally employs them in both hands together.
32. Legato possibile: quasi dolce. All rhythmic complexities are avoided in this etude, to achieve a gentle, undulating flow of dense chords in the middle register of the piano. As often Sorabji uses complex combinations of triadic harmonies without any clear sense of traditional tonal relations.
34. Soave e dolce. “Insinuating” is the unusual character Sorabji indicates for the seductive but poisonous opening of this piece, which uses the 6 versus 5 polyrhythm throughout. The technique used here, to let melodic lines thicken into chordal counterpoint, is often used by Sorabji in his later works.
37. Riflessioni. A good-tempered and not-too-serious play with a cavalcade of motives and their inversions. The inversions first appear as echoes, but soon both motive and reflection are played together.
40. Moderato. Structurally a relatively simple etude, with solemn processions of triadic chords in both hands. A friendly nod at Mussorgskij…?
45. (untitled). An energetic piece based on a single, incisive motive with rapid alternations between the hands.
49. Vivace ma non troppo. Relatively unremarkable, this etude nevertheless gains motoric energy and rhythmic momentum by frequent changes in metrics. One of the etudes where equality of opportunity between the hands is assured by having them change roles now and then.
50. Per il pedale 3. Use of the sostenuto-pedal is certainly beneficial in a lot of Sorabji’s music, but this is an etude specifically for the otherwise often neglected middle pedal of the piano. Here it is used to maintain long chords, leaving both hands free to play increasingly elaborate arcs of eight-notes figures.
52. (untitled). A four-part study in 3 versus 4 polyrhythm, centered in the middle register of the piano.
55. (untitled). One of the studies where Sorabji inventively explores a simple motive, in this case a three-beat staccato figure with repeated sixteenth notes. Inversions and alternations between the hands as well as growth by replications and additions of notes are used in a texture of increasing density.
59. (Quasi fantasia) Moderato ends the second section of this recital. It is one of the larger etudes, written in Sorabji's delicate, impressionistic "nocturnal" style. As the title indicates, the piece has a free, improvisatory character. Quintuplet motives are explored in textures of increasing density and rhythmic complexity, and in later sections in a characteristic Sorabjian manner the musical activity extends over the whole range of the keyboard.
64. (untitled). The main motive of this etude consists of chromatically falling lines of two-note groups, which are varied in different ways, using imitation techniques.
65. (untitled). Sorabji demonstrates his good sense of humour in this piece, based on fast appoggiaturas and sequences of staccato triads.
66. (untitled). A hypnotic music of large arpeggiated chords embedding a slowly sung, rhythmically free melody in the middle register.
67. (untitled). A highly polyphonic fantasia, where Sorabji restricts himself to comparatively simple rhythmic relations.
75. (Passacaglia.) This grand Passacaglia is with its theme and 100 variations one of the largest etudes of the whole cycle. A detailed discussion of the different variations is naturally out of scope for this text, and a few general remarks will have to suffice. Both the character and key of the theme (b minor) suggests that Sorabji may have been inspired by the famous Godowsky passacaglia when writing this piece. In spite of the sometimes highly dissonant and complex harmonies Sorabji uses in some places, the theme serves to anchor the piece firmly in b minor. In the initial variations, Sorabji increases the number of voices and introduces faster note-values according to a rigid scheme. Later on, more free variation techniques are used, illustrating Sorabji’s talent for creative ornamentation. Notably, many of the variations appear as miniatures or reflections of etudes elsewhere in the cycle – it is probably no coincidence that the number of variations in the Passacaglia and the number of etudes in the whole cycle is the same. Towards the end of the piece, Sorabji asks for a truly transcendental pianism, creating veritable tsunamis of sound, before the music halts in the grandiose last variations that end the passacaglia.
76. (Imitations) Presto assai. A very brief musical joke, based on – as the title indicates – imitations.
81. The Suspensions. Lento quasi Adagio e gravemente solenne. One of the few slow etudes, choral like in its texture, with frequent use of suspensions.
83. Arpeggiated fourths. An elegant arabesque, based entirely on arpeggatied fourths. Occasional double-note figures appear as distant memories of the etude in fourths, number 16.
88. (untitled). A brief, stern piece – slightly archaic in its counterpointal style.
89. (Chopsticks). A virtuous showpiece based on alternating chords between the hands, with irregularly inserted pauses.
92. Legato possibile. An ominous music of winding, growing legatissimo figures that imperceptibly appear from the silence. The piece disappears in the shadows at the lower end of the keyboard.

 © Fredrik Ullén, 2003. If you would like to use this text or parts of it in some context, that's fine - but please email me a note first!

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Sound Clips - live recordings of Sorabji Studies - Fredrik Ullén
 

	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 21 (beginning)	Recital, Rolf-Liebermann Studio, Hamburg, Germany Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival 2003, Aug 17, 2003	943 kB	1'00"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 22 (beginning)	see above	473 kB	0'30"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 25 (beginning)	see above	939 kB	1'00"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 26 (beginning)	see above	1.42 MB	1'30"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 31 (beginning)	see above	954 kB	1'00"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 34 (beginning)	see above	1.89 kB	2'00"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 37 (beginning)	see above	1.72 MB	1'50"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 59 Quasi fantasia (beginning)	see above	2.36 MB	2'30"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 66 (beginning)	see above	1.26 MB	1'20"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 67 (beginning)	see above	940 kB	1'00"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 75 Passacaglia (ending)	see above	5.71 MB	6'05"
	K.S. Sorabji, Transcendental Study 83 (beginning)	see above	954 kB	1'00"

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Examples from Alexander Abercrombie's editions of the studies

A new complete edition of the studies is available from the Sorabji Archive. Here are two sample pages (jpg files) from the new edition, made by Alexander Abercrombie, who has edited the majority of the studies.

• Page 275
• Page 312

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