Search - Sorabji, Ogdon :: Opus Clavicembalisticum

Fabulous Packaging of a Monumental Work, Inadequately Played

Rodney Molnar-Pohdap | USA | 04/24/2003

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I see that a lively controversy reigns in the area on this site where G. D. Madge's recording of this work is reviewed! Many recommend Madge's performance over this one, others the opposite.I have not yet heard Madge's album. However, I do feel qualified to review Ogdon's recording: I have owned it for many years, and have listened to it in its entirety; what's more, I have a copy of the musical score, and carefully followed it for the duration (as in some 4-1/2 hours!).I must say, my reaction on listening was one of frequent shock. Huge portions of the work are quite simply "faked": only the vaguest approximation of what is on the page is played. That something like this could actually have been released is inexplicable, except of course that at the time no other recording of this work was available.However, I also found passages where Ogdon played quite beautifully, bringing uncanny skill and insight to the music with breathtaking results. And yet, there were also passages where, in spite of technical competence, the gestures were exaggerated, even crass and crude.All in all, the performance is baffling. It has historical value, in that Ogdon was the pianist who played the entire work for the work's dedicaté, Hugh M'Diarmid, in a private concert in 1959 -- the work's only complete performance, since the composer's première, until the 1970s. Even so, the performance on Ogdon's recording is of such uneven quality that it is difficult to recommend it.Sorabji fans will still want this album, though, since it comes with a marvelous 62-page booklet with a number of authoritative essays about the composer and his music, including a complete list of works. It even includes historic photos from Ogdon's 1959 performance.It was Michael Habermann's recording, the first-ever commercial album of Sorabji, opening with the first two movements of Opus Clavicembalisticum, which grabbed my interest in Sorabji. I still find that performance compellingly excellent, as evidently so did the composer, and wish that Habermann would record the entire work. It convinces me that certainly this portion of the work is fine and wonderful music and that Sorabji was capable of being a masterful and original composer. Ogdon's performance, however, leaves me still wondering what the rest of the work is really like. Is it really just a monstrous expression of egomaniacal self-indulgence (though of course, we'd not be as quick to say that of some other art works of similar dimesions, e.g. certain operas or films...)? Or is it really just a collection of several pieces of music, all somehow linked, and varying (perhaps considerably) in quality? Until we hear an adequate performance, it will remain difficult to say."

Incalcuable documentary value

scarecrow | Chicago, Illinois United States | 03/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's fairly facile to judge Ogden's groundbreaking recording in retrospect, a time when literally no other pianist had cared to mount such work and ambition to learn any portion of not only Opus Clavicembalisticum (OC) but any of Sorabji's monumental piano music.Ogden was also the first to perform in England Messiaen's piano music including the "Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant Jesus".This a time when no one knew his music either certainly not in England. It is only with Ogden's work that other readings are possible for where does pianists as Madge,Powell, begin from what is known. I admit that Ogden's playing was uneven, he had good days and bad, and toward the end of his years his health had deteriorated. Still Ogden's 'OC' has incalculable documentary value, as well as the booklet included here,since there is little to read on Sorabji's music save the excellent collection edited by Rappaport.

An issue with this work that needs more discussion is how to listen to music of such lengths, the late music of Morton Feldman also has this issue."