Latest / The Piano Maven with Jed Distler / Daan Vandewalle plays Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum

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Daan Vandewalle plays Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum · The Piano Maven with Jed Distler

• 0:06
  This is Jed Disler, and welcome to The Piano
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  Maven, your friendly podcast guide to piano recordings.
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  You can subscribe to The Piano Maven through
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  my Substack page, and I've provided a link in
• 0:20
  the episode description. Paid subscribers will
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  get free recordings at the beginning of each
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  month, and I hope to resume Zoom meetings for
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  subscribers very soon. It's just been a very
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  busy spring with concert commitments and traveling,
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  but I'm so grateful for your support to help
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  keep this podcast alive and afloat. piano music
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  ever published, which is the Opus Clavicem Ballisticum
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  by Kaikoshmu Shapurji Sarabji. His name is quite
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  a mouthful. By the way, his real name was Leon
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  Dudley. If you're going to write four or five
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  hours worth of dense, exotic sounding music on
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  multiple staves, you're going to need an exotic
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  pen name. And Leon Dudley is just not going to
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  cut it. But if you go by the name of Kaikoshu
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  Sapporoji Sorabji, you're bound to get a cult
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  following. Sorabji was famous, or rather infamous,
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  for composing the longest, the densest, and most
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  elaborately difficult piano pieces on planet
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  Earth. And most of these big pieces have long
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  passacaglias and fugues built into them. And
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  in the past 20 years or so, we've seen a veritable
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  cottage industry of Sarabji on disc. More pianists
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  are discovering these long pieces and recording
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  them. But Opus Clavicum Ballisticum, which hereafter
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  I will call O .C. has the biggest legend attached
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  to it. Sarabji gave the premiere himself not
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  long after he composed it. It was finished in
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  1930. Now, we have no clue what the performance
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  really sounded like, but in 1940, Sarabji issued
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  a ban on having any of his music performed in
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  public. And that ban lasted until 1976, when
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  several pianists petitioned Sorabji for permission
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  to perform some of his works. And Sorabji was
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  pleased enough by these pianists to grant his
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  permission and to break the ban, so to speak.
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  And the pianists in question were Yonti Solomon
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  and Michael Haberman. Or do I say Haberman? I
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  think it's Michael Haberman. And Sarabji also
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  granted Jeffrey Douglas Madge permission to undertake
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  playing O .C. complete in public for the very
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  first time since Sarabji's own premiere. And
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  in fact, Madge gave the modern premiere in 1982
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  in Utrecht. And that performance actually was
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  issued on LP. Madge played O .C. again in Chicago
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  in 1983, and that live performance was issued
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  on the Beast label many years later. And then
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  in 1985 and 1986, John Ogden undertook a studio
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  recording of O .C. for the Altarus label. And
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  then I remember... Back in 2008, when I met my
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  friend and colleague Don Vonderval in New York,
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  and he wanted to get a record company interested
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  in this project, and I tried to help him with
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  that, but then it kind of fizzled out. Don gave
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  his first performance of OC back in 2004. And
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  finally, in 2023, he achieved his long -held
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  desire to record OC under studio conditions,
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  and he did have fabulous conditions. He had great
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  acoustics, he had a great recording team, and
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  a superbly regulated concert grand piano. And
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  there is no question that Don Vonderval's recording
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  is the most technically accurate, musically consistent,
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  and best engineered edition of OC available.
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  Generally, his tempos are slower than those of
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  Madge or Ogden, but his slower pacing allows
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  for a higher level of scrutiny. in regard to
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  details, in terms of dynamics and textural organization.
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  And when the music gets really, really thick,
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  the pacing does not allow any of the momentum
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  to bog down. There's a real steadiness and cumulative
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  force at play here. The theme and 49 variations
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  that open part two of OC might be the heart and
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  soul of this mammoth work. And I think that this
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  is where van der Waals' expressive and coloristic
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  resources really come into play. He intones the
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  themes legatissimo, slow -moving chords, almost
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  as if the piano's hammers were organ stops. He
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  vividly characterizes each variation by means
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  of timbre and touch. And pretty much throughout
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  this section, and indeed throughout the entire
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  piece, Don Vandeval generates momentum and tension
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  and release by his careful attention to the dynamics,
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  and also by not getting too loud too soon, which
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  can very easily happen in live performances.
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  Now, John Ogden plays the first cadenza ridiculously
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  fast, and by doing so, he makes total hash out
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  of the melodic cogency and the clearly formed
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  chordal climaxes that one readily hears in Don
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  Vondelval's much slower rendition. In the cadenza
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  number two in part three, Vondelval builds the
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  music from the bottom up in a massive, emphatic
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  manner that's quite different from the crisper
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  and drier approach in Madge's 1983 performance.
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  And it's only in this movement where I slightly
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  prefer what Madge does. But compare Madge and
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  Vandeval in the fuga number four, the quadruplex
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  fugue. especially in the subject's big exposition.
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  It's kind of like experiencing both night and
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  day in the same city. Madge, for example, is
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  altogether brisker and more détaché, but then
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  Don Vandeval's phrasing is more inflected and
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  songful. But then again, the really elaborate
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  episodes in this fugue benefit from Vandeval's
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  real, astute, linear awareness and his flexibility
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  when it comes to moments of transition. And since
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  one can really conserve energy under studio conditions,
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  I don't think it's any surprise how Vandeval
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  shapes Sorabji's reams of notes into sweeping,
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  cumulative paragraphs that somehow leave at least...
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  one listener like myself more exhilarated than
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  exhausted. So while Jeffrey Douglas Madge and
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  John Ogden still have quite a lot to offer in
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  their respective OC recordings, I don't think
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  there's any question that Don Vonderval raises
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  the proverbial bar, so to speak, and basically
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  sets a reference standard for this pianistic
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  Mount Everest. This is Jed Disler, and you've
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  been listening to The Piano Maven, your friendly
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  podcast guide to piano recordings, and I look
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  forward to being with you next time.