Kaikhosru Sorabji's Letters to Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) 9781138478435, 9781351068802

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Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Letters to Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock)

Two extraordinary personalities, and one remarkable friendship, are reflected in the unique corpus of letters from Anglo-Parsi composer-critic Kaikhosru Sorabji (1892–1988) to Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) (1894–1930): a fascinating primary source for the period 1913–1922 available in a complete scholarly edition for the first time. This volume also provides a new contextual, critical and interpretative framework, incorporating a myriad of perspectives: identities, social geographies, style construction, and mutual interests and influences. Pertinent period documents, including evidence of Heseltine’s reactions, enhance the sense of narrative and expand on aesthetic discussions. Through the letters’ entertaining and perceptive lens, Sorabji’s early life and compositions are vividly illuminated and Heseltine’s own intriguing life and work recontextualised. What emerges takes us beyond tropes of otherness and eccentricity to reveal a persona and a narrative with great relevance to modern-day debates on canonicity and identity, especially the nexus of ethnicity, queer identities and Western art music. Scholars, performers and admirers of early twentieth-century music in Britain, and beyond, will find this book a valuable addition to the literature. It will appeal to those studying or interested in early musical modernism and its reception; cultural life in London around and after the First World War; music, nationality and race; Commonwealth studies; and music and sexuality. Brian Inglis is Senior Lecturer in Music and BA Music Programme Leader, Department of Performing Arts, Middlesex University UK. Barry Smith is a former Organist and Master of the Choristers at St George’s Cathedral Cape Town and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Music at Cape Town University. He is President of the Peter Warlock Society.

I encourage him to write more and more, since I find his letters most entertaining, and sometimes really interesting, especially when he writes about music. —Philip Heseltine on Kaikhosru Sorabji (to Frederick Delius, 11 February 1914)

Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Letters to Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) Edited by Brian Inglis and Barry Smith

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Brian Inglis and Barry Smith The right of Brian Inglis and Barry Smith to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-47843-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-06880-2 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Brian Inglis – To Chris, with love. Barry Smith – To Dr Donald Hunt (1930–2018), former Organist and Master of the Choristers at Worcester Cathedral; generous friend and kindest of musicians who greatly enhanced my musical life.

Contents

List of illustrations viii Acknowledgements, credits, editorial and biographical notesx Forewordxiii JUDITH WEIR



Introduction

1



Illustrations

28

Kaikhosru Sorabji  2 Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock)  5 Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine  6 Organisation of materials  23 Editorial practice  23

Part I  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914

37

Part II  Letters and documents September 1914–June 1917

84

Part III  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929119 Appendix 1: Some reflections on modern musical criticism [ The Musical Times 54(848) (1 October 1913)] 144 Appendix 2: Sexual inversion [ The Medical Times (October 1921)] 149 Appendix 3a: Music [ Weekly Westminster Gazette 2(81) (18 August 1923)]152 Appendix 3b: Sorabji, Kaikhosru [A Dictionary of 154 Modern Music & Musicians]  Appendix 4: Music [ The New Age 48 (15 January 1931)]155 Bibliography 157 Index 161

Illustrations

Illustrations 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Philip Heseltine aged 21 Kaikhosru Sorabji aged 26 25A St John’s Wood High St, London Great Russell Mansions, Great Russell St, London Clarence Gate Gardens, Glentworth St, London (looking north– south towards Marylebone Road) Page 13 from Sorabji’s Le Jardin Parfumé (J. Curwen & Sons 1927) Page 157 from Sorabji’s Concerto [no 1] (BL Add MS 65183 fol. 85R) Page 144 from Sorabji’s Concerto II (F. & B. Goodwin 1923 in Sorabji 1927) Facsimile page from letter 27, 27 August 1916 Facsimile page from letter 26, 6 July 1916 Facsimile letter typescript, Sorabji to Arnold Dowbiggin, 28 February 1933

28 28 29 30 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Table 1 Signings off in Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine

7

Musical examples 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8

Scriabin’s scale derived from the harmonic series Scriabin’s ‘mysteriously beautiful’ chord Characteristic interval in Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden Chord from Scriabin’s Prometheus/Piano Sonata no 7 Another of Scriabin’s chords Two-note motif from Glazunov’s Sonata no 2 for piano Chord from Scriabin’s Prometheus Skip from Schoenberg’s String Quartet no 2

43 43 50 69 69 71 74 77

Illustrations ix 2.1 Excerpt from Sabaneyev’s Poème 2.2 Chord from Sorabji’s Vocalise pour soprano fioritura 2.3 Excerpt from Sorabji’s Concerto 2 pour piano et grand orchestre op. 10 2.4 ‘Indian fragment’ 3.1 Excerpt from Sorabji’s Sonata no 1

87 102 106 107 127

Acknowledgements, credits, editorial and biographical notes

Barry Smith would like to thank Kenneth Derus for helpful advice and suggestions, and Linda Louw for proof-reading and assisting with the deciphering some of Sorabji’s more wayward handwriting. Brian Inglis would like to thank Middlesex University for the award of a research grant for teaching remission and costs associated with this project and publication. Also Professors Benjamin Dwyer and Peter Fribbins, Dr Chris Dromey and Chris Scobie for feedback and input at various stages of its development. And to Dr  James Anthony Ellis for first encouraging me to research Sorabji, a journey which began with a master’s dissertation at City University in 1992–1993. Both would like to thank the editorial team at Routledge, especially Heidi Bishop for her consistent support of the project; the anonymous readers for their constructive comments and suggestions; and Dr Bruno Bower for his efficient and accurate research assistance, copy-typing, note-setting and proof-reading. Huge thanks are due to Alistair Hinton, curator of the Sorabji Archive, for his enthusiastic encouragement and support of this edition (without which it would never have been possible) and generosity with copyright permissions. All Sorabji’s words, music and graphics included in this publication are © copyright the Sorabji Archive and reproduced with ­permission. Thanks also to Mike Aitken of the Cecil Gray Estate for permission to quote from Gray's unpublished correspondence in item 32b. Barry Smith transcribed Sorabji’s letters from a copy of the manuscript; Bruno Bower checked the transcription against the original. Brian Inglis wrote the Introduction. Barry Smith and Brian Inglis co-wrote/edited the letter annotations. Barry Smith translated German text, and both translated French texts (with advice from François Evans, to whom thanks are due).

Editorial note Sorabji’s early compositions were and are identified in a number of ways. The composer himself applied opus numbers to some, but not necessarily consistently or chronologically; scores published in the 1920s and 1930s are engraved with numbers preceded by the initials ‘K.S’. In this book modern KSS numbers, as applied by the Sorabji Archive (www.sorabji-archive.co.uk), have been

Acknowledgements, credits and notes xi referenced for clarification. They reflect the understood order of composition. For this reason, these numbers do not necessarily align with the KS numbers appearing in period score publications. Sorabji’s early piano concertos offer particular potential for confusion, which the following concordance is designed to mitigate: Period Title (date; publication status) Modern Sorabji Archive title/no Concerto pour Piano et Grand Orchestre Opus III Piano Concerto No 1 KSS6 (1916; unpublished) Concerto 2 pour piano et grand orchestre, op. 10 Piano Concerto No 2 KSS14 (1917; unpublished) Concerto pour Piano et Orchestra da Camera Piano Concerto No 3 KSS16 (August 1918; unpublished) Concerto pour Piano et Grand Orchestre. Sept 1918 Piano Concerto No 4 KSS18 (1918; unpublished) Concerto for piano and orchestra/Concerto II Piano Concerto No 5 KSS27 (1920/©1923; published by F. and B. Goodwin Ltd) For complete clarity, Sorabji's early piano sonatas are also itemised below: Period Title (date; publication status) Modern Sorabji Archive title/no Sonata Opus VII

Piano Sonata (unnumbered) KSS9

(1917; unpublished) Sonata no 1 for Piano

Piano Sonata No 1 KSS20

(1919/©1920; published by London and Continental Music Publishing Co Ltd) Sonata II

Piano Sonata No 2 KSS28

(1920/©1923; published by F. and B. Goodwin Ltd) Sonata III

Piano Sonata No 3 KSS29

(1922/©1925; published by J. Curwen & Sons Ltd)

xii  Acknowledgements, credits and notes An increasing number of Sorabji’s works from all periods, both published and unpublished, are now available from the Sorabji Archive in modern critical and corrected editions (Le Jardin Parfumé, for instance, was re-released in 2014 in an edition by Jonathan Powell).

Biographical notes Born in Germany, Brian Inglis is Senior Lecturer and BA Music Programme Leader at Middlesex University. Previously he taught at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and the Royal College of Music. A  composer and musicologist, Brian first studied at Durham University and then completed an MA and PhD at City University London. His music has featured at international festivals ranging from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival to I Kärlekens Namn (Sweden); has been broadcast on media ranging from BBC Radio 3 to Bayern 2; and has been released on the Nonclassical and Sargasso labels. The latter released his debut solo album, Living Stones, in 2017. As a musicologist, Brian works predominantly on twentieth- and twenty-first-century British classical and popular music, focussing particularly on genre and identity. Brian has published chapters on classical music, copyright and collecting societies in The Classical Music Industry (Routledge 2018) and on solo/unaccompanied opera for Music on Stage, Vol. 2 (Cambridge Scholars 2016) as well as articles on aspects of Sorabji’s life and work in Tempo, British Music and British Music News. Publications due in 2019 include chapters on musical composition and mystical spirituality, and on John Tavener, for Peter Lang. Brian is a fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, a trustee of Nonclassical, and a board member of the Journal of the Royal Musical Association. For further information, see www.impulse.co.uk/brianinglis Barry Smith was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in 1939 and was educated at Rhodes University, Grahamstown and at the Royal School of Church Music in England. For forty years he was Organist and Master of the Choristers at St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town as well as Associate Professor in the Faculty of Music at Cape Town University. Besides conducting choirs and orchestras, he has written a number of books on Peter Warlock, among which is a biography to celebrate the centenary of Warlock’s birth and a four-volume set of Warlock’s letters. He has been honoured with Fellowships from the Royal School of Church Music and the British Guild of Church Musicians. He is also President of the Peter Warlock Society.

Foreword

Enthusiasts of early twentieth-century English music may be surprised to learn that, for the best part of a decade, the composer Kaikhosru Sorabji maintained a regular, often effusive, correspondence with Peter Warlock/Philip Heseltine, a fellow creator who might nevertheless be considered his exact musical antithesis. The publication of this lively and enjoyable collection comes at a great time for the Sorabji-curious in particular. His unique oeuvre is being performed with increasing frequency, skill and understanding; and with much easier access to the published scores, knowledge of the music itself is widening. Peter Warlock’s reputation remains in a steadier state: a forward-looking composer whose work is nevertheless not out of place when performed at carol services and royal weddings. With Philip Heseltine’s side of this correspondence not preserved by Sorabji, the editors of this volume have ingeniously interspersed contemporaneous letters from Heseltine to others, allowing us to intuit his response, incredulous at first, to his prolix correspondent. But as the friendship grows, it’s striking to sense the warmth engendered by the widely shared enthusiasms – and artistic disagreements – of this unlikely pair. As an important bonus, this is a rare and valuable account of how musical life unfolded (sometimes week by week, thanks to Sorabji’s eager chronicle of the concerts he attends) in the crucial artistic and historical period before, during and immediately after the First World War. Judith Weir London, October 2018

Introduction Brian Inglis

I am very lonely . . . In a former incarnation . . . you must have been closely related to me and the Law of Karma has ordained us to meet in this life . . . laugh, if it pleases you; I don’t mind. I have to endure so much derision and insult, that a little harmless laughter won’t do me much hurt will it?1 this creature’s mouth makes me think of a baby’s bottom or a pair of chicken and ham sausages superimposed lengthwise . . . everyone came swarming round me after expressing the utmost amazement and ébahissement first at the music and then of my playing of it.2

Two pictures of Kaikhosru Sorabji: an over-the-top composer–pianist with a wickedly sharp pen; and, in contrast, an emotionally vulnerable man pouring his heart out to his first true confidant. The second excerpt sees the 29-year old Sorabji describing to his friend Philip Heseltine – two years his junior – a private concert in Vienna in 1922 attended by Universal Edition publishing director Emil Hertzka and his nephew, Alfred Kalmus (the subject of the unflattering simile). It marks almost the end of a decade-long correspondence between the two musicians, spanning the pre-Great War era and the period of inter-war modernity. This was a particularly eventful time for both men, covering Heseltine’s provocative editorship of music journal The Sackbut and public success (as Peter Warlock) with the Carnegie prize-winning The Curlew, and the first forays into musical publication for both composers. It generated Sorabji’s first compositions, piano performances and published articles. As we see from the first excerpt, it also generated his first, and perhaps most intense, adult friendship; the period could be seen as the locus of his ‘coming out’ in social, musical and sexual terms. Unfortunately, Heseltine’s side of this fascinating corpus  – published here complete for the first time – has not survived:3 Sorabji tended not to keep letters from his (ultimately numerous) correspondents.4 Heseltine’s voice is instead here refracted through related correspondence and period publications (see ‘Organisation of Materials’ below). Primary attention, then, is inevitably focussed most on Sorabji as chronicler of this significant relationship. In itself this presents a valuable opportunity, because Sorabji remains, in the first part of the twenty-first century, a complex and conflicted figure of music history – arguably one of the most enigmatic and intriguing in twentieth-century British music.

2  Introduction

Kaikhosru Sorabji Since his death in 1988, assessment of Sorabji’s oeuvre has been compromised by an unhelpful polarisation. This is located between – at one extreme – those who regard him as an inept, even fraudulent composer of music which is (at best) interminably dull and self-indulgent; and a devoted cult following.5 Writing online in 2007, Internet commentator ‘autoharp’ alluded to this polarity in complaining that: One of the problems relating to Sorabji’s music is (still) the lack of any significant body of useful commentary and criticism over and above the merely factual. Those of us who have searched out information about Sorabji over the years have almost certainly been irked by both the hyperbolic praise and bad-tempered condemnation which this composer attracts.6 As an example, one commentator characterises Sorabji’s best-known work, 1930’s Opus Clavicembalisticum, as ‘music of a massive ego thoroughly unaware of its crushing banality. . . [an] overblown monstrosity, emotionally vacuous (though [it] plays to the gallery plenty, fruitlessly)’.7 On the opposite pole, consider the quasihagiographic praise offered by Kenneth Derus in introducing his own selected snippets from the Sorabji–Heseltine correspondence: Most artists and writers are remarkable in spite of . . . their failings as human beings. Sorabji is an exception to this rule. He was not only more intellectually gifted than most great composers: he was also more sweetly ingenuous, and his letters are refreshingly wholesome. This fact does nothing to re-introduce Sorabji to music history – but within the context of a special friendship, it bears on matters of life and death. (Derus 1992, 196) Of course, like those of Sorabji’s other enthusiasts, Derus’s comments can be understood in the context of advocacy for a marginalised figure, and the hyperbole may not be intended to be taken literally. Later in the same volume he makes the grandiose claim that no composer, of any period, has successfully attacked a musical problem of greater difficulty, or left behind a more valuable set of working methods. This makes Sorabji something other than a fabulous musical outsider. It makes him historically more germane than most of his contemporaries. (459) Likewise, online spaces such as those cited above are not necessarily places to find reasoned debate of considered positions, being notorious for facilitating assertions both exaggerated and unsubstantiated. Sorabji clearly understood himself as an outsider in British society: the son of a Parsi from Bombay and an Englishwoman, he not only identified strongly – if

Introduction  3 inconsistently – with the non-English elements of his cultural background but also positioned himself actively against English or British music and strongly resisted any identification with such constructions. But the unhelpful polarisation of responses goes back, in part, to Sorabji’s emergence onto the musical scene in the late 1910s and early 1920s, which we see vividly brought to life in his letters to Heseltine. Contemporaneous critics were often baffled by his music (see for instance Anon 1922;8 Williams 19249) owing to its difficulty of execution and unfamiliarity of idiom, despite clear origins in the modern French school of Debussy and Ravel and the more mystically inclined Russians such as Scriabin. This was acknowledged by the more perceptive critics10 and is evidenced in the letters. On the fringe of Heseltine’s London circle, which also included Cecil Gray and Bernard van Dieren, Sorabji soon attracted further, if qualified, support from (amongst others) Ferruccio Busoni, Alfred Cortot, John Ireland and Joseph Holbrooke.11 Performances of the music were inevitably limited (on account of its difficulty and, occasionally, the lavish resources called for); the nine-year period of the Heseltine letters covers the first three of the twenty-five public premieres of Sorabji’s works which occurred during his long life. Coupled with the challenges of assimilating aurally his densely notated published scores, early scholarly assessments of the music tended to restrict themselves to introductory comments on its superficial characteristics, chiefly length and complexity.12 Following Sorabji’s retreat from London to a more reclusive life in Dorset after the Second World War, an aura of (partly self-perpetuated) ‘mystique’ grew and developed around the composer. What writings and commentaries there were (mainly by friends/ associates  – a representative example being MacDiarmid 1966) tended to the anecdotal and (sketchily) biographical. During Sorabji’s lifetime, performances of his music were largely reliant on his own involvement, or lack thereof.13 Since the 1970s, however, Sorabji’s music has been taken up by new generations of performers, including singers Jane Manning and Sarah Leonard, organist Kevin Bowyer and pianists such as Michael Habermann, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Donna Amato, Carlo Grante and Jonathan Powell. This activity led initially to a more thorough examination of his work in Rapoport’s 1992 edited volume. While groundbreakingly valuable, the book is arguably more celebratory than critically penetrating. In the current century, PhD researchers (Abrahams 2002; Owen 2006) have focussed on establishing biographical truths and critical (re-)assessment of his compositional processes, while more recently McMenamin (2016) has focussed on the framing of Sorabji’s critical writings as counter-canon and cultural critique. A comprehensive biography has been self-released online by Marc-André Roberge (2017). Yet Roberge acknowledges even at the end of his substantive tome that there is much work remaining for Sorabji scholars; as he writes, ‘Despite the recent flurry of editions and recordings . . . the scholarly world still has a long way to go before it becomes normal to include some lines about him in histories of music’ (Roberge 2017, 402). One of the intriguing things about Sorabji – indicative of the way he is problematised  – is the amount of writing devoted to him, which

4  Introduction seems out of proportion to the profile of his actual music, notwithstanding the energetic efforts in recordings and live performances of his handful of modern performer advocates. (Sorabji was and is also known, of course, as a music critic and author.) Sorabji’s own sympathisers, both in his lifetime and subsequently, have tended to propagate a specific discourse (in which Sorabji himself is also imbricated) around his music. This discourse exaggerates the music’s exceptionalism, primarily of scope and complexity – and thus otherness.14 This comes at the expense of the contextualisation and critical appraisal which, as Roberge implies, is necessary for a broader understanding of his musical achievements. Systematic critical contextualisation was first essayed by Paul Rapoport in 1978 with his monograph Opus Est: Six Composers from Northern Europe, wherein Sorabji is linked with Vermeulen, Holmboe, Brian, Pettersson and Valen through ‘symphonic proportions and procedures’, as well as lack of public and critical attention. While this volume is notable for being an early postmodern critique of historical teleology and canon-formation, the composers chosen are too diffuse to form a viable (counter-)narrative, even a postmodern non-linear one. A particularly valuable contribution therefore is Nalini Ghuman’s work (2014, 2007, 2003 [as Anna Nalini Gwynne]) – which will be drawn on below – placing Sorabji in the broader context of the experience of people with South Asian heritage living in Britain in the early twentieth century. Ghuman further draws on the deconstruction of Orientalist tropes undertaken by Edward Said and others. Sorabji’s extant letters to Heseltine are engaging, stimulating and indeed (in Derus’s word) ‘refreshing’, especially when compared with the bitter tone and verbal aggression of some of Sorabji’s published writings (some of which are glimpsed within this edition) and later missives. They therefore offer a compelling alternative to views of Sorabji, partly promulgated and encouraged by himself, as an irascible misanthrope. While trenchant opinions are forcefully expressed, negative criticisms are easily outweighed by an overflow of youthful enthusiasms, progressive liberal views (including abiding concern for the underdog, almost literally), honest and open-minded appraisal, quirkily endearing levity and irrepressible joi-de-vivre. Exposure of this side of Sorabji is particularly illuminating as, while Heseltine’s personal charm was and is well attested, Sorabji’s is less so. More reason to welcome the human warmth displayed in the portrait of him painted by the following letters. Why are Sorabji and his music important now? Firstly, because Sorabji was a mixed-race composer; and in a context when the racial, gender and class makeup of the art-music composing establishment in Britain has been and is being problematised,15 a more diverse range of historical exemplars and role models is important. (In this regard, the totality of Sorabji’s career may not make him an ideal role model; some of his later views sit particularly uncomfortably in the twenty-first century. Yet rebarbative views do not prevent Wagner’s works being appreciated and admired.) Sorabji’s works are worth exploring for their own sake; the early compositions arising from the period covered in this volume are some of the most accessible and approachable in his output and are neither as impossible nor as impossibly long as the composer’s broader reputation might suggest.

Introduction 5 Secondly, Sorabji is a missing musical link: while England remained his domicile for the whole of his life, he was fully engaged with the most advanced manifestations of early musical modernism emanating from mainland Europe, long before the more widespread and influential engagement of the Manchester group in the 1950s, or even Britten and the Edward Clark era BBC in the 1930s. In this he was not alone, and part of the project of Sorabji’s (re)habilitation is to understand him as one of several voices in the WWI and inter-war period of the early twentieth century who engaged similarly with sources of modernism and other forms of musical renewal in the European mainland and beyond. Recent scholarship on John Foulds (Ghuman 2014), the early Indian-inspired works of Holst (Ghuman 2014, preceded by the pioneering Head 1986, 1987, 1988) and Cyril Scott (Collins 2013) – the latter a consistently notable presence in the letters themselves – has started to colour in these repertoires (previously depicted as sketchy and marginal), painting a different and more nuanced, multivalent picture of British music in the early twentieth century and its relationship with pan-continental modernism and the non-Western world. (These issues will be revisited at the end of this Introduction.) Thirdly, Sorabji is conversely a very contemporary modern figure in terms of the fluidity and agency of his constructed and projected identity. As the letters to Heseltine progress, we witness at close hand the very process of identity construction, manifested concretely not only in their content but in the smallest details of the multifarious forms of his name and sign-off formulae. These reflect both his changing religious and cultural affiliations and his developing queer sexuality: in the texts presented here we see Sorabji discovering who he is and who he wants to be – and coming to terms with that self.

Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock) What of Philip Heseltine, recipient of Sorabji’s intimate confessional narrative of his most profound personal and artistic preoccupations? As a composer, Peter Warlock enjoys much greater prominence thanks to his one work (Capriol) in the standard repertoire of string orchestras and another (The Curlew) critically acclaimed and (at least) on the fringe of the chamber song repertoire, plus regular performances, especially amateur ones, of his songs and Christmas carols. He is also remembered as a pioneer of the early music revival, paralleling Arnold Dolmetsch’s organological work with enthusiastic and prolific editing of Renaissance music, as well as writings on the topic. Cecil Gray’s controversial 1934 biographical study, published not long after the composer’s death at the age of only 36, generated considerable interest in Heseltine’s life. Post-WWII, however, his life and music were somewhat eclipsed in a professional British musical culture embracing a new phase of musical modernism more wholeheartedly, and historical narratives (whether of modernist progress and development and/or the ‘English Musical Renaissance’ – see Conclusion) into which Warlock could not easily be fitted. Renewed interest came around the centenary year 1994, centring on the publication of the standard modern biographical account (Smith 1994, based on a 1991 PhD thesis). This has been followed up by editions of Heseltine’s

6  Introduction own letters (Smith 2000, 2005). In the twenty-first century, attention has again been focussed  – albeit tangentially  – on Heseltine’s biography through Brian Sewell’s 2011 autobiography, which reveals the subject as Heseltine’s illegitimate son. (Heseltine 1992 is a more extended memoir from his son Nigel.) Scholarly attention paid to Warlock’s music was patchy until the 1970s and 1980s, with Ian Copley’s 1979 survey being followed up by Brian Collins’s 1996 study. In the twenty-first century, Niamh O’Hanlon (2012) has explored the previously neglected topic of Warlock’s spiritual philosophy and its influence on his song composition. Warlock’s music benefits from the wider appeal and understanding generated in part by a more or less continuous performance tradition of at least some of his pieces stretching from his own lifetime to the present day. The existence of an active Peter Warlock Society since 1963, with its own regular newsletter, occasional publications and performance platforms, facilitates a continuing flow of short-form, generally anecdotal writing on the composer and his works and performances thereof. Heseltine’s achievements as editor of the journal The Sackbut have been critically appraised by Sarah Collins (2014).

Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine The corpus of documents sent by Sorabji to Heseltine consists of thirty-eight letters and postcards, covering 141 double-sided handwritten pages, housed amongst the Heseltine Papers in the British Library (Volume VI; Add MS 57963). Facsimiles of pages from the original manuscript corpus are found in Illustrations 9 and 10. As noted above, a selection of the letters – comprising approximately 20% of the corpus in 93 short excerpts, linked by editorial commentary – was published by Sorabji’s friend Kenneth Derus in Rapoport 1992. Derus himself acknowledges though that ‘the letters should be read in bulk’, and his editorial matter occasionally veers towards the fanciful side.16 More recently, in 2013 and 2014 John Mitchell published two linked articles about Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine in the Peter Warlock Society Newsletter. These contain useful information (not least, in the second article, a complete index of mentions of Sorabji in Warlock’s extant letters, which has partly informed the choice of interspersed excerpts in this edition). Many readers will find Mitchell’s comments on sexuality reminiscent of an earlier age (some uncomfortably so): homosexuals are equated with ‘mummy’s boys’, and the term gay is enclosed in unnecessary scare quotes. The question of Sorabji’s potential erotic attraction to Heseltine is dismissed as ‘this sort of thing’, over which a veil is swiftly draped with the conclusion that ‘it is probably best left unanswered’ (Mitchell 2013, 9). In the literature on Sorabji’s life generally, his sexuality is acknowledged, but its potential connection to his music has not been explored hitherto. The rest of this Introduction will focus on four strands discernible within the content of the letters, and emergent themes:17 1 2

Identities: religion, race, sexuality Geographies (environments, contexts, encounters and personnel)

Introduction  7 3 4

Sorabji’s compositional awakening and stylistic construction: rhythmic fascination, camp, publication and dissemination Mutual influence and interests: brothers-in-arms, comparative canons and compositions, odd couple?

Identities Sorabji repeatedly emphasises the importance of subjectivity in the experience of art and life. Aesthetically, this situates him distinctly ahead of his time; in letter 8 (March  1914), he even exposes the ‘poietic (intentional) fallacy’ (pp 66–67). Personally, it can be manifested in notions of ‘temperament’ (letters 2 and 3, October/December 1913) or the notion of ‘sympathetic vibration’ (letter 8). Let us now examine the subject-positions he adopted in specific identify categories. Religion The most personal marker of identity is one’s name – often linked with religion via naming ceremonies such as christening – and the most striking formal features of Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine are what he calls himself, and how he signs off. Notwithstanding his given name of Leon Dudley Sorabji,18 and as noted by previous commentators (Derus, Mitchell), a bewildering array of nomenclature is found across the letter corpus, as summarised in Table 1. What can explain this? Certainly, something more deeply rooted than the kind of word-play Heseltine himself enjoyed with nicknames and pseudonyms. The surnames are explained in the postscript to letter 5. Around this time, Sorabji was received into the traditional Zoroastrian faith of the Parsi community, whereupon he assumed the name Kaikhosru.19 Table 1  Signings off in Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine Sign-off

Letters/year appearing in

Dudley/D Sorabji Shapurgi Dudley Sorabji + initial C for Cyrus, the Anglicised form of Kaikhosru (Roberge 2017, 67) + initial K. Nickname ‘Gote’ (gifted, Heseltine is told, by an unnamed friend) appears regularly thereafter; increasingly towards the end of the correspondence, with variant and translated forms from 1920–1922: ‘Grote’, Hircus Olens (‘redolent goat’), ‘Hicus hoctuus Sullabein’ and ‘Gote-Piece’ Kaikhosru Leon Dudley Shapurgi Sorabji Postscript: ‘Thanks for the “Kaikhusru” [a variant of Kaikhosru]. No more D[udley] K. please. I abandon D to the outer darkness’.

L1–5 (1913–1914) L6 + three others from 1914 L8 1915

L16 (mid 1915) L29 (1917)

8  Introduction Personal motivations aside, this may have been a reaction to the feverish militarism surrounding the outbreak of the First World War, the commencement of which is excoriated in letter 11 (September 1914). Reference to Zoroastrian Parsis is found in letters 4 (January 1914) and 6 (February 1914), in the latter case regarding the confusion between Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra and the prophet Zoroaster and debunking what Sorabji understood as British perceptions of the religion. The Parsi-isation of Sorabji’s name and expurgation of its English elements, as well as being a consequence of his Zarathustrianism, was – as noted by Ghuman – a crucial stage in his identity-construction, and a way to avoid what she describes as the ‘travails of bearing such a name, familiar to many children of colonisation. . . [which have been] eloquently described by both Edward Said and George Alagiah’ (Ghuman 2014, 224). Sorabji’s religious beliefs, however, appear quite fluid and flexible, given earlier comments in letter 4 where, after expressing the anti-clerical, anti-Christian sentiments he shared with Heseltine (‘a gigantic fraud’ . . . ‘I look on it with contempt and disgust’), he claims, ‘I am very nearly a Buddhist . . . so pure . . . lofty and noble . . . the esoteric side is one of unimaginable grandeur and splendour’.20 An apparent common thread is a concern with purity (see also letter 6, February 1914), manifested as self-discipline and transformation, corroborated by references to fasting – a week-long fast surrounding the summer solstice is mentioned in letter 36 (June 1922) – and an interest in the occult also shared with Heseltine.21 Race Linked to religion is Sorabji’s understanding of his racial make-up, characterised by polyvalence. Following reference to ‘our East’ in letter 6, in letter 9 (April 1914) he labels himself with the problematic term ‘Oriental’ in an essentialist mode:22 ‘You see being an Oriental I have all the Orientals’ colour-sense, in which Englishmen are lacking’. Later in the same letter he critiques a remark of Heseltine’s about the ‘Oriental sumptuousness’ of Cyril Scott’s piano sonata: ‘Will you believe an Oriental when he tells you there is absolutely nothing Oriental about this work either in spirit, feeling, or expression or atmosphere: it is pure Occident!’ Earlier in this letter Sorabji conforms to a Western Orientalist viewpoint by including India within its ambit, as evinced in a positive appraisal of a work by Albert Roussel: ‘The Roussel “Evocations” is a work of an Oriental Character having been written after a visit to India’. And an Indian identity is embraced by Sorabji in letter 19 (February 1916): ‘Heart mind body and soul I am Indian and would wish to be nothing else, though grateful for the soupçon of Spanish’, though an earlier suggestion is found in letter 11’s ‘We of India’. Sorabji’s Spanish identity is a purely imaginative construct: he long claimed his mother was ‘Spanish–Sicilian’, and this attribution was accepted by associates and scholars alike until Owen (2006) proved through primary research her completely English background. Actually this is suggested in letter 5: ‘I find that English people – . . . with all due respect to your honoured self and my own dear

Introduction 9 mother, herself English, I detest, “en masse” ’ (emphasis added) – a fact which researchers before Owen appear to have missed.23 This identity construction is elucidated by Ghuman with, again, reference to Edward Said’s deconstruction of the Orientalist division of the world into West and East, of which she identifies Sorabji as a victim: ‘[Sorabji’s] development of a sense of many identities, often in conflict with each other, exemplifies Said’s postulate that “human identity is not only not natural and stable, but constructed, and occasionally even invented outright” ’ (Ghuman 2014, 229). Ghuman (2007) conceptualises Sorabji’s identification with the global East24 in this period as one mediated by texts and (partly as a consequence) more reliant on Western Orientalist notions than any lived engagement with or experience of Eastern cultures. To be fair, Sorabji shows some awareness of this in letter 6, where he adopts an anti-essentialist stance contradicted in the later letter referred to above: [a reader of the Musical Standard] told me that being an Oriental, my opinions on Western Music were as much good as nothing. . . . Thereupon I rejoined that being born and bred in this country, my musical education had been entirely Occidental; and that my conception of Music was also an Occidental one. Then he caved in at once. Sorabji’s shape-shifting here epitomises the contradictions imposed on those affected by British imperialism, how ‘he performed and enacted his identity both ways as a writer and composer’ (Ghuman 2014, 245). And Sorabji undoubtedly suffered personal prejudice on account of his racial origins. Specific incidents of racist abuse, manifested as undisguised public rudeness, offence and ridicule,25 may be the source of his fierce anti-Englishness.26 Amid identification with largerscale racism, this is perhaps touched on in his passing comment in letter 8: ‘One day I will tell you some tales of what Indians have to endure at the hands of British arrogance; but not now’. The racism of the imperialist society into which Sorabji was born and in which he grew up was undoubtedly a factor in Sorabji’s self-identification as ‘Eastern’ – opted for as his definition against Britishness through binary opposition  – a self-othering which, as Rapoport and Ghuman both note, became for Sorabji an effective strategy of resistance and a means of escape from a position of racial subjugation. Sexuality As for sexuality, a particular stage of Sorabji’s coming-out process appears in letter 36 I should scarcely consult the Art critics on the question of what sort of a. . . – wife I  should take unto myself were I  of the breed that takes wives unto themselves the which praise be to God that I am not.

10  Introduction Presumably following Sorabji’s own inner sexual realisation (coming out to himself), this confiding in a close friend is a step on a journey both private and public. As the corpus progresses, we eavesdrop on increasingly affectionate terms of endearment, from the formal ‘Dear Sir’ of the first letter (October 1913) sent c/o the Musical Times27 to ‘Sweetest and Best’ by August 1915, and into 1916 ‘tres cher’ and eventually ‘My dear Phee’, which along with ‘Sweetest and bestest Phee’ and variants becomes Sorabji’s favoured invocation through to the epistolary relationship’s termination. By this stage, Sorabji’s envois have also reached new heights of affection: he is devoted, loving, adoring. He often ‘saves’ writing to Heseltine till last thing at night, and seems to enjoy mentioning what he is wearing (letter 3, December  1913) and painting a flattering self-portrait (see letter 23’s ‘My beautiful eyes are heavy with slumber’). Heseltine’s reaction can be partly gauged from his letters to others (relevant parts of which are all included in this edition). This was initially very positive: as reported to his girlfriend Olivia Smith, Sorabji’s first letter is ‘delightful’ and ‘enthusiastic’ (October/November  2013; Documents 1a and 2a), and in a more detailed account for Heseltine’s then-idol Delius, his musical knowledge, taste and recommendations clearly provide intellectual stimulation (Document 3a). By early 1914, however, as recounted to Heseltine’s former Eton piano teacher and close confidante Colin Taylor, Sorabji has become a ‘blackamore’ and ‘appalling’ (Document 5a). Perhaps in response to being confronted with Sorabji’s existence as an embodied mind – as well as the more up-front letter 4 – Heseltine regrets encouraging the connection, fearing obsessive and overly personal interest. The picture of Heseltine which emerges from the literature is of an affable, if troubled, young man; photographs from this period show him to be notably good-looking (see Illustration 1). In view of this, he was perhaps used to new acquaintances developing obsessive tendencies, necessitating periodic and strategic distancing measures. Yet he was surely on some level flattered as well as alarmed by the attention. Homosexuality, at least latent, is certainly not precluded in Heseltine’s own complex personal makeup.28 Anxieties about ‘funnys’ and (certainly) being ‘queer’ may be interpreted as a sign of homosexual panic (in which homosexuality itself is imbricated) in this context. Heseltine’s extended trip to North Africa with singer-friend Gerald Cooper – and its mirroring of the trip taken earlier by Aleister Crowley with his poet-friend Victor Neuburg (also a friend of Heseltine’s) specifically for acts of homosexual sexmagic – may be adduced as further evidence.29 Had he lived in a time and place less concerned with rigidly enforcing binary divisions of gender and sexuality, Heseltine may have felt able to explore a more fluid sexual identity and develop a less instrumental attitude to women. Vacillating rapidly, just a week after expressing his concerns to Taylor, Heseltine performs an abrupt volte-face in correspondence with Delius: ‘it is really great fun, and I encourage him to write more and more, since I find his letters most entertaining, and sometimes really interesting’ (Document 5b). Heseltine is both tempted and anxious, not an unusual reaction to a youthful homoerotic encounter, especially in 1914.30 With his own self-identification as an outsider (notwithstanding a relatively privileged

Introduction 11 background) and linked interest in various manifestations of otherness (see Conclusion), Heseltine was perhaps also intrigued by the (for him) ‘exoticism’ of Sorabji’s Parsi identity.31 Heseltine and Sorabji met in person in March 1914 – Sorabji’s self pen-portrait (supplied for recognition purposes) in letter 7 reveals his self-image at the time: ‘I am very ‘sombre’: les ‘cheveux noirs facés’ of which there is a mop: and gold specs. You cannot mistake me’ (compare with the roughly contemporary photograph reproduced in Illustration 2). Evidence exists of a generally cordial attitude from Heseltine for the next decade and a half – the two postcards (Documents 38c and d) from Christmases 1927 and 1929, which greet Sorabji with cheery enough plays on his nickname ‘Gote’ (see reproductions in Mitchell 2013, 6). Again, however, contradictory evidence appears in the exasperated comment to mutual friend Cecil Gray in 1924 (Document 38a): ‘Not another word will I write for anyone about Sorabji – there really are limits – one must draw a line somewhere!’ The letter to Dowbiggin, moreover (Illustration 11), provides further evidence pointing to supportive personal contact between the two men beyond the scope of the written trace of their relationship; in this instance (in Sorabji’s account at least), it seems their roles were reversed, with Heseltine isolated by depressive melancholy and Sorabji extending the hand of a friendship that was needed. A similar sense of fraternal compassion is evident in his obituary for Heseltine published in The New Age (see Appendix 4). Sexual desire is clearly evident in the ‘nice looking’ young Englishman lusted after in Vienna’s Hotel Krantz32 in letter 33, January 1922 (note the implication of ‘professional jealousy’ – Sorabji styling himself as a male prostitute). As for sexual fulfilment, Roberge (2017, 45–47) speculates on the possibility of an encounter during Sorabji’s trip to Sicily (see below). But the island as site of sexual satisfaction  – while true for other northern European gays of Sorabji’s generation – may have been for him as much a construct as other aspects of his life. There is a sense in which Sorabji may have explored his sexuality through his compositions as much as, or instead of, his embodied life (see ‘Compositional awakening and stylistic construction: Camp’ section). Sorabji, then, discovered his sexual identity while, and perhaps partly through, corresponding with Heseltine. Starting with coy endearments, he confidently embraces the nickname ‘Gote’ i.e. goat  – an animal with strong sexual (as well as pagan and occult) connotations – and increasingly peppers his prose with bold sexual, especially phallic, references (see the penis obsessions in contexts ranging from bitching about Arthur Bliss in letter 33 to the phallic connotations of the paradoxure’s tail as metaphor in letter 36). A fruit of this emboldened confidence is his article ‘Sexual Inversion’, published in the Medical Times (October  1921; see Appendix 2). Drawing on Havelock Ellis, Hirschfeld and Edward Carpenter and campaigning for both decriminalisation of homosexuality and reduction of the age of consent to 17, it is referred to in letter 34: another, this time more public, stage in his coming-out journey which Sorabji also wishes to share with Heseltine. Subsequent personal contact with Havelock Ellis (who became the dedicatee of two works written shortly after

12  Introduction the Heseltine correspondence ceased33) consolidated both his own awareness and legitimisation of his homosexual identity and his considerable contribution to the progressive sexual politics of the time. Geographies (environments, contexts, encounters and personnel) Sorabji was a confirmed Londoner the whole time he was writing to Heseltine – as he was for half his life. During this period, he moved from the suburb of St  John’s Wood, via Great Russell Mansions opposite the British Museum, to Clarence Gate Gardens near Regent’s Park (see Illustrations 3–5) – also home to writers Edgar Wallace and T. S. Eliot. The central London locations enabled Sorabji to take full advantage of the rich musical life of the pre-war metropolis, attending concerts at the Queen’s Hall, Aeolian Hall and Bechstein Hall (now the ­Wigmore), and Diaghilev’s 1914–1915 Russian opera and ballet season at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Nor was his cultural consumption limited to music; reference is made to visiting the Grafton and Doré Galleries for the avid ­viewing of Post-­Impressionist, Expressionist, Cubist and Futurist art (see letter 9, April 1914). About these Sorabji is generally enthusiastic, although with some reservations about the latter movement, in which context he reaffirms his commitment to ‘ultra-modernism’ but perceptively counsels his friend against the dogmatic aspect of such entrenched ideologies. New Bond Street’s Mortimer Hall provides the venue of Sorabji’s first public performance as both composer and pianist, at the Second Sackbut Concert arranged by Heseltine on 2 November 1920 (see letter 31 and references to the planning in 31a and aftermath in 31e/f). Bechstein’s, with its proximity to the Clarence Gate Gardens block in Glentworth St (both in Marylebone) appears to be used frequently by Sorabji as a rehearsal and private performance venue, as well as for concert attendance. Surviving London buildings like this provide a faint material echo of the cultural and social life of Sorabji, Heseltine and their circle. A stronger flavour of the intellectual milieu is imparted by references in the letters to books, ranging from art criticism (Rutter’s Revolution in Art, letter 6) to poetry (Max Weber’s Cubist Poems, letter 23) and progressive politics (anti-imperialist and anti-war pamphlets published by the Independent Labour Party and others – letter 18, August 1915). Novels mentioned centre, for personal reasons, on those by D.H. Lawrence – The Rainbow (letter 20, February 1916) and Women in Love (letter 32, November 1921). Periodicals, of course, feature consistently. Ever up to the minute, Sorabji makes reference to the Vorticist magazine Blast in letter 12, December 1914, while displaying a regular appetite for interacting with musical journals the Musical Standard and Musical Times as well as the more general publication The New Age (for which he was later, like Heseltine, to write). Personal encounters range from friendly visits from William Walton and Sacheverell Sitwell (Sitwell recalled a stuffed pug-dog in his living room34) to a distinctly bitchy  – even camp  – tone, such as that found in remarks about Arthur Bliss and Leigh Henry in letter 33.35

Introduction  13 The composer Cyril Scott earns both Sorabji’s enthusiasm (for his Piano Sonata) and a perceptive, amusingly satirical depiction of his conceitedness in letter 8. And in letter 36 we are given one of the most memorable descriptions of occultist Aleister Crowley on his visiting Sorabji in London to hear him play (following a failed attempt in Sicily), with Sorabji echoing the rhetorical heights of Oscar Wilde. Aside from short visits to Paris (June  1921)36 and Sicily (February  1922) – where Sorabji is overawed by a visit to Palermo’s Cappella Palatina (see letter 34) – the most important trip of this period is to Vienna. Here Sorabji gives an invitation concert at the chamber hall of the Musikverein in front of a select audience of pupils of Schoenberg and Egon Wellesz, including Emil Hertzka and his nephew (‘Kalmuck Litmus’ in Sorabji’s playful nomenclature), as noted earlier. The Viennese sojourn echoes Heseltine’s visit with Gerald Cooper in spring 1921, which may have given Sorabji the idea and some of the contacts, as Heseltine had also met with Hertzka, although Gray’s letter of December 1921 (Document 32b) points to his more direct role in facilitating the event. While Sorabji’s overall impressions of the city are not positive, we find the ‘superb’ opera orchestra and the ‘exquisite’ choir of St Stephen’s are more to his ascetic taste (letter 33). Compositional awakening and stylistic construction Although from the outset Sorabji declares himself a ‘musician, an ardent music lover and a diligent student of our art’ (letter 1), initially he shows no desire for creative engagement with the artform. Instead, he outlines a path to becoming a music critic, perhaps inspired by the example of Heseltine’s (1913) Musical Times article on criticism; Heseltine was shortly to become the music critic of the Daily Mail. The first sign of practical engagement is in letter 11, where Sorabji suddenly announces a piano arrangement of Delius’s In a Summer Garden. The following August (letter 18), reference is made to (more) French songs and a Concerto for piano. (Sorabji’s earliest few songs are in fact dated May and July 1915.) As it nears completion in May 1916, Sorabji asks if he could dedicate this first Concerto to Heseltine in thanks for his encouragement (letter 25, May  1916). This confirms the importance of Heseltine – who had written his first songs in 1911 – in instilling the compositional impetus in Sorabji. He was to write five more piano concertos before the end of 1922; his first piano Quintet of 1920 (mentioned in letter 30 of January 1920 and eventually published in 1923) is also dedicated to Heseltine, as is a musico-dramatic work of 1919 written to a libretto by mutual friend Robert Nichols, The Rider By Night.37 Perusing the titles, texts and music of the earliest songs (mentioned in letter 18), and the first published set Trois poèmes (settings of Baudelaire and Verlaine published in 1921) confirms the importance of French symbolist poetry and the influence of modern French composers, particularly Ravel and Debussy (both mentioned liberally in the letters38) on the essentially harmonic and colouristic, impressionistic nature of the music.39 Scriabin’s influence is also apparent. Roberge (2017, 76) points out that the opening chord of ‘The Poplars’ is found in

14  Introduction Scriabin’s 7th sonata, as if Sorabji were taking the baton from the older Russian and hurling it towards the future. Both text-choice and musical style give Sorabji’s early songs an unusual place within contemporaneous British song composition (more so than that of Warlock, whose text-choices and prosody, for instance, fit more readily into the English song tradition), though less so in a broader European context. And in their distance from typically ‘English’ subject-matter, comparison could be drawn with Holst’s even more distantly inspired Hymns from the Rig Veda op. 24 (1907–1908). Sorabji’s early piano style also has an unquestionably distinctive place within a British national context. Often considered sui generis (as noted above), and notwithstanding Sorabji’s sometime interest in the mystically inspired music of Cyril Scott, which provides the closest precedent, its contextual sources are again more broadly European. Harmonic discussions in the letters guide us in this regard, with their references to Richard Strauss, and in particular Schoenberg and Scriabin, whose music Sorabji experiences in live performance and through scores (we learn that ‘Breitkopf stocks nearly everything’ in letter 4), no doubt tried out at the ubiquitous piano. Scriabin is admired primarily for his harmony, and the derivation of his celebrated ‘mystic’ chord from the harmonic series – see letter 3 and discussion of the ‘laws of sound’ in 13 – a kind of return to first principles. The source of the hushed intensity found in Sorabji’s ‘nocturne’ piano style40 might be traceable to the following comment in letter 9: ‘[Sonata] No 10. . . dies away softly with a beautiful chord. He has an engaging fondness for an exstatic [sic] morendo close’.41 Sorabji astutely notes Schoenberg’s extension of traditional harmonic principles ‘to their logical extremes’; see letter 3. More intriguing is the reference to Helmholz’s On The Sensations of Tone in letter 8 – Sorabji’s harmonic structures have been referred to in terms of ‘refracted overtone series [in which] the upper harmonics are chromatically altered’ (Habermann 1992, 374). Heseltine, while ‘his’ Concerto is still in progress, is astonished by Sorabji’s ability to assimilate and transcend influences from Scriabin, Ravel and Stravinsky to powerful expressive ends (see Documents 20a and 23a). He is even more struck by the composer’s own performance of his 1919 Sonata no 1 less for its perceived technical control and innovation than for its passionately expressive affect (Document 30a), especially in the context of ‘these attenuated days’ – a reference to the new post-war aesthetic of restraint. As noted, Heseltine was moved to promote the premiere of this work in Sorabji’s first public appearance as a pianist (see again Documents 31–31f ). While the piece is a single movement of a relatively modest twenty-minute scope, the subsequent sonatas, which followed in 1920 and 1922, are considerably more ambitious in scale, occupying respectively almost an hour, then an hour and a half. The incipient gigantism may have been inspired by a performance by Benno Moiseiwitsch of John Powell’s hour-plus Sonata Teutonica, which Sorabji attended in March 1914 (see letter 8). The pre-WWI period was of course characterised by what Richard Taruskin has termed ‘maximalism’. Ghuman has suggested this trend – combined with the influence of Busoni, himself no minimalist – is a more likely explanation for Sorabji’s extended durations than the Indian raga

Introduction 15 performances they have also sometimes been linked to (Ghuman 2014, 228, 234). Indeed, no evidence is forthcoming from the Heseltine letters to suggest Indian music was the starting concept. Such influence is seen more in the decorative aspects of Sorabji’s nocturne-style melodic writing (though Debussy’s melodic arabesques could also be cited here) and occasional pianistic evocations of drone instruments such as the tambura.42 What may be an explicit influence from Indian music is his use of uneven and/or very extended bar lengths. The use of different ascending and descending scale forms in Sorabji’s music is also a feature of certain ragas, although Habermann links this characteristic to Busoni’s championing of new scale patterns in his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music (1992, 377–379). Rhythmic fascination Sorabji’s rhythmic innovations – fully evident in his first decade of composing – take the flexibility of Debussy’s approach and the prosodic rhythms of Schoenberg a stage or two further, characterised by polyrhythmic complexity, irrational values (including irregular irrationals) and, at times, nested tuplets. A representative example, from one of his most celebrated works, is page 13 from Le Jardin Parfumé (Illustration 6).43 Lisa Hardy (2001) links the use of irrationals to the music’s improvisatory sound, understanding them as ‘a logical development of Chopin’s piano writing and early Scriabin, where irregular groups of notes in one hand are required to fit against a regular accompaniment in the other’. Sorabji takes away the regular side of the equation, however, leading to what Hardy terms ‘an unprecedented degree of complexity’ (107). Nested tuplets – while they can be found in Wagner – are more associated with later twentieth-century schools such as the British complexity composers (as Hardy notes). In letter 8, the ‘unfettered rhythms’ of Kodály’s Hungarian folk song arrangements are contrasted favourably with the ‘vulgar jumpy rhythms’ of Liszt’s Hungarian rhapsodies. And the piano part of Scriabin’s Prometheus is praised for being ‘rhythmically . . . the most fascinating as well as the most difficult thing I know’. There is an element of complication for its own sake here: Sorabji’s rhythms are sometimes mathematically incorrect (see Habermann 1992, 384–385; also Abrahams 2002) or likely to be impractical/ ineffective in performance. In some early works the rhythmic variety, even where rhythmic figures are uncomplicated, mitigates against projection in performance and memorability for the listener. See, for instance, the first bar of the piano part (the sixth and seventh staves from the bottom) in Illustration 7, from Sorabji’s first Concerto. The last bar of the published Concerto II in Illustration 8, with its combination of such solecisms as placing fermatas above irrational groupings in the violin parts while omitting corresponding fermatas in other instrumental staves, is likely to alarm some twenty-first-century composition teachers. These phenomena point towards an augenmusik blinding potential score-readers with (sometimes inappropriately applied) rhythmic science. While this might represent a response to an inferiority complex regarding lack of institutional musical training, it may also be an attempt to capture the rhythmic flexibility of non-Western

16  Introduction music, and thus aligned with racial and other identity-construction (his music is as rhythmically and metrically flexible and fluid as his sense of self). Or simply an attempt to capture the spontaneity of improvisation, as suggested by his comment reported by Lambert, ‘it’s just a swurge’44 – a precedent for the kind of ‘free time’ bars employed in later twentieth-century music. Rhythmic, textural and other aspects of Sorabji’s music may further be understood as a manifestation of camp. Camp With his music’s general lack of explicit topical references, other than its welldefined ‘nocturne’ or ‘jangal’ topics (Habermann 1992; Ghuman 2014), Sorabji isn’t usually read as a camp composer, notwithstanding a certain campness identifiable in the discourse of certain letters (mentioned earlier) and, perhaps, aspects of his persona.45 And, as already noted, the potential connection between his sexuality and his music, for which camp is a possible vehicle, has not previously been explored in the literature. Yet Sorabji’s maximalist approach (the lavish demands of some orchestral scores; the rhythmic and – later – contrapuntal complexity; the sheer density of harmonic texture and polyphonic lines; the extremes of dynamic and texture from the noisiest climax to the most static pianissimo; the rising and falling registral gestures prominent in, for instance, the first two piano concertos; the extra-musical references to hot and steamy and environments) has some connection with Freya Jarman-Ivens’s (2009) characterisation of musical camp: ‘a sense of exaggeration, flamboyance . . . achieved in part through an overworked system of tension and release’ (202). Some of this exaggerated flamboyance may of course be ascribed to the performative aspects of such music, but Sorabji’s active agency in performing his own music, especially in its earliest performances, imbricates him strongly in its performed realisation as well as its notated content. Sorabji’s ‘multiple hand’ piano textures (an extension of the ‘third hand’ illusion devised in the nineteenth-century piano scores of Thalberg and Liszt) create sound-worlds which are both complex and sensuous – ‘his hands are everywhere!’, we marvel, and ‘camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface and style’46 (Sontag 1967, 278). Sorabji highlights the decorative aspects of his own work: A piano concerto . . . may be linked, in the case of . . . the writer’s own contributions to the form, to those intricate and highly wrought Chinese embroideries, in which, or through, a background already closely worked, runs a motif itself, independently of and yet homogenously with the whole, a tissue of still more elaborate workmanship. (1932a, 66) This characteristic was particularly noted by Cecil Gray: ‘his invention in minutiae of figuration and decoration is quite remarkable’ (Gray 1929, 437). Moreover, Sorabji’s projection of pre-war maximalism, via a sequence of increasingly ambitious works (the expanding piano sonatas; the first organ symphony of 1924;

Introduction  17 the 64 variations and fugue on Dies Irae of 1923–1926 – see reference below), into the radically more stripped-down post-war aesthetic world could be read as a camp strategy. This is manifested in form–content dichotomy (a lynchpin of Sontag’s influential definition): preservation of the outmoded form of grandiose scale and hyper-expressive intent, while at the same time being progressive through modernist melodic, harmonic and rhythmic content; and in its high seriousness within a more light-hearted period: ‘Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is “too much” ’. (Sontag 1967, 284). Sorabji’s piano sonatas prove ‘too much’ for critic Harvey Grace. Eager to hear the potentially ‘wildly exciting’ no 1, notwithstanding his alarm over its manual exigencies (see Document 31h), he seems, like Adrian Allinson, exhausted by the composer’s performance of it (as reported in letter 36). Grace’s repeated insistence – with which Williams (1924, 318) concurred – on the pianola as the most appropriate means of realising Sorabji’s music could be viewed as an attempt to dehumanise and disembody it, thereby neutralising its worrying campness. Heseltine, on the other hand, is almost literally swept off his feet. Returning to the discussion earlier: the attempted seduction of Heseltine, which failed when Sorabji used words, succeeds through his performance of his own music. Heseltine reveals his attraction to Sorabji – this time as embodied emotion, not pure mind or spirit – through his joy in his music. Browne (1930) was also impressed (in a more modest way) with the sweeping élan of Sonata 1: ‘The “line” has an almost Straussian design of the Heldenleben period’ (11).47 In turn, Sorabji’s sexuality may be seen as operating through his music as much as, or rather than, through his body. While he later published a rejection of the Freudian notion of sublimation (Sorabji 1932b), he clearly delighted in figuring sexual activity musically, as revealed by Constant Lambert: ‘He has . . . written 64 variations & triple fugue on the theme ‘Dies Irae’ – the last 7 variations are labelled after the 7 deadly sins – he pointed out with undisguised glee the numerous trills in the lechery section!’ (Document 38b). Consider in this light the athletically twisting melodic limbs of Sorabji’s fugues and other contrapuntal exertions; the quivering filigree caresses of his elaborately wrought pianissimo nocturnes; the stamina of his extended moto perpetuos (and extended durations generally) trained through the ascetic discipline of fasting and the scientiae sexualis of Tantra and Nefzawi’s The Perfumed Garden (both of which lent titles to later pieces – in the case of the latter, one of his most successful). Coupled with his progressive views on sexuality, the potential campness of such musical figuring of (implicitly same-sex) eroticism could be seen as serving a political purpose every bit as much as his Medical Times article. This reading does not concur with Sontag’s definition of camp drawn on above (she insists on camp’s essential apoliticism) but is congruent with twenty-first-century understandings of queer aesthetics. Publication and dissemination More prosaically, Sorabji develops a strong interest in the physical appearance of his scores, as evinced by the later letters 32, 35 and 36, discussing the minutiae of music engraving and printing as he and Heseltine both embark on their published

18  Introduction musical debuts. Notwithstanding his disdain for any kind of mass appeal, and Heseltine’s honest appraisal of his friend’s music’s marketability, both show a keen interest in the economics of Sorabji’s publications. The latter’s own surprise at the impressive first few months’ sales of his Sonata no 1 is echoed by Heseltine in his letter to Fritz Hart (Document 32a). Of interest also in letter 36 is Sorabji’s own endorsement of the pianola as a means of optimising the realisation and dissemination of his music (previously alluded to in letter 31 with reference to the Aeolian company48), albeit as a last resort. Nothing seems to have come of the various ideas and suggestions in this regard. For different reasons, perhaps, from the contemporaneous promptings of Grace and Williams, this resonates down the years with both Rapoport’s (1976) proposition of computer realisation of Sorabji’s scores before sufficiently equipped human pianists began taking up the repertoire; and the present-day practice of enthusiasts creating realisations (via notation programmes such as Sibelius) of the larger instrumental works for which performances can’t be foreseen. Mutual influence and interests In looking, finally, at the two composers’ mutual interests and possible mutual influences, the following questions emerge. What drew them to each other? What did they gain from their friendship? Why did the correspondence cease? And by way of conclusion: What resonances and meanings does the corpus set up for the correspondents’ and their contemporaries’ futures (and our present)? Brothers-in-arms The two men had in common breadth of knowledge, nervous energy and passionate seriousness of purpose combined with satirical contempt for those they did not perceive as sharing the same values and sense of mission. They shared a confrontational attitude to public discourse, which could be counterproductive. Music was their first and last connection. Sorabji’s initial letter was, after all, an enthusiastic response to Heseltine’s (1913) critique of the fixed aesthetic criteria of the conservative musical establishment (personified in this instance by Frederick Corder) and a call for a more progressive approach considering the contingency of time and place: see Appendix 1. Assertion of the aesthetic autonomy of artworks, yet coupled with the need for relativistic evaluation, is a shared position from this point on, threading through Sorabji’s earlier letters and entering the public domain in his published letters-to-the-editor responding to Hugh Arthur Scott’s ‘Melodic Poverty of Modern Music’, which expresses a related sentiment (Sorabji 1916a, 1916b; Documents 26a & b). This critical commitment was consolidated during Heseltine’s editorship of Winthrop Rogers’s periodical The Sackbut (1920–1921), when the two men were at their closest in professional terms. Sarah Collins has termed Heseltine, Sorabji and associates such as Cecil Gray the ‘radical critics’ of the inter-war years, with a shared commitment to aesthetic democracy: ‘their agenda was avowedly democratic . . . a way to escape the oppressive effects of

Introduction 19 elitist professional nepotism’ (Collins 2014, 406). In part this reflects both Heseltine’s and Sorabji’s essentially autodidact status as composers and critics (like that of their exemplar Delius). The ‘critical fringe’ in post-WWI Britain (which also included Bartók49 and Busoni) ‘passionately advocated the construction of an alternative narrative’ (407) to that of mainstream critics with a more conservative agenda, such as Ernest Newman. Partly as a result of Heseltine’s altercation with this powerful member of the musical establishment through the mouthpiece of The Sackbut, Rogers soon withdrew his support. A short-lived attempt to run the magazine independently (with Gray temporarily as editor) proved unsustainable, and following its takeover by publisher John Curwen, a new editor was promptly installed. Apart from his confrontational stance (see Documents 31b–d), this episode perhaps reflects Heseltine’s lack of experience and understanding of running a commercial publication. His idealism runs aground on the hard, jagged rocks of economics as well as cultural politics. An apparently good relationship with business manager ‘Miss [May Lilian] Voules’ (who also acted for Heseltine in other administrative capacities, hinted at in the list appended to letter 31) soured into acrimony in the wake of the changes in ownership (see Smith 2005, items 699, 701, 708, 709 and 712). Curwen’s new editor Ursula Greville immediately adopted a very different tone, commencing: ‘I have not the remotest idea how to write an editorial, since I have never been an editor before’ and including what might be interpreted as a reference to her predecessor’s departure: ‘I suppose an editor should express what an editor thinks, but if I wrote that kind of thing the libel cases which would result would prevent my editor from bringing out another issue’ (Greville 1921, 1). Plans to broaden the remit of the magazine outwards from arts coverage, including ideas for a children’s section and a cookery column, are also announced. While this effectively stymied Heseltine’s radical platform and project, another aspect of this episode is the appearance, albeit very peripherally, of professional women in the overwhelmingly homosocial world inhabited by Heseltine and Sorabji, notwithstanding the significant but silent ‘offstage’ presences of Heseltine’s girlfriends and the two men’s mothers (Edith Buckley Jones, 1861–1943, and Madeleine Mathilde Wortley, 1874–1959), on whom both continued to be reliant materially as well as emotionally throughout this period. Sorabji lived and often travelled with his mother. Comparative canons and compositions Heseltine’s alternative musico-critical canon centred around Delius and Bernard van Dieren; Sorabji’s started with the more cosmopolitan ‘ultramoderns’: Scriabin, Schoenberg, Busoni; their British supporters Beecham and Henry Wood; and the sympathetic critic Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi. As the letters attest, he becomes much more interested in Delius’s music thanks to Heseltine’s advocacy (with it he initiated his creative apprenticeship, after all). In the case of van Dieren, the testimony of the correspondence seems more social than musical: reporting on the poor health van Dieren long suffered; attending a performance by his wife (see

20  Introduction the postscript to the final letter 38). Nevertheless, he must have been intrigued by van Dieren’s place on the edge of Schoenberg’s circle. Ronald Stevenson (1993, 29) compares Sorabji’s combinations of ‘higher dominant chords’ (9ths to 13ths) with van Dieren’s harmonic practice of cadencing in non-functional dominants. And the Dutch composer’s contrapuntal style may have played a part in Sorabji’s turn to a more contrapuntal technique from 1922’s Prelude, Interlude and Fugue onwards, as it had in Warlock’s own contrapuntal turn with the song-cycle Saudades (1916–1917) – though in Sorabji’s case this can be attributed more readily to Busoni. In more general terms, the kind of proliferative linear growth and sometime rhythmic complication found in van Dieren’s music is also evident in Sorabji’s, although taken to further extremes. As for mutual influence, it would be harder to imagine two orchestral pieces both closer in time and place yet further apart in sound and intent than Sorabji’s tropical tone-poem Chaleur (1916–1917)50 and Warlock’s An Old Song, also of 1917 (published in 1923), whose nostalgic tone and pastoral topic is leavened only by the slight rhythmic dislocation inherent in its (early music inspired?) hemiola effects. Despite his admiration for Kodály’s arrangements, Sorabji can have had little time for Warlock’s engagement with (predominantly Celtic) folk music, notwithstanding this phenomenon’s decidedly different rationale to the folksong-based projects of Cecil Sharp and Vaughan Williams. He does express admiration for one piece of Warlock’s (see letter 23, April 1916) – most likely ‘The Cloths of Heaven’, a song intended to form part of the Yeats cycle The Curlew for tenor and chamber ensemble, which Warlock painstakingly worked at between 1915 and 1922 (not included in the finished version). The intensity of Sorabji’s music and personality may have informed in some way the passionate expressionism of The Curlew. On a technical level, some of the irrational rhythms and polyrhythmic textures faintly evoke Sorabji’s more involved polyrhythmic processes.51 A  chain linking van Dieren’s Diaphony for baritone and chamber orchestra of 1916 (which Heseltine promoted a performance of at the Wigmore Hall in 1917 – see Part II n. 124), Warlock’s The Curlew and Sorabji’s Cinque sonnetti di Michelagniolo Buonarroti for baritone and chamber orchestra of 1923 is certainly feasible (although the chamber song was very much in the air of the period, as documented by Banfield 1985, 324–328). Finally, Sorabji’s compositional process clearly fascinated Heseltine (see Appendix 3a). This can be linked to his perception of its occult potential (automatic writing) and effects: ‘struggles of passion when the soul trembles on the verge of the unhallowed’ (also noted by Browne and Rubbra, as cited above). Odd couple? No letters survive from the period between June 1917 and January 1920, which may be explained by Heseltine’s spell living in Ireland in 1917–1918 (this is explored in Mitchell 2013, 5). Nor are any communications from Sorabji extant after the last letter dated July  1922; superficially, the growing apparent differences between the two men seem to have overcome what they had in common, as

Introduction 21 suggested in the following comment from Sorabji to Kenneth Derus: ‘In the latter years [of his life] I saw little of Philip Heseltine. I found myself growing more and more out of sympathy with the Peter Warlock side of him with all that beer and boozing’ (Derus 1992, 249). Yet both the post-mortem letter to Dowbiggin cited earlier and in particular Sorabji’s touching obituary for Heseltine (Appendix 4) suggest great loyalty and sustained depth of feeling. Conclusion In the end, what the two men shared most strongly was their self-identified outsider status. Notwithstanding his public profile and degree of success as composer and writer, Heseltine always positioned himself thus. Having perused his collected letters, Wright (2006) concludes: ‘One is left with the sense that Heseltine never really fitted in anywhere’ (193). As already noted, Heseltine’s interest in Irish and other cultures subjugated by English imperialism, and his critical engagement with the musical culture and expression of both a pre-imperial England and other European countries, attest to his feeling of liminality. Such interests were not unique to him: Moeran (who became very much part of Heseltine’s inner circle) spent considerable time in Ireland, as did Bax, who also participated in Irish nationalist movements. Ghuman concludes that in light of the growing interest in Sorabji, ‘it is no longer possible to dismiss even perhaps the strangest figure in the British musical scene as merely a curiosity’ (2014, 5) and calls for a repositioning of Sorabji (and others) within an England ‘as part of a networked culture in multivoiced conversation with . . . peoples under colonial rule’ (6). This argument for developing greater complexity and nuance in relation to established narratives of English/British music of the period is ongoing. The narrative of the ‘English Musical Renaissance’ (EMR) promulgated in the early to mid-twentieth century proposed the development and flowering of a specifically English compositional idiom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (fostered in particular by the Royal College of Music under Parry), equal to but distinct from those of major continental European nations, especially the previously dominant Germany. As subsequent research has shown, the early twentieth century and inter-war period did indeed see a wide range of compositional practices and productions being pursued and created in England (and the other countries of Britain).52 But  – while the phrase is used by different writers to encompass different groups of composers – as the core EMR ideology defined success according to how well music configured ‘Englishness’, composers were variously co-opted or excluded according to power status and ideological fitness (unsurprisingly, Sorabji was excluded on both counts). A  strongly imperialistic, normalising notion of Englishness defined by language (including non-verbal language) subsumed whole cultures and countries, as articulated in this relatively late adumbration of the thesis in Howes (1966): ‘Made in England’ was Walker’s definition of England’s music. . . . England in this case includes Britain, the lesser envelops the greater, for it would be as

22  Introduction uncouth to speak of British music as it would be of the British language. The tradition of serious musical composition . . . is English. There is the English language and there are the Celtic languages.  .  .  . Music corresponds sufficiently closely to this geographical distribution of languages, and, though it may be granted that Welsh, Irish. . . [and] Scottish folk music show distinctive traits, it is only an excess of local patriotism which will declare that the music of [Royal Academy of Music director] Mackenzie and [RCM professor of composition] Stanford . . . is Scottish and Irish and not English music. A Scot and an Irishman had a hand in the English renaissance, but the music they wrote was English music, though actually it was not English enough to break decisively with continental traditions. The next generation, of which the chief figures are Holst and Vaughan Williams, made the decisive break with continental training, returned to a study of our native idiom and re-established English music as an independent member of the European family and no longer a poor relation. (21–22) This narrative and its attendant project of ‘constructing a[n English] national music’ has been critiqued since at least the fin-de-siècle, with Stradling and Hughes (1993, 2001) questioning the success of the project as well as the ideological foundation of its construction. Matthew Riley (2010) and his authors have challenged the narrative’s constructions of isolationism and exceptionalism to show their subjects’ consistent engagement with early (continent-wide) modernism. That England had a networked musical culture, not only with its dominions but, predominantly, with fellow European countries, is attested not least by the strong continental interests and connections of such central figures as Vaughan Williams, Holst and Bridge. It is confirmed in the pages which follow. Critiques of the EMR and other simplistic, nativist narratives continue to be required, and this critical work continues as the history of English and British Music in the early twentieth century carries on being (re-)written. These new histories, building on the work of the scholars cited above in relation to Holst, Scott and Foulds, ought to find room – or make more room – for such diverse voices as (amongst others) Joseph Holbrooke, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Bernard van Dieren, Ethel Smyth, Rebecca Clarke, Elizabeth Poston, Eugene Goossens and Lord Berners. The primary documents presented here facilitate just such a new historical understanding, and this publication seeks to add significant detail, colour and nuance to the extant public and academic situation of Sorabji and his music. Rather than an easily dismissed anomaly, the letters and related texts reveal a figure intricately intertwined with Western, European culture, engaging with issues of great importance to the early twentieth century and, indeed, to the twenty-first century: religious, racial and sexual identities; the construction of otherness; cultural politics of high and low; establishments and alternatives. Through this reframing, Heseltine and his relationship with Sorabji is also reconfigured. The pair emerge as less an odd couple and more brothers-in-arms, resisting the hegemony of an imperialistic Englishness and consciously aligning themselves with much broader

Introduction  23 musico-cultural currents both of their past and their present. The passionately radical words which follow resonate urgently across a century. Like Warlock’s curlew, they cry out to be read and appreciated anew. Brian Inglis Middlesex University, London, February 2019.

Organisation of materials Mitchell describes the letter corpus as being divided into two ‘chunks’; before and after the hiatus of 1917–1919. Although this makes obvious sense, in this edition a further division has been inserted which, while still logical, provides a more evenly paced reading experience. Part I covers the last years of the preWWI ‘Indian Summer’ October  1913–June  1914 (ten items); Part II (September 1914–June 1917) commences with the outbreak of war and continues till the correspondence ruptures (nineteen items); and Part III covers the nine ­letters of the last couple of years (January 1920–July 1922) plus later ancillary documents. As noted at the outset, relevant excerpts from Heseltine’s letters to other correspondents have been interspersed with Sorabji’s letters in chronological order to enhance the narrative flow;53 while his journalistic voice – both Sorabji-specific and more general – is reflected in two Appendices, 1 and 3. Important public statements by Sorabji are exemplified in the complementary appendices 2 and 4, while other period documents pertinent to the correspondence (reviews; published and unpublished letters from mutual acquaintances; exchanges in the press capturing ongoing debates and incorporating other, sometimes forgotten, voices) are interspersed in the main text.

Editorial practice The overarching principle applied is to render Sorabji’s handwritten texts as clearly and faithfully as possible in printed form. Therefore, editorial interventions/alterations within the text itself have been kept to a minimum – spellings and punctuation (and word choice, grammar and diacriticals in foreign languages) are Sorabji’s own and have not been corrected or changed, nor have inconsistencies in parentheses or quotation marks been amended. Sorabji’s crossings-out have, similarly, been shown (where legible). His underlinings, which range from single to as many as ninefold in expressing degrees of emphasis, have been reproduced faithfully where single and double underlining is concerned; the (rare) more multiple underlinings are rendered as thick bold underlining. Purely decorative underlinings have been omitted. Bold font denotes printed matter in the originals (i.e. letterheads) and (where enclosed in square brackets) editorial additions with structural significance. Some letter dates have been added editorially; in the manuscript certain dates (some incorrect) appear in pencil, added by the BL foliator; alterations have been noted in endnotes. Likewise, as will be apparent from the folio numbers, the order presented here aims to be chronological and does not entirely match that in the

24  Introduction manuscript (especially in Parts II and III). Explanations, again, appear in relevant endnotes. At times, additions appear in Heseltine’s hand (as marked); rather than engaging directly with the content of Sorabji’s letters, they represent the everyday presence of the documents in Heseltine’s life and his use of them as convenient surfaces for quotidian jottings. Finally: in the reprinted published documents in Appendices 1–4, endnotes with roman numerals represent modernisations of original footnotes, while endnotes with arabic numerals are editorial annotations.

Notes

1 2 3 4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

See letter 5 (February 1914). From letter 34. With the exception of two Christmas postcards from the late 1920s, discussed later. As Sorabji wrote to his and Heseltine’s mutual friend Arnold Dowbiggin in 1933: ‘Most unhappily I have no letters at all of our dear Philip’s, I only wish to goodness I had. I have an inveterate habit of destroying all letters as soon as they are answered. . . . But I need hardly say how much I regret my habit in the case of Philip [in the light of Heseltine’s untimely death in 1930]. He actually wrote me a great number, and for at least a year or more before I met him in the flesh, we were in the habit of corresponding at enormous length’. The complete (typed) letter is reproduced in Illustration 11. This owes something to the ‘neglected genius’ phenomenon which is a characteristic of the more underground circles particularly in British musical life, disseminated through such quasi-samizdat means as composer society newsletters and Internet fora. Being below the critical radar, to those thus situated, emphasises the first term of this tripartite formulation, leading to accusations of conspiracy theories and thus reinforcing in circular fashion the rightness of the cause celebrated. In Sorabji’s case, a good sense of the devotion he attracts can be gleaned from the Forum discussion page of the Sorabji Archive website (www.sorabji-archive.co.uk). For the opposite point of view, see the BBC Radio 3 message board at www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F2620064?thread=383 9952&skip=0&show=50#p45108670 (28 January 2007, message 20 et al.; accessed 12 October 2016). BBC Radio 3 message board (op cit.), message 56 (30 January 2007). ‘Autoharp’ is the pseudonym of composer Dave Smith (thanks to John Fallas for confirming this). Ibid., 28 January 2007, message 16 by Ian Pace (accessed 12 October 2016). Who wrote ‘It all seems to us entirely incoherent and meaningless’ (943). Who found Sorabji’s music to be ‘revolutionary’ and ‘baffling in its complexity’ (315). For instance R[oland]-M[anuel] Levy (1921), who found that ‘sa musique parle le français le plus pur avec une facilité déconcertante (his music speaks the most pure French with a disconcerting ease)’; also Grace (1921) (see Document 31h). See letter 34 for reference to Holbrooke’s attitude. See, for example, Browne (1930) and Rubbra (1932), as well as Williams (1924), whose following phrase is indicative: ‘the use of such adjectives as “astounding”, “amazing”, and the like, must be taken for granted in discussing Sorabji’s music’ (317). A register of performances from 1919 to 1991 is found in Roberge (1992), partially updated on his Sorabji Resource Site: www.mus.ulaval.ca/roberge/srs/06-first.htm (accessed 21 August 2018). Such othering ranges from the exoticising and Orientalising (Gray 1929; Branson 1929; Williams 1924 – e.g. ‘His outlook on Art is essentially that of the Eastern’, 318) to the ascription of almost superhuman powers (Heseltine’s own hailing of Sorabji as a ‘phenomenon in music history’ – see Appendix 3a; Browne’s reference to Sorabji’s

Introduction 25

15

16

17 18 19 20

21 22

23

24 25

‘uncanny’ practice of writing straight into fair copy (8); Rubbra’s identification of a compellingly ‘insidious magnetic quality’ in even the score artefact of Opus Clavicembalisticum (148). See, for instance, the research project from UK contemporary music promoter Sound and Music, who found that in 2015–2016 ‘not a single person of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi heritage’ applied for any of their opportunities, and concluded: ‘This is a serious issue for the future of the new music sector. New music needs a broad range of creative voices and talent to thrive, and for there to be an interesting, vibrant and relevant musical landscape’ (www.soundandmusic.org/projects/news-because-its-2016; accessed 12 October 2016). BBC Radio 3 has acknowledged similar issues with the inclusion in classical music of composers from BAME backgrounds, with controller Alan Davey setting out the station’s rationale in this context: ‘The more we invest in diversity, the more talent and interesting art will emerge and we’ll be able to connect our audiences with even more remarkable music and culture that is reflective of the kind of country we are’ (www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2016/diversity-andinclusion-in-composition-conference; accessed 22 October 2016). Most fanciful is his interpretation of Heseltine’s death, which proposes an occult supernatural elucidation. While intriguing, this is at odds with the consensus of the literature, which overwhelmingly favours suicide or an accident (Rapoport 1992, 250–251). Sorabji preferred an accidental explanation (see Appendix 4). An early version of part of this content was delivered at the International Conference on Music Since 1900, Glasgow University, 7 September 2015. As evidenced by his birth certificate (cited in Owen 2006, 44). See Ghuman 2014, 224. See also the list of Buddhism-related books at the end of letter 15 (March 1915). The anti-Christian (especially Anglican) theme is persistent – see also letters 3 (where Voltaire is invoked in support) and 11. There may have been a personal as well as a philosophical root – see endnote 25. Note the announcement of a Black Mass setting in letter 37, June 1922 (though this was subsequently abandoned). As Ghuman observes, in this period Sorabji ‘wished to be seen as an exile who, by virtue of his birth, possessed certain qualities lacking in Occidentals. It was only later that he understood the crudity and Eurocentricity of the term “Oriental” in general, and the assimilation of Parsis and Indians in particular’ (2014, 230–231). Heseltine takes on board the full range of identities presented to him by Sorabji – at first (February 1914) simply a ‘Parsee’ (Document 4a), he becomes more elaborately a ‘Parsee born of an Anglo-Spaniard’ in March 1916 (Document 20a), transmuting into ‘my Anglo-Hispano-Indian friend’ the following month (Document 23a – Sorabji first hints at an identification with India in letter 8, March–April 1914). At other times, in accordance with Sorabji’s 1916 assertion, he is simply ‘my Indian friend’ (March 1920; 30a); ‘a young Indian composer’ (November 1920; 31e); even a potential (if favoured) ‘other Indian’ (January 1916; 18a). In print (Heseltine 1924), he faithfully follows the directions of Sorabji’s letter 37 (including an inaccurate birth year). Which perhaps, for him, included both Spain (owing to its exotic musical presentation in the works of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French composers) and Sicily (owing – like Spain – to its historical connection with mediaeval Islamic empires). Reported in Sorabji 1915. One example of particularly rude, racist behaviour, where an Anglican clergyman referred disparagingly to the teenage Sorabji as ‘a black boy’ on the London Underground, was related to his friend Frank Holliday (see Rapoport 1992, 68–69). Orientalist othering of a less intentionally rude kind is reported in Sorabji (1917), where he refers to ‘[a] remark people have made to me – a remark meant, let us hope, to be amiable and flattering! – “Oh! yes, Mr. Sorabji, Coleridge-Taylor was one of your people too, wasn’t he?” I am too polite to record my muttered remarks’.

26  Introduction 26 Another, anecdotal, instance is relayed by Felix Aprahamian. On finding some secondhand copies of Sorabji scores inscribed to his friend John Ireland in Foyle’s bookshop, Aprahamian recounts: ‘Of course Ireland hadn’t sent them, but Elizabeth Needham [Ireland’s housekeeper] . . . probably thought that here was John Ireland housing this impossible music by a wog who was able to have it published at his own expense and beautifully engraved. . . . Obviously she was a kind of chauvinist who probably thought that a man with a name like Sorabji had absolutely no right to give inscribed copies of his music to Ireland. It was no use anyway, and quite unplayable, and so out it goes’ (Foreman 2011, 66). While speculative, the purported reaction of Needham (who was subsequently dismissed by Ireland) may well be indicative of the kind of racial and other prejudice Sorabji faced. 27 In response to Heseltine’s article, ‘Some Reflections on Modern Musical Criticism’ (1 October 1913) – see Appendix 1. 28 Parrott (1994) speculates about Heseltine’s homosexuality, although hardly positively – it is linked with other ‘unpleasantness’ in the Eton Officers’ Training Corps of 1910 (20); and a potential erotic relationship with van Dieren is suggested as an explanation for his suicide (41). 29 See Smith (1994), 179–180. 30 E.M. Forster’s novel Maurice, completed the same year, provides a classic account of an erotic relationship between two young men mismatched in background yet with deep and mutual personal sympathy and attraction. 31 As well as his interest in the Celtic cultures of Cornwall, Wales and Ireland (in the latter two of which he was partly domiciled), Heseltine also cultivated friendships with the writers Hassan Shahid Suhrawardy and Dikran Kouyoumdjian, respectively Indian and Armenian, and associated later in life with the artist Hal Collins, a New Zealander of Maori heritage. 32 Now the Ambassador hotel. 33 Cinque sonnetti di Michelagniolo Buonarroti of 1923 (the dedication of which was attested by Sorabji but is not actually marked in the manuscript) and Concerto per pianoforte e piccola orchestra “Simorg-Anka” (Piano Concerto no 7 KSS38), 1924. For details of the latter dedication and context of Sorabji’s meeting with Havelock Ellis, see Ghuman (2014), 226. 34 Derus (1992), 239 (transcription of a television broadcast from 1977). 35 A somewhat camp persona is revealed through Owen’s oral history interviews, such as Judith Squarey’s recollection of his greetings to his companion Reginald Best in the nursing home they shared late in life: ‘he would say “Hello darling, you are looking wonderful today”, and things like that. The nurses were frightfully shocked . . . but Mr Sorabji couldn’t give two hoots’ (Owen 2006, 197). 36 To take part in the premiere of his Trois poèmes (1918–1919; KSS21). 37 The (incomplete) manuscript is BL Add MS 57966. A critical edition by Marc-André Roberge (2008) is available from the Sorabji Archive (KSS22). 38 Notable too is Sorabji’s thought (expressed in letter 20, February 1916) of writing a ‘little book about Ravel’. 39 For an analysis of the Trois poèmes, see Inglis (1993, 34–41, 105–117). 40 As described in Habermann (1992, 346, 359–388). 41 Note also however the earlier reference to the ‘curious pianissimo sighing ending’ of Medtner’s E minor piano sonata in letter 8. 42 See, for instance, Ghuman’s discussion of the ‘Quasi Tambura’ Variation 53, Movement IX of the 1930 Opus Clavicembalisticum (2014, 234–235). 43 For analyses of this piece, see Habermann (1992, 360–388) and Inglis (1993, 29–35, 80–88). 44 See Document 38b. 45 See note 35.

Introduction  27 46 Relatedly, Sorabji seems excited by notational flamboyance, pointing out the three and four staves employed in Bartók’s Deux Elegies op. 8c in letters 3 and 4. Sorabji’s own employment of three staves is picked up by Grace (1921; Document 31h), who also dwells on another aspect of notational flamboyance: his Scriabinesque use of French performance directions denoting extreme states of consciousness. 47 Strauss is identified as part of Sontag’s camp canon, and how this is manifested in specific contexts is explored in Franklin (2018). Sorabji praises Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben in letter 32. 48 Preceded by a more hypothetical interest as expressed in letter 15 – initially sceptical, Sorabji is won over by the promise of technological developments in mechanical instruments. 49 Sorabji refers positively to Bartók from the very first letter (see also letters 3–5), and his interest in the composer may have sparked Heseltine’s own later interest in him. 50 See discussion in Ghuman (2014, 236–239). 51 Stainer & Bell 1924: see rehearsal figure S, from the second stanza of the third song ‘I cried when the moon’ setting the lines ‘[where the] Danaan kind/Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool/On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleans’. 52 For instance, Lambourn concluded in 1993 that ‘many composers here were exploring atonality, polytonality, style juxtaposition, spatial separation and indeterminacy in the early decades of the century’ (cited in Riley 2010, 1). 53 Heseltine’s correspondence is excerpted from the published complete edition (Smith 2005).

Illustrations

Illustration 1  Philip Heseltine aged 21

Illustration 2  Kaikhosru Sorabji aged 26 Photo credit: Alvin Langdon Coburn/Alamy

Illustration 3  25A St John’s Wood High St, London Photo: Brian Inglis, October 2018

Illustration 4  Great Russell Mansions, Great Russell St, London Photo: Brian Inglis, August 2015

Illustration 5 Clarence Gate Gardens, Glentworth St, London (looking north–south towards Marylebone Road) Photo: Brian Inglis, April 2018

Illustration 6  Page 13 from Sorabji’s Le Jardin Parfumé (J. Curwen & Sons 1927)

Illustration 7  Page 157 from Sorabji’s Concerto [no 1] (BL Add MS 65183 fol. 85R) Photographic image © The British Library Board

Illustration 8  Page 144 from Sorabji’s Concerto II (F. & B. Goodwin 1923 in Sorabji 1927)

Illustration 9  Facsimile page from letter 27, 27 August 1916 Photographic image © The British Library Board

Illustration 10  Facsimile page from letter 26, 6 July 1916 Photographic image © The British Library Board

Illustration 11  Facsimile letter typescript, Sorabji to Arnold Dowbiggin, 28 February 1933

Part I Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 1 fol. 1R-4R] October 3rd 1913 25A, HIGH STREET, ST JOHN’S WOOD, N.W.1 Dear Sir As an ultra-modernist musician will you allow me to thank you for and heartily congratulate you on your splendid courageous article in this month’s “Musical Times”?2 You administer some good hard blows to the academics and the rest of the musical “stagnaters” if I may coin a word! Although myself a musician, an ardent music lover and a diligent student of our art I have always freely confessed my extremely keen appreciation of, and lively sympathy with the ultra-modernist phase of contemporary music. At the same time I freely assert, as you say in your article, that Beethoven and Haydn do not appeal to me one scrap much as I have tried to force myself into sympathy with them, but it is no good. Much of Beethoven’s music is absolutely repellant to me. To Bach and Mozart, Schumann Chopin and Schubert I am faithful and thoroughly appreciate and enjoy their beautiful works but it is among the ultramoderns that I am in my musical element, there is that in their music which satisfies me completely, what it is I cannot define, but whatever it is, this something is for me at any rate, lacking in much of the older music. Of course my ultra-modernist sympathies give rise to a good deal of offence among unsympathetic “friends” but that does not bother me in the least! I  can always fly to Skriabine [Scriabin] or any of the others for consolation, and it is always forthcoming in very ample measure. Skriabine is to my mind a colossal genius and there is, to me at any rate, nothing in the whole range of music quite so wonderful and strangely, weirdly beautiful as his marvellous music. I wish you had laid more stress in your article on the insensate bigotry and narrow-mindedness of the academics towards modern music. Some of them in addition to stigmatising the composers themselves as “mountebanks” “humbugs”

38  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 “frauds” “charlatans” etc etc etc have actually gone so far as to declare that all those who profess sympathy or who are protagonists of modern music are “humbugs” and “frauds” too; that their admiration is only simulated, for the sake of making people think how clever we are! In a word we are asked to believe that such men as Busoni, Mengelberg,3 Beecham, Henry Wood; and M. Calvorcoressi,4 Edwin Evans,5 etc etc etc and all the composers: Strauss; Reger; Scriabine; Stravinsky Schönberg, Béla Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly; Debussy, Ravel Schmitt;6 Satie; Aubert;7 Dukas;8 Bantock; Cyril Scott etc etc are all of them frauds and humbugs!! Surely insensate bigotry never went to such outrageous lengths! By all means let the academics stick as fast in the mud as ever they like – if they choose to do so it is nobody’s business except their own – but let them not demand that everybody else shall stick there too whether they want to or not. Again let them refrain from calumny and abuse of men whose work they cannot understand or appreciate, and the admirers of the work of the men in question! Oh heavens! How discouraging it is to find obscurantism, bigotry, and narrowmindedness so rampant in music where they should be entirely absent! The average musician I regret to have to say it seems to me like the Bourbons: “They have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”!9 Your remarks about the fixed rigid standard of beauty too are splendid; they go right to the heart of things. People seem to have such a difficulty in emptying their minds of prejudices and preconceived notions. They can’t let a work speak for itself. They must go and compare it if not actually, at any rate subconsciously with something they regard as a canon of excellence. But fortunately nothing can check the resistless onward sweep of the Modern Movement. It is not scattered; it is found alive in every European country. Daily it gains ground and strength. Even now it is of vast proportions; and the spectacle of Corder10 trying to stem the Ocean with a mop is not a little ridiculous! My first taste of modern Music was gained some six years ago when I heard “Pelléas et Mélisande”.11 I at once succumbed an easy prey to this most exquisite ravishing work. Not so very long afterwards I  had my first taste of the great Richard [Strauss] – “ELEKTRA”! this carried me away as it were a whirlwind. From that day to this I have devoted my attention – with the full consent of my professor,12 a man who fortunately for me is of the widest sympathies and most broadminded in his views – entirely to modern music. Every day I discover new beauties and new delights and I sorrow to think that the academic with his unimaginative formalist mind is unable to appreciate and enjoy as I do. Hoping, my dear Sir, that you will pardon the inordinate length of this letter,      Believe me to be          Yours in all Truth,              Dudley Sorabjî Shapurgî P.A. Heseltine Esq. c/o “Musical Times” 160 Wardour Street. Soho. W.

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  39

[1a: Philip Heseltine to Olivia Smith (excerpt)] 12th October [1913]

Christ Church Oxford

[. . .] I had a delightful letter this morning, forwarded to me from the ‘Musical Times’ office, from a complete stranger, by name, Dudley Sorabji Shapurji: ‘Dear Sir, As an ultra-modernist musician will you allow me to thank you for and heartily congratulate you on your splendid courageous article in this month’s “musical Times”,’ etc, etc, for seven pages of small writing!! [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 2: fol. 5R-6V] October 30th [1913] 25a High Street St John’s Wood N.W. Dear Mr. Heseltine. It was a very great pleasure to me to get your letter in answer to mine. I ought to have replied long ago, but have been so busy that I have not had time. Needless to say I devoured your remarks with avidity. We must be astonishingly alike in temperament and it is inexpressibly delightful to me to find someone so completely sympathetic as yourself. I hope that having so to speak “broken the ice” you will continue to write to me now and again and I will reply with alacrity. I know only his Piano Concerto and “Das Messe des Lebens”13 of Delius but I think they are magnificent – épatant – as the French would say. I would willingly give all Beethoven’s piano Concertos for Delius’ one! But tell it not in Gath,14 nor anywhere else!! But after all why should we conceal our convictions and the likes and dislikes over which we personally have no control? It is all a matter of temperament. There are chords in our nature which vibrate in sympathy with the Ultra-modern spirit, just the same as in others there are chords which only vibrate in sympathy with the “Classic” or “Academic” spirit. And do but glance at the extraordinary capriciousness, and seemingly incomprehensible nature of the likes and dislikes or I should say more properly, sympathies and antipathies of some of the Great composers. Chopin could not stand Schumann, Schumann could not stand the finale of Chopin’s Bb minor Sonata! Cheykovsky [Tchaikovsky] thought Grieg a greater composer than Brahms!! (Personally I have no sympathy with any one of the three – but I admire much of Brahms work. It seems to me that Brahms, at any rate in his instrumental works is quite devoid of emotion and a “work of Art” without emotion is, well – not a work of Art; for the Function of Art is primarily to convey emotion, to arouse feeling.

40  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 Coming now to ourselves, we are not by any means alone in our Ultra-modern sympathies. Two of the foremost composers of the day – one of whom M. Calvocoressi terms the greatest living composer, and who is without doubt a great genius – have expressed very frankly their lack of sympathy with the music of past time. These two are Stravinsky – to whom M. Calvocoressi alludes as being the greatest living composer  – and Schmitt the Frenchman, also exceedingly clever. Stravinsky says “There is little in the Music of the past that interests me. It is among the modern Frenchmen that I find my true affinities. Schönberg is one of the greatest creative artists of our time!” M. Florent Schmitt speaking of the music of another ultra-modern said that “at the risk of being burnt alive in the Place St. Jacques, I  frankly declare that I  would willingly sacrifice for it the Mass in D:”15 and later on he speaks of the “frigid requiem of Mozart.” Anyhow; I would rather be damned with Skriabine Schönberg and “les autres” than go to Heaven with the Corders the Stanfords, the Bridges etc: Voltaire16 says somewhere:– “Nos prêtres ne sont pas ce qu’un vain peuple pense Notre crédulité fait tout leur science.”17 – and this applies very forcibly to the academics – the priests of a worn out and affeté superstition and with him I heartily say “écrasez l’infâme”!18 I hope you will not be desperately bored by this lucubration so will end at once. Hoping to hear from you sometime in the future when you have the time. Believe me to be Your Very Sincerely Dudley Sorabji-Shapurji P.S. Excuse this “disgraceful notepaper”: it is the only thing handy at the moment. Philip. A. Heseltine Esq: Christ Church College. Oxford.

[2a: Philip Heseltine to Olivia Smith (excerpt)] 12th Nov. [1913]

Christ Church Oxford

[. . .] Life passes tolerably enough, but slowly: Mr Sorabjî-Shapurgî continues to write enthusiastic letters: from Allen not a word. Guy Fawkes day (or rather night) was duly celebrated in most riotous fashion. . . . thus and thus time flows on . . . I sent you this morning a delicious Samuel Butler, which I am sure you will love, in spite of its fragmentariness. I do hope you are quite better now, and enjoying your lonely walks again. Phil.

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  41

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 3: fol. 7R-18R] December: 8th 1913. 25A, HIGH STREET, ST JOHN’S WOOD, N.W. Dear Mr. Heseltine: Thank you so much for your letter, a delight both to the eye and the mind. Alack, my effusions are neither one nor t’other: “I am no orator as Brutus is . . . I only speak right on”19 I am quoting all wrong I suppose. Never mind! I am too lazy to go and hunt it up to verify! No! I do not mind being called “advanced” at all! Why what is the matter with it except that being ambiguous it is apt to cause misunderstandings as the following will show. We have a lady friend who just wets the ends of her toes in the Ocean of Music; I  played some modern music to her which she did not like, being a thoroughly English sane (!) healthy minded (!) woman. But she conceded that we were more up (!) in music than she. “Yes” said I fool-like; “we are very advanced” never thinking of the wretched word’s “double-entendre” and she looked most offended, as though I had cast a reflection on her musical prowess!!! I quite agree with you about Schönberg: and do not agree with Mr Delius. It does not occur to one at all, when studying his music, as I have studied the “drei Klavierstücke”20 with my professor, that it is humbug. That contention will not stand investigation. Let us suppose, just for a moment, that it is humbug. What is the object of it? Notoriety? But to what end? People seek notoriety for a definite purpose; raking in money as a rule; but no one can say that is Schönberg’s object! No one buys his music! No one goes and hears it! He is assailed with slander calumny abuse nay even personal violence would, from what we hear, have seemed to have been attempted. No one would possibly incur all this for notoriety. It is ridiculous. Then as you say who would go to the trouble of writing so much as he has done in his peculiar style for humbug; and as Mr Montague Nathan21 so rightly points out: one hardly goes to the trouble of writing an apologia for ones work just for humbug! No. That hypothesis won’t wash! It’s worn out. The Corders and Bridges have worn it to rags between them. From what you say I presume One thing more about Schönberg. My professor and I have discovered that in quite a number of instances, his wildest passages are found to be merely extensions of old principles and the pushing of them to their logical extremes. For instance he incorporates appogiature with chords likewise passing notes; heaps interesting may be found with study, and it is not nearly so mad as some would have us believe. Certainly it is not a “fortuitous concourse of notes dashed down at random on paper” as one “critic” said. These people must lie, slander, and traduce. Are we to suppose they have no other weapons? As they are so free with the use of them it looks uncommonly like it, and I am quite sure it is only used as a mask to their own obtuseness and incompetence. You ask me if I admire Schönberg. No. I cannot honestly say that I vibrate in sympathy with it – (I am

42  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 going to say something more about the sympathetic vibration of individuals later on.) – but celá m’intrigue enormously at least it gives me as much pleasure as the Jewels of the Madonna22 or vile trash of that ilk so-beloved and be-praised of the critics!!!! From what you say, I presume you do not know much of those composers whom I  mentioned  – by the bye did I  mention them? – Béla Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly; and greatest of all, my especial favourite Aleksandr Scriabine. Béla Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly are Hungarians who are thought highly of by M. Calvocoressi. Béla Bartók is extremely advanced; but not so much as Schönberg. His Opus 1. a Rhapsody for Piano is a superb work and quite mild. The intervening piano works between 1 and 6 I have not yet got. Opus 6 is a collection of 14 short piano pieces, all absorbingly interesting some really beautiful in their weird way. Some few are however very extreme. The first is in two distinct keys L.H. Ab major R.H. E-major C# Minor!! Opus 8c are two Elegies very fine powerful works, more developed than Opus 6. and not so experimental, but appallingly difficult. The second Elegy is on 4 staves!! Opus 9. is seven short piano pieces more after the style of Opus Six but more interesting. Two or three of these as of Opus Six are very weirdly harmonised Magyar folk-songs. The last of Opus 9. i.e. No. 7. closes on the two chords of the Whole tone scale, all notes struck pp simultaneously, giving a bell effect. Zoltán Kodaly has as yet only written one set of Piano Pieces Op.3. There are ten of them all quite short. He is not quite so advanced as Béla Bartok but of course like him far beyond the Modern French or English school. Of his 10 pieces Op 3. Monsieur Calvocoressi says they are [“]daring, bewildering little pieces, but pieces which grow on one and fascinate one.” I heartily endorse his opinion. Your friend Frederick Delius would I think be able to tell you a good bit about both these as his name appears at the head of both of some of these compositions thus: “revue par Frédérick Delius.” Now I  come to Scriabine. He is wonderful! His music is absolutely unlike anyone elses. I  know of no composer whose work (later,) is so absolutely and intensely individual. His early works are comparatively ordinary but his idiom gradually grows and expands in boldness till the crowning work “Prometheus” – which moved me as nothing ever did – which, says Mrs Newmarch23 marks the crystallisation of the style he has steadily been building up for the past 20 years. So there is no assumption of sudden affectation but a gradual growth and development. He first finds himself about Op 54. Le Poéme de’Extase a great symphonic poem. If you feel inclined to study his work, start with Sonata No 5. Opus 53, it is a good preparation for his fully developed idiom, and is very beautiful. Work up then through Opus 56, 4 short pieces for piano; Opus 57, two pieces: Opus 59; two pieces, till you come to Opus 60. A piano duet arrangement of this; i.e. “Prometheus” is about to be published and is due to appear this month. “Prometheus” has a very large and important pianoforte part which can be obtained separately. It forms a fine work even apart from its context. Opus 61. is a Poème-Nocturne, a weird imaginative work Opus 62, Sonata 6. The first of the sonatas in the fully developed idiom. Op. 63. Deux Poèmes; short pieces fantastic strange, and wholly enchanting. Op. 64. a gorgeous piano Sonata No. VII. Opus 65; 3 wonderful

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  43 Études in 9ths and 7ths and 5th respectively. These will puzzle you sorely: being marked Bb, C#, G. as their keys. Breitkopf24 have gone and printed on their English cover C# major and G major but this is wholly wrong and misleading. Major does not enter into the affair at all – Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?25 – The original cover of the publisher Jurgenson, says, No. 1 Bb; No. II. C#. No III. G. You notice nothing about major or minor. The meaning is this. these three Études are in his scale starting from Bb, C#, and G respectively as its keynote. What that scale is you I daresay know already; however I will tell you later on. Just recently has appeared another batch of Scriabine; 3 new Sonatas Op 66, 68, 70; i.e. Nos VIII, IX, and X and Deux Préludes Op 67 and Deux Poemes Op 69. They are all most beautiful; to me that is; for I think this music among the most strangely but wondrously beautiful ever written. It satisfies me utterly. It is transcendental Music; it is charged with a mysterious unearthly quality and a sort of exstasy emanating from a higher and loftier plane of existence. Scriabine is a theosophist; and a very ardent one. For him Art and religion are indissolubly bound up together. Art to him is one manifestation of the Divine Activity. Hence it is that his music has this wonderful intensely spiritual quality. It glows with a sort of radiance as from some mighty Mahatma26 it is indeed such music as he might hear in his expedition on to the higher planes. It is essentially, as you will see mystical. I do hope you would like it! Now a word about his harmony. It is founded largely on a scale derived from the harmonic series: it consists of the following

Musical example 1.1  Scriabin’s scale derived from the harmonic series

as you will see derived almost directly from the harmonic series; so thoroughly natural and scientific: from it the following is one chord he gets: –

Musical example 1.2  Scriabin’s ‘mysteriously beautiful’ chord

a mysteriously beautiful one. Of course he transposes this scale freely and takes any note as his starting point. I shall never forget the performance of Prometheus at Queen’s Hall27 last February, under Wood. It was so sublime to me, as to be almost painful: the exstasy and gloriousness of it! And people hissed and laughed!!!! No composer living or dead has written or could write music so transcendental as this: Scriabine stands absolutely alone, but what an isolation! what an eminence!!

44  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 Oh! dear oh! dear! don’t go and think me a damned fool for drivelling on like this, but when I  get on to my beloved Scriabine my pen runs away with me! I don’t suppose you will ever have the patience to wade through this desperate farrago of rot! But please bear with one who passionately admires his Music; for I know you do too. I said something some pages back about sympathetic vibration. We human beings are temperamentally like stretched strings. In some the material of the string is fine pure and very highly strung. In others the string is as it were coarse and heavy and slack. The former will respond to vibrating impulses so faint, so delicate as to be almost imperceptible or wholly so by others. The latter will vibrate to nothing short of an Earthquake. Now no string can vibrate, no matter how fine it be or how highly strung, to all vibrating impulses; it will only respond to a certain definite series; its own harmonic series. The Various schools of Music and Composers are represented in this analogy by certain vibratory impulses: “notes”. Now because a string will not respond sympathetically to certain notes it is absurd to blame the string and unjust to call it deficient in sensitiveness or sympathetic qualities. So also, I hold it is absurd and unjust for anyone to blame us for not “vibrating in sympathy” with old Music. It is a fixed and immutable thing this Temperament, – the very word itself is used with regard to tuning. Now in dealing with Music, Musicians and Critics treat everything as though fixed by certain immutable laws and standards entirely ignoring the one great vital factor temperament. It is difference of temperament gives us different kinds of Music from different composers, yet this all-important factor is ignored! Critics forget too that they are unconsciously influenced by temperament in their judgments. They may deny it, but nevertheless it is so. With the best will in the world it is impossible to be uninfluenced by temperament in judgments on Art and Music and until critics recognise that and make allowances for it, so long shall we have the same old bigotry, narrowmindedness, obscurantism, etc. Do you not think that all the fuss about “Parsifal’s” being performed outside Bayreuth a little silly?28 People are talking of its being torn from its sanctuary and desecrated by being performed elsewhere than at Bayreuth! I cannot understand what constitutes the peculiar “sanctity” of [“]Parsifal” beyond the fact that it deals with incidents of religious superstition of rather an outrageous kind! And what is the desecration in its being performed elsewhere that at Bayreuth? be it never so “sacro-sanct?” It would be about as sensible to make a fuss about the performance of “High Mass” anywhere else than at St. Peter’s in Rome; why not talk about its being torn from its “sanctuary” “desecrated” and so on? In defence of this attitude it is urged that Wagner himself never wished it performed anywhere but at Bayreuth. To that I reply. No genius has any right to lock up in one difficult and costly-accessible corner of the world, a work of supreme art even his own. Great Art is universal. It should not be made the monopoly of a few. Then again we do not hear very complimentary things of Bayreuth itself. I have heard from Germans themselves that you should no longer go to B. to see Wagner beautifully performed; & that it has lost its former greatness and become simply a money making concern. Moreover; why should we pay dearly who can ill afford it to go to B. to see “Parsifal,” in order to fill Frau Cosima’s already

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  45 bulging pockets, still fuller? All the talk about B. and Parsifal is disgusting cant, and hypocrisy. God knows, no one would sooner cry out against real desecration of Parsifal, as indeed I do, on the Cinema and by Wood at the Colyseum.29 But why so much fuss about Parsifal and not a single word of protest from anyone when masterpieces like “Britannicus”30 and “Macbeth” are desecrated on the Cinema in very truth? This is surely as bad as the other. I wrote in this strain to the Editor of the Musical Standard; wherein the “desecration” and “torn from its sanctuary” business occurred. The Editor wrote back to say he was sorry he could not publish my letter; as it “controverts in nearly every point, the ideal point of view!”!!!!!!! I incidentally protested against cant, humbug, hypocrisy, and sickly sentimentality; so presumably the “ideal point of view” compromises these????? Your story of your curaté clergyman and Schönberg is very amusing. Do your words mean that S.’s wife is an Englishwoman? That sounds quite interesting.31 Oh these clerics as you rightly say! We have been hearing some funny things about some of them too lately!! They who live in glass houses –——————! I always think of Voltaires two wicked little lines: “Nos prêtres ne sont pas ce qu’un vain peuple pense, Notre crédulité fait tout leur science” –! I feel very sorry for you in Oxford.32 You must feel like a fish out of water – musically in that Toriest of Tory towns. My old Tutor is an Oxford Man and anything in the least progressive is anathema to him. “Stagnation” seems to be their motto! I do hope you will write to me again when you have sufficiently recovered from this effusion! Kindest Regards Believe me Yours Very Sincerely Dudley Sorabjî-Shapurjî P.S. It is past midnight; and I am up writing this in my gown when I ought to be in bed fast asleep as my mother thinks I am!!!!

[3a: Philip Heseltine to Frederick Delius (excerpt)] 28th December 1913 Cefn-Bryntalch33 Abermule Montgomeryshire [. . .] My article in the Musical Times brought me a long and enthusiastic letter from an interesting person of the name of Dudley Sorabjî-Shapurgî, who lives at

46  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 St John’s Wood! He seems to be a very keen musician, with a hatred of the classics which exceeds even mine. He is very interesting, since he tells me all about composers of whom I know nothing. His last letter ran to more than twenty pages! He is very enthusiastic about the modern Hungarians, Bela Bartok, and Zoltan Kodaly (whose works you ‘edited’!!). He informs me that ‘Kodaly is not quite so advanced as Bela Bartok, but of course like him far beyond the modern French or English school’. From what I remember of the pieces I saw at Grez, he is considerably behind any school I have yet come across! – but still, I am glad he likes them! But, for him, Scriabine is the greatest musician that ever lived! He goes into extasies about him for pages on end! I am afraid I must confess to complete ignorance of this composer, save for a few early works. ‘Prometheus’ seems to be his masterpiece . . . I was in London for ten days at the beginning of the month and went to some interesting concerts: one consisted of the works of Ravel (chamber music and songs); the composer was present and was received with immense enthusiasm by an audience collected by the so-called ‘Classical Concert Society’! His music interested me greatly, but did not move me in the least. [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 4: fol. 19R-25V] Commenced: Jan. 6th 1914 25a High Street. St John’s Wood. London N.W. My dear Mr. Heseltine First let me wish you a very happy New year! Though why I should wish such a delightfully and exhilaratingly unconventional person such a stale, musty, conventional wish I  can’t imagine! You really are a bit balmy you know! a “korf drop” as our fat elderly charlady would say! I hope you won’t think me “rude” or “personal”! Now I really think you must have kissed the “blarneystone”34 with a very hearty kiss, for you always say such charming things about my lucubrations; it is not pleasant to think that they are not true and hardly possible to think they are! At any rate I will say in all sincerity that your letters are always a very great delight to me. You are a man after my own heart; and I am sure I have never come across anyone so completely sympathetic as yourself outside my mother, who feels and thinks as I do. (Fortunately for me I am an only child! But you would never believe the amount of wasted sympathy I come in for from some people! “Poor boy!” they say “how sad! no brothers or sisters & no young companionship!” It is in vain that I declare that I have no desire for young companionship; that to have a brother or sister would make me expire with rage or be utterly consumed with jealousy! I ask them where in the Devil’s name do they think that a boy of 19 or 20 of musical & artistic tastes is going to find congenial companionship among his compeers of that age in England, where to be a musician or an artist is to be regarded as a disagreeable sort of monstrosity to be sternly reprobated

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  47 and, if possible, equally sternly suppressed. On the other hand there are others who think or appear to think that there is nothing too evil, depraved or wicked for an only child to perpetrate. I have heard a lady, one of eight children, declaim for quite half an hour on the utter baseness of only children! She condemned them one and all to outer darkness!! According to her we could have no human feeling at all! This was too much! I could stand it no longer. “Dear lady” I said, “are you an only child?” “I should think not! Thank Heaven!” she replied. “Have you ever had much intercourse with one who is an only child?” “No!” “Then may I ask what you know about them, for I myself am one!” The poor lady’s confusion was more than sufficient punishment for her. But “what” you will say “has all this damned rot got to do with me;” Precisely, let us return to our matters.) With what you say about Christianity I heartily agree. I cannot say I am a fierce “anti”, but I look on it with contempt and disgust, equally now as in its past history. It is a living lie; a gigantic fraud, and an unspeakable hypocrisy. This last is its worst feature. We often hear it said that only under the influence of Christianity could England have attained its present high pitch of mental progress and to its high standard of morality and its other hundred and one shining virtues. Now please will you look at the facts just a moment and you will see how much this contention is worth. Does not every one know that Christianity as embodied in the Churches has resolutely set its face against all progress in science and knowledge? Does not the most important, i.e. the Roman Catholic part still oppose advancement as much as it did in the day of Galileo Galilei, e.g. its attitude to Modernism, and incidentally to Father Tyrrall35 and his friend the Abbé Loisy36 who was excommunicated for paying the last dues of his religion to his dead friend!! So that the first contention is upset. We should rather say, Europe has attained to her present stage of progress in spite of and in the teeth of the Church. Now what of its moral progress? What has Christianity done or attempted to do to put a stop to that curse, that horror, War? Nay, so far from trying to put a stop to it it has connived at it and supported it. Do not the Churches pray for victory when their country has gone to War, in defiance of the fact that it is praying for what can in any case only be brought about by wholesale murder, unspeakable suffering and untold distress of the relatives of the murdered ones. Further, as regards morality. What has the Church done or does it ever attempt to do either by word of mouth, i.e. preaching, or other means, to alleviate the vast and appalling distress of the working classes in town and country? It simply ignores really great vital problems. Then again take that most hideous of evils prostitution and immorality. What does the Church do? Nothing. So it comes about that in his most Christian country where we are so good that we are shocked when anybody says a few home-truths about the Church but are not appalled at organised exploited vice; the sight of unfortunate women and girls being hourly driven by fiendish and monstrous economic conditions to prostitution and hourly victimised by vile lazy worthless vermin whom it is an insult to the human race to call men – as Goethe says, they contrive to be beastlier than any beast37 – who have so much time & money that they don’t know what to do with it and must have recourse to vileness for new sensations; this, I repeat, shocks us not at all. We call it “sowing wild oats”!! We should call it sowing death

48  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 disease & horror if we spoke the truth. And as I said before, the Church says and does nothing. Why? Well she knows that a very large percentage of her audiences do not like to have their “pleasures” found fault with, and a lack of a good audience means empty plates & empty collections boxes; and as it seems to be the Church’s one aim to make as much money as possible it doesn’t do to frighten away the goose – the aurioviparous goose!! Then again as regards other kinds of morality; is it not a fact that within the small compass of the city of London can be found the greatest rogues unhanged; but we don’t call them that; we don’t call anything ugly by its own real ugly name – so we call them “financiers”. We have a fine stock of these charming euphemisms: “Sowing wild oats” and “Finance” to cloak two of the worst crimes, are not bad are they? So all things considered, I don’t think we can go far wrong if we say with Voltaire “écrasez l’infâme.” For not until we have crushed it will people open their eyes to the horrors about them and demand remedies. I am not a Christian as you say. I  am very nearly a Buddhist. Buddhism is to me one of the most sublime of teachings. It is so pure so lofty and noble, so sublime and satisfying, while the esoteric side is one of unimaginable grandeur and splendour. It is sometimes said that the moral standard of “heathen” nations is so much lower than that of Christians!!! Now again may I ask you to look at the facts? The Burmese practise Buddhism in all its purity, and even the English who are anything but truthful or honest or fair-minded in anything that regards Easterns, bear unanimous testimony to the high character and principles of the Burmese. Their standard of morality & personal purity, is with that of my own race – the Parsîs – whose religion lays very great stress on the latter – the highest in the world. Then again, Buddhism, as does our religion, practises and preaches the equality of the sexes, sexual subordination and slavery such as practised and declared by the Christian Churches is unknown to it. Hence the very high standard of morality in purely Buddhist countries – not China as it is not really Buddhist – I mean Tibet & Burmah & Siam. It is the same among the Parsîs of whom I have as I have already told you, the honour to be a compatriot, on my father’s side.38 If I were you I should get the “Essence of Buddhism” by P. Lakshmi Nasru;39 obtainable from Messrs Luzac, Gt. Russell Street; “Buddhist Catechism” by Subhâdra Bhilkkohu, and Esoteric Buddhism by A.P. Sinnett40 of the Theosophical Society. They are all absorbingly interesting and fascinating works and are bound to do anybody who reads them much better & wiser spiritually. I hope all this is not wearying you. However, enough of it and now to Music! Regarding your Questions concerning Bartòk, Kodàly, Zagòn,41 Berg, here are a few works that may be useful to you. Do you take the “Music Student” by the way? It is a very bright little paper, and very liberal. Monsieur Calvocoressi has been for many months writing of Modern Music therein. The articles would interest you muchly, I am sure, if you have not already read them. However, the List. Bartok: Op 9. Esquisses pour piano. (some of these are quite easy others more difficult, but none alarmingly so.) Bartok: Trois Danses Roumaines: These I do not know but they look very good and not too difficult.

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  49 Bartok: Burlesques. These I do not know but they look interesting. I intend to get them later on. Deux Élégies are very fine indeed but stupendously difficult; the second is on 3 & 4 staves! They are very powerful indeed & on altogether a grand scale. You ought to get them even if you only tinker at them as I have done. Bartok: Op. 6. A collection of short pieces not very difficult.42 There are 14 of them. Kodaly. Op. 3. 10 piéces pour le piano. Not very difficult. (The first of these as also one or two of either the “Danses Roumaines” or the “Burlesques” have “revue par Frédérick Délius at their head. Have you asked Mr. Delius the meaning of this?). These are not so advanced as Bartòk but they are quite sufficiently so to make anybody unacquainted with the later developments of the art sit up very much indeed!! Berg. Sonata Op 1. This is the work prescribed for study by M. Calvocoressi. It is, he says, moderately difficult. It has not yet arrived in this country but Messrs Breitkopf & Härtel tell me that it is on order and will be here shortly. Vilmos Géza Zagon. Poèmes pour piano. I do not know these, but they again are prescribed by M. Calvocoressi. (All the above from Breitkopf)

}

Erik Satie: Véritables Préludes flasques. latest works Embryons désséchés These are wholly delightful & amusing. They have all kinds of the quaintest imaginable “stage-directions”. (These from Augener).43 You ought also to know something of the later Busoni. Try “Sonatina Seconda.” This also from Breitkopf who stocks nearly everything. I hope you will find this list of some good to you. Yes. I was at the Ravel Concert.44 I enjoyed it hugely. But not Kelly’s45 playing or rather “smashing”. I love Ravel. But you must please not go running away with the idea that there is no “feeling” in Ravel’s music. There is, but it is disguised and hidden. He often comes out with a little bit of most exquisite poignant melody in e.g. Ondine, Oiseaux Tristes: “La vallée des Cloches”, the “Sonatine” and the “Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.” The most amazing thing to me about Ravel’s Music is the marvellous delicacy, subtlety, exquisite taste and finish. In his songs especially the “Histoires Naturelles” and in the many of the piano works, this is especially noticeable. He is a most delightful little man to look upon, delightfully Gallic! And what an accompanist!! Your delicious little Limerick I can cap with a couple of quotations from Voltaire; alluding to the wars at the time of the Reformation (!) he says: “La moitié de l’Europe égorgea l’autre a la cause d’un mot qui signifie “douce charité!”46 Dictionaire Philosophique Eucharistie. again of Leo X he says: “Le saint Pere ténait Dieu dans l’éstómac ces mâitresses dans ses bras et l’argent extorqué pour les indulgences, dans ses coffres.”47

50  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 – and speaking of the various beliefs, consubstantiation and transubstantiation he says: “Les catholiques mangent Dieu sans pain, les Lutheriens mangent Dieu avec du pain, et les protestants mangent du pain sans Dieu.”48 “Essai sur les Moeurs et l’Espirit des Nations” On Saturday the 17th I go to see and hear Herr Schönberg! I hope to goodness the audience will behave in a proper manner and not like wild beasts like the Viennese. I am dropping a line to Mrs Newmarch49 – that most wonderful and erudite of women – asking her if she cannot make a suggestion to Sir H.[enry] W.[ood] to the effect that someone be asked to come on the platform and say a few words of an introductory nature about Schönberg, and incidentally asking the audience to behave themselves. Arthur Fagge50 of the London Glee Club last May produced his Motet, “Friede auf Erden”51 and said a few introductory words of a most broadminded and fair nature and he said that in the course of studying the work they found it grew upon them and continually discovered new points of interest and beauty in it. That work is Op.13. It sounded really quite fine making the rest of the programme sound very poor indeed although it was really, – by itself, very good. This argues some very remarkable qualities in the work itself. Of course it is of colossal difficulty there being plenty of places where the Soprani & Alti would be singing thus

Musical example 1.3  Characteristic interval in Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden

the characteristic interval. Now about Scriabin’s mysticism. He is a Theosophist. “Prometheus” has as its programme the teaching of theosophy regarding the progress – the evolutionary progress of the soul up to its union with the Infinite or as the Buddhist would say, its entry into Nirvana and as the Vedântist52 would say, its union with Brahmah. I  went to a very interesting little lecture by Mrs. Newmarch at her club, on Scriabin, last January, for which she was kind enough to send me a ticket. The other day I went to hear Mr Alfred Kalisch53 read a paper, on “what attitude teachers should adopt towards modern music” which was very interesting and singularly broadminded. The most extraordinary thing too, was the sweet reasonableness of the replies of the various academics. Old Cummings54 got up to say something of no point or import whatsoever, and he only got up to drag in a feeble jest . . . . . . . . . “now as to certain modern composers, – decomposers I would rather call them! . . .” Mr. Kalisch I am glad to say gave a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders at this effort and leant over to whisper something in the chairman’s ear at which they both smiled broadly! Dr Hull,55 who is quite one of the most broadminded of men said that he should give his pupils musical diet according to their

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 51 digestions: the young tigers & lions – he was thinking of the “Fauves” of Paris,56 no doubt – he would feed on strong meat & the donkeys should have thistles & oats!! I am quite at a loss to understand the attitude of the “Musical Times” towards your proposed article about Schönberg because since then there have appeared several articles of M. Calvocoressi speaking in a very friendly manner of his music, then Ernest Newman’s57 just last month, and finally your own article about Musical Criticism, in October!58 Has the “Musical Times” changed its Editor since you offered them the article in question? I think you said it was Dr. Macnaught?59 For fat-headed stupidity and ignorant insolent obscurantism I  don’t think anything could have beaten the late Editor of the “Musical Standard” – J.H.G. Baughan!60 According to him, anyone who admired the modern French school, was an ignoramus and “had not sufficiently studied the function of musical composition”, and that “his opinions were based on years of study and experience”. This is a sample of his attitude towards modern music. Not only that, but he would blow hot and cold with the same mouth. On the occasion of the performance of the Op.16 at Queen’s he actually found fault with one newspaper critic who had abused Schönberg,61 saying one of the few sensible things that ever emanated from his pen “May there not conceivably be in this music a great deal more than the ordinary newspaper writer may be aware of?” A most sound remark, and he went on to add some remarks not at all unfavourable to the music. A  few weeks after he turns round and abuses Schönberg right and left saying among other things that Sch. had yet to show that he was to be taken seriously. But this was by no means the worst that he said. His brother E.A. Baughan62 who was until recently critic of the “Daily News” seems to have been afflicted much the same way. One time he would say one thing and the next, say just the opposite. Here is an instance: at the first production of “Pélléas et Mélisande” he was eloquent in its praises and couldn’t say enough of it. Later on he tore it to shreds. How convenient to have the unblushing effrontery thus to perform without a word of explanation a complete “volte-face”, but as J.H.G.B. had a very goodly portion of cheek I suppose the other beauty, being his brother, had a fair share too. And these creatures dare to criticise and pass verdicts on the spur of the moment, when it takes a musician two or three hearings and a study of the score to form one!! Now for the present, I have exhausted all I had to say and do write soon one of your most delightful letters and don’t be too furious that this letter is so long and wordy. I can’t help it. I must write! “Out with it Dunciad, let the secret pass that secret to each fool, that he’s an ass.” The truth once told – and wherefore should we lie. The Queen of Midas slept and so may I.”63 Goodbye for the time being – And believe me to be ever Yours very sincerely Dudley Sorabjî-Shapurgî P.S. Please excuse this paper.

52  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914

[4a: Philip Heseltine to Colin Taylor (excerpt)] 1. 2. 1914.

Christ Church Oxford.

My dear Colin, [. . .] I went over to spend the day with Gardiner last Wednesday, and we played the ‘First Cuckoo-note in Spring’ vierhändig: really it is, almost without exception, the most perfectly beautiful little piece of it’s kind I have ever heard. Bela Bartok, about whom my tame Parsee waxed so enthusiastic, disappointed me greatly; I  got some piano pieces of his the other day, and I  find them crude and barbaric, with a considerable element of Hungarian folk-song and ‘snappy’ rhythms, but harmonically they are merely dull – some of them are in two parts, throughout, but they sound strange on account of the extraordinary intervals by which the parts progress. His style is as unlike Schönberg as it is possible to imagine! [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 5: fol. 26R-29V] Feb. 3rd. [1914]

25a High Street. St John’s Wood. N.W.

Dear Mr Heseltine. I have duly received yours of the 1st, and a great delight was it to me. No, you quite mistake my meaning about Bartók and Kodaly. I  did not mean by “advanced” that their idiom is superior or marks an improvement on that of the modern British School or modern French school. I meant that they or rather Bartok, is more “advanced” in the usual sense wherein that term is used, i.e. greater harmonic boldness and freer use of dissonance. Opus 9 does not show you this very clearly, but then did I not also tell you of Opus 6, (14 small piano pieces but more difficult than Opus 9.) and Opus 8b (two Elegies)? These last are very difficult but I should have a look at them if I were you. I think you will find them interesting. I did, and personally I admire Elegy no 2. a good deal. But of course that is no reason why you should, and if after seeing these, you still care nothing for his music, there is no more to be said. It is a matter of taste. Of course he is not comparable to Schönberg either as regards gifts or degree of advancement; nor is his idiom to be compared with Debussy’s for beauty and richness. I think from what you said, you quite mistook my meaning. Of course his work does not move me a scrap, not like Debussy or Ravel, who enrapture and enchant me. His music has just interested me (especially Opus 8b); but Nothing more. Similarly with Kodaly though not to such an extent as Bartok. You were, I suppose, not at the performance of the Opus 16 under the conductorship of Schönberg himself. It was a wonderful and interesting, nay enthralling experience. The orchestra

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  53 played grandly. Did you see his splendid tribute to them wherein he said that only the Vienna Philharmonic or the Amsterdam orchestra could be compared with them. The much talked of and vaunted Berlin Philharmonic was left out in the cold!! I  really liked no 3. And what a conductor he is! I  also heard the Sextet, which is divine! By the way you did not answer my question as to Frau Schönberg! Please do; I am consumed with curiosity to hear anything about him or anything connected with him. Yes! I and my mother (we are always together, quite inseparable in fact) were at the Philharmonic and I heartily agree about the Delius. They were exquisite dreams of beauty. What more can be said? One can hardly utter what one feels in words; one must “sense” another’s feelings in the occult meaning. I take all opportunities of hearing Delius music. It is I think quite the most beautiful of any music produced by an Englishman, if you can really call Delius an Englishman! I do wish he would write another Piano Concerto!64 Or some beautiful works for piano! Do try and persuade him to think of and in terms of the piano, sometimes!! It is not much use my getting 4 hand arrangements of his things as I have no one who could play or would, with me except my professor, & he has not the time to work at them. I have however got the 4 hand arrangement of the Opus 16. (Schönberg) but they sound frightful on the piano. We did try them through together but the discord was so frightful that it was quite impossible to see our way through them. I hope you have got Opus 19 just published? Six little piano pieces. One or two are really quite attractive especially I and VI. VI is really quite beautiful. Tell me please oh you who know so much about Schönberg, what are the following Opera of his about which no one seems to know anything: Opp 12, 14, 15, 17 and 18? Opus 16 and 19 have appeared but not those intermediate ones. You will I expect be rather astonished that there are 3 works of Rakhmaninov which are immense favourites of mine; the 2nd and 3rd piano Concertos, quite, I think the finest of the present day (with the Delius) and his Piano Sonata Op. 28. Of course Rakhmaninov is not a modern, he is quite orthodox in expression and form, but he has a powerful individuality and these 3 works are full of a beautiful yearning haunting sadness that must make them appeal very strongly – apart from their other fine constructional qualities – to anyone with the ghost of an imagination or any human feeling. But I find that English people – whom with all due respect to your honoured self and my own dear mother, herself English, I detest, “en masse” – do not respond to music of a deep profound nature. At a recital, it is always the superficial “cheerful” chirruppy song that wins the most applause, while a beautiful profound tragic work like Mussorgski’s “Gopak” will hardly elicit applause. It is the same with delicate, subtle sensitive Music like that of Debussy, Delius or Ravel. It always seems to missfire. The beauty and exquisiteness of “L’aprés Midi” or “Fêtes”, the delicacy of a Delius poem, the miraculous airy grace and exquisite taste and skill of the “Rhapsodie Espagnole” never create the impression they ought. Let but the vile bombast and filthy, flashy, trashy, vulgar, crude, coarse blatancy of the Chaïkovsky – (please spell him this way, it is the only really sensible way; see my letter on the subject in the “Musical Standard” of Jan. 24th, over my own name mis-spelt Soratji!!!) – piano

54  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 concerto or the unspeakable repulsiveness of the same composer’s “1812”, assault their ears: – “Rend with tremendous sounds your ears asunder, Wind, drum, blunderbuss and thunder”65 (Is that right?) and bring the house down. Oh! ces Anglais! Do you remember what Voltaire said – more shame on him for it – of the Jews (a sorely persecuted and oppressed race, downtrodden and maltreated by the followers of the religion of Love!!!!) “Nul art, nul science, nul politesse perfetionnée dans aucun tempo chez cette people atroce!”66 Some of that applies to the British, don’t you think, especially “art” and “politesse”! Your account of Public School and University Life are truly ghastly. Fortunately for me I have escaped both. I could not possibly remain away from my mother for long periods of time such as in a Public School or University would have necessitated. Besides a Public School would have about killed me but not before I should have contrived to knife somebody like poor Shelley. Considering too the moral tone, or lack of it in the Public School, – (I have come across a dozen specimens; 3 from Harrow 4 from Winchester, 4 from Westminster, & 1 from Rugby,67 and I never heard nor never wish to hear such obscenity and utter filthiness of thought sentiment and expression, from the lowest coster or Billingsgate68 fish porter. Indeed the coarseness of the latter is not one quarter so objectionable, but there is something far viler and worse in the cold calculating obscenity and libertinism of the finished product of “our great Public Schools,” (!) at least in my 12 specimens. I  hope I  have not offended or disgusted you by this rather plain speaking, but while there is no necessity to call a spade “a bloody shovel” there is equally no necessity to call it “an horticultural or agricultural implement.”; and being a Public School-Boy yourself and a broad and open minded person as I hope, and indeed, am sure you are, you will understand what I mean and my feelings when I came into contact with what I have above alluded to. But this is a strict confidence.) –, I cannot see what moral good one is going to derive by plunging into a cesspool, do you???” I went to hear Rakhmaninov on Sunday and heard him play his beautiful Concerto 2. He is a glorious pianist as well as an amazingly fascinating personality. At the Ravel Concert I was just in front of the two rows of Press seats in the right hand corner coming out of the Hall; i.e. the S.W. corner. I am so pleased to hear that you are coming to London, and am dying to meet you and hope you will often come and see me. I am very lonely; I have no friends at all, except my mother’s, and it will be indeed a joy to find such a keenly sympathetic soul. In a former incarnation – I am almost a Buddhist – you must have been closely related to me and the Law of Karmâ has ordained us to meet in this life. What sort will it be in the higher stages of Manvantara?69 Can you imagine? I expect you will be laughing at all this and ridiculing me. Well, laugh, if it pleases you; I don’t mind. I have to endure so much derision and insult, that a little harmless laughter won’t do me much hurt will it? Now as to your questions. Yes. I have this year given up my other scholastic studies to devote myself entirely to musical study with a view to becoming a

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 55 “critic!” I passed the London Matric. some years ago, and intend now to work for Inter. Mus. with an eye to Mus. Bach. An academic qualification is an enormous help over here, where people are so impressed by tangible results. Moreover the Standard at London Univ. is very very high as I know to my cost and pain when working for the Matric, which is equal to a Cambridge B.A. in difficulty: so there is some credit in getting a London degree. It does at least show that you have studied to some purpose; and moreover the Exams are very searching. There is no chance for a mere crammer to scrape through. I am afraid I am not competent to advise you as to a course of action with regard to an occupation. A few years ago, I had no thought of taking up music seriously, but now I find that only with it, could I really be happy. I have not arrived at a decision without much anxious thought and racking worry, I can assure you! Now for question 2. about a choral work. Well I should have suggested the same as you; the “Gurrelieder”! How about Mahlers VIIIth Symphony for Chorus Orchestra and 8 Soli? I know nothing of it but it ought to be worth doing I should think; (though No VII. and Das Lied von der Erde are as a whole, very weak.) How about “Atalanta in Calydon”70 never yet heard in London? or Richard Strauss’ “Deutsche Motett”. Why not do “Omar Khayyám”,71 a wonderful work only once heard in its entirety in London as yet. Surely such a real genius work is worth many hearings? And the “Mass of Life” Once only heard in London, as far as I know! How I wish someone would set the “City of Dreadful Night” of James Thomson (B.V.)72 which of course you know, or his wonderful gloomy ode (or whatever you like to call it) to “Insomnia”! No! I do not compose! I have not yet reached that stage. I am ploughing through ‘Ebenezer’!73 And now good night; it is very late and I am dead tired. Yours quite as much as his own. D. Sorabji Shapurji. P.S. My name is a curious one. It is either Sorabji-Shapurji or Shapurji-Sorabji but as people make such a ghastly hash of it we call ourselves Sorabji ‘tout court’. We have been called among other things Swabby; Soggy; Soralli; Swably, Sorbi, Soppy Scrabby, Sorabeeji, etc: etc: etc: etc. to 40 places of decimals!! P.P.S.S. Be sure and let me know when you come to London permanently and your address when so you do.

[5a: Philip Heseltine to Colin Taylor (excerpt)] Feb. 4th 1914

Christ Church Oxford.

My dear Colin You are a real Sherlock Holmes! The blackamore whom you spotted at ­Ravel’s concert [17 December  1913  – see n. 44] was the very man! I  asked him in a letter where he sat, and he has replied that he was immediately in front of the critics. Isn’t it appalling?!! I shall never dare to visit him now, and I am

56  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 beginning to fear that, amusing as his correspondence is, I  shall soon repent having encouraged it, since I  am sure I  shall never get rid of him again! He becomes more and more queer, every letter he writes, but it is getting much too personal: I am ‘the most sympathetic person he has ever met’, etc, etc (although he has never met me – for that, at least, I am thankful!) Moreover he is convinced that in a former incarnation, I must have been closely related to him!! What funnys these Parsees are! [. . .]

[5b: Philip Heseltine to Frederick Delius (excerpt)] Feb. 11th 1914

Christ Church Oxford.

[. . .] The Parsee I told you about continues to write me most gushing and enthusiastic letters! In the fourth letter, I was already ‘the most sympathetic person he had ever come across’, save his mother (to whose apron-strings he appears to be tied!), and by the time the fifth was reached, he was convinced that in a former incarnation (!) I must have been closely related to him: ‘the law of Karmâ has ordained us to meet in this life. What sort will it be in the higher stages of the Marwantara? Can you imagine?’. . etc, etc!! He concludes with the wonderful phrase, ‘Yours quite as much as his own’!!! This to a person he has never seen! It is really great fun, and I encourage him to write more and more, since I find his letters most entertaining, and sometimes really interesting, when he talks about music [. . .]

[5c: Philip Heseltine to Olivia Smith (excerpt)] Saturday night, 8 p.m. [14 February 1914]

Christ Church Oxford.

[. . .] Henry Wood did the Delius ‘Dance Rhapsody’ [at the Queen’s Hall] disgracefully badly  – still, it was good to hear it again, however badly done. ‘Enery-J’ [Wood], however, has no ideas whatever, where D. is concerned. I saw Bernard Shaw at the concert, for the first time: he was sitting just opposite us, in the circle seats – he looks perfectly charming, with his thin, long face and grey-brown beard. I  am told that ‘yours-quite-as-much-as-his-own’ [Sorabji] was up in the gallery, but I did not see him! [. . .]

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  57

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 6: fol. 30R-33V] [late February 1914]

25a High St. St. John’s Wood. London. N.W.

Dear Mr Heseltine. Thanks for your last to which I now reply. You ask me if I really like ‘Atalanta in Calydon’? I have never heard it. I suggested it because it seemed to me fitting that a work by a man of such importance as Bantock ought at least to be heard in London once! But why not ‘Omar’? Surely that has won almost unanimous recognition as a very great and beautiful work, and deservedly so – I think. I know I enjoyed it immensely. It seems steeped in the spirit or our East, which is probably the reason why it appeals to me so strongly. I went on Saturday to the Queens. The Stravinsky is wonderful! And so is the Delius. But oh! It scarcely managed to elicit the most perfunctory applause! Oh how I loathe these English: with their coarseness, crudeness, vulgarity, barbarity, and clodlike unimaginative stolidity! Don’t be offended please! You will understand my feelings. I send you here with a slip of paper whereon you will find the opening chord of ‘Promethée’; and one of the themes. The latter is only short, but what a theme! What longing and yearning does it not express; and the glorious harmonies! I amuse myself by playing over in turn, each part of the 2 pfts, 4 hand arrangement of it; and they sound so beautiful even separately! I know S.O.G. I had a row with him.74 It fell out in this wise. He wrote an article in the M. St. abusing modern music: he went so far as to say that there was no real admiration of it in those who said they admired it. Their appreciation and admiration were simulated, false, humbug etc. So I wrote and said: “You therefore assert that such men as Busoni, Buhlig,75 Newman, Calvocoressi, Liebich, Edwin Evans, Beecham, Sir Henry Wood, Mengelberg etc: are frauds, humbugs in their admiration and protagonism of modern music?” He answered that in a rambling sort of way and told me that being an Oriental, my opinions on Western Music were as much good as nothing. Of course he did not say that in so many words but – well I am no fool, and I saw that’s what he meant and that’s what he meant I should see he did mean! Thereupon I rejoined that being born and bred in this country, my musical education had been entirely Occidental; and that my conception of Music was also an Occidental one. Then he caved in at once. Butter wouldn’t have melted in the dear sweet creature’s mouth! He hadn’t meant to go quite so far as that! Since then; i.e. 3 months or more ago; he has not breathed a word more of abuse. I am rather surprised at your apparent attitude towards the ultra-modern movement in painting. Surely you cannot expect this art to escape the general upheaval! Surely it is most undesirable that it should! Moreover what do you suppose that all the modern painters are aiming at? All of them: Expressionists: Fauvistes: Orféistes: Post-Impressionists; Cubists; Futurists? Why just what Schönberg and all the others are fighting for in music, greater freedom and power of expression.

58  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 Perhaps you have not paid over a dozen consecutive visits to one ultra-modern exhibition as I  have, otherwise I  do not think you would be so adverse. Seven times I went to the 2nd Post-Impressionist Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries76 and 12 times to the Post-Impressionist and Futurist Exhibition at the Doré.77 It was most absorbingly fascinating and interesting. The new colour harmonies were a joy for ever. There was a vast deal that I  could really and honestly admire; especially the works of Lemat; Herbin; Lhôté78 and the great Henri-Matisse. Of course there was much that was difficult and also some that was quite incomprehensible – like the “Fête d’homme” or “Fête d’Femme” of Picasso, the chief, and leader of the Cubists. But there was nothing that was not absorbingly fascinating and interesting: and I was drawn again and again to spend hours at the Grafton. One feels behind it all new ideas struggling to light and fighting for an adequate means of expression. To ridicule of course is easy. Ignorance always ridicules, if only to hide its ignorance! But the fact remains that the new movement in Painting is going to be powerful and irresistible as the new movement in Music; and all decorative art is even now showing its influence. What are Bakst’s79 wonderful colour poems but Post-Impressionism? For my part I cannot understand what people found to laugh at at these exhibitions! I tried very hard to see what was so “funny” but could find nothing “funny” except the giggling idiots who little knew what fools they make themselves look in the eyes of the sensible thinking person. One thing that impressed me very much about these Exhibitions was the marvellous atmosphere or I ought more properly – I suppose – to say “aura” – (for it is an occult thing that atmosphere) of intense life, vitality, or “aliveness” about the work of these men as contrasted with the dead affeté flabby nerveless flaccid stuff paraded annually on the walls of the R[oyal] A[cademy]. another stronghold of academicism, that won’t even tolerate such a firmly established thing as “Impressionism” let alone “Post-Impressionism”. You should get “Revolution in Art” by Frank Rutter:80the curator of the Leeds City Art Gallery a very fine critic and a progressive of a very decided type. He gave an extremely interesting lecture one Sunday in December at the Doré Galleries, all among the Cubists and Futurists which served as illustrations. I was present and enjoyed it enormously. Well the Book: Revolution in Art is only 6d. it is quite small but it is splendid. What he says applies to own beloved Art word for word if you just substitute from Music and Musicians for Painting and Painters. Do get it. Have you seen Leigh Henry’s81 splendid letter on Schönberg in the “Daily Telegraph” of Feb 7th and Dr Hull’s interesting reply of the 14th? What a very fine broadminded man Dr Hull seems. I heard him speak at the I.S.M.82 when Kalisch read his paper – a fatuous affair – on Teachers and Modern Music. He is going to do what my professor and I have seen could be done all along. He is going to publish next month two articles: one in the “Musical Times” and another in the “M[onthly].M[usical]. Record” explaining Schönberg’s harmony: which as he says can be done. And I  can see that for myself, in one or two instances. How therefore Lenormand83 could have made this absurd remark that Schönberg’s harmony is absolutely unintelligible I cannot understand. For had he only applied the same methods of scrutiny as he has done in the case of Ravel and

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 59 others; he would have found that in many cases Schönberg’s harmonies can be explained by means of incorporated passing notes and “appogiature”: they all do this: Scriabin is very fond of making a new chord out of an old one by incorporating one or more passing notes into it; which he does with marvellous skill and radiantly beautiful effect: vide the 5 octave chord on the last page of Sonata VII. I  can only put down Lenormand’s myopia to prejudice. Only prejudice could blind a man so. What you tell me about Ornstein84 is very very interesting indeed: but is he really genuinely inspired? Also that he only heard of Schönberg a few months ago is a little hard to swallow!!! However if such a man as Calvocoressi is turning his attention to this fellow’s work I suppose there is no more to be said; for in spite of the croakings of S.O.G. M. Calvocoressi is not a humbug! I was bored nearly stiff by the Beethoven on Saturday. I find myself getting rapidly more and more out of sympathy with his music. This of course horrifies a friend of ours: Miss Mary Louisa White; you will know her as a contributor to the M.S. She is an academic of academics. According to her: Debussy makes her feel there is no God!!!!!! How any music can lay down explicit matters of dogma in religion is a puzzle to me. And how this music can be said to be Christian; and that Atheistic also passes my comprehension. Can you shed any light? To me it is mere wild nonsense. I have never read a syllable of Nietzsche. I once read a bit of “Zarathustra” but was not consumed with a desire to read any more. It made me rather angry to think that he should have dared to call what looked like rather sorry stuff: “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” Zarathustra is as you know the great Teacher and founder of our Parsî belief – ignorantly called by the abusive Britisher “fireworshipping” (!!!!!!!!!!) Anything more unlike “Zarathustra’s” teaching than the glimpse I caught of the so called “Also Sprach Zarathustra”85 cannot be imagined. Of course I know that they are not supposed to be the same “Zarathustra” but that does not make matters any better. That is really “taking a name in vain”! Now as to what the insulting Britisher calls “fireworshipping.” Lest you too should have also had your mind tainted by any such nonsensical, absurd, and malicious idea – but I don’t think you have, from what I have hitherto “sensed” of you through your letters  – I  will tell you what this so called fireworship is. There is no fireworship at all. It is a myth. Do you call a Catholic a fireworshipper because he hangs up a stinking little oil lamp before a cheap Burns and Oates86 stucco figure of the “Blessed Virgin”????? – If you do then I suppose you will call us fireworshippers too. To the Parsî, Fire is the symbol of the Eternal; the Supreme. It is the most spiritual intangible thing on this earth. It is the source of light, heat, and life. It is the great Purifier. It is a symbol of purity. And as you must know that the Parsî is the purest and cleanest living individual on the face of the earth and that purity is one of the great points of Zarathustra’s teaching, you will understand why Fire is regarded as a sacred symbol by us and why it is used as an adjunct of the religious ceremonies connected with the Zarathustrian religion. Of worship of it, there is absolutely nothing. That idea is absolutely repugnant to the Parsî religion.

60  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 I hope you will not be bored by all this but it is a subject on which my indignation always gets the upper hand; and knowing what we have to endure at England’s hands you will understand and sympathise. Let me have a letter soon. Yours Ever most Sincerely Dudley Sorabjî

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 7 (postcard): fol. 62R; address on V] [March 1914]87 Dear Mr H. I hope I am not such a fool as to allow myself to be deceived into mis-estimating a work merely because it is badly rendered!! All the mutilations in the world cannot hide the genius of a great work from a seeing eye. But I felt there was something wrong. I agree that the Strauss is rubbish – but rather clever rubbish all the same. He very cleverly has captured the spirit of Italian Opera and I think that the whole of “Ariadne”88 is a sort of parody on it. How else to account for the wild extravagance of it and of Zerbinetta’s hideous “coloratura” aria?89 Where were you at the Q.H. on Saturday? Tell me what you look like so that I may be able to identify you. For myself I am very “sombre”: les “cheveux noirs facés”:90 of which there is a mop: and gold specs. You cannot mistake me. Ever yours most Sincerely D.S. Philip A. Heseltine Esq: Christ Church College. Oxford.

[7a: Philip Heseltine to Edith Buckley Jones (excerpt)] March 25th 1914

CRANSTON’S IVANHOE HOTEL. BLOOMSBURY STREET LONDON. W.C.

[. . .] I am still very despondent about finding anything to do, and the prospect of a further sojourn in Oxford is depressing to the last degree. Last week I had a talk with Ernest Newman, to whom Gardiner was kind enough to introduce me: he was of the opinion that the only way to become competent as a critic was to know as much music as possible – to hear it and to study it for oneself. The old, theoretical training in (so-called) harmony and counterpoint, etc, was of no use whatever.

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  61 All one must do is to absorb as much music as possible, and write essays on one’s own account, with a view to getting them accepted and thus becoming sufficiently well-known to be able to get a permanent engagement with some paper. This, of course, one can hardly do elsewhere but in London, which is the only real musical centre in this country. My Parsee correspondent whom I met at a concert last Monday [23 March], is, I imagine, doing exactly this same thing, with a view to becoming a critic. [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 8: fol. 34R-45V] March. Early. [1914] 25A, HIGH STREET, ST JOHN’S WOOD, N.W. Dear Mr Heseltine; I am starting to write you a letter today. I shall do it in bits and drabs, as things I want to say occur to me. I got a copy of the Dale Piano Sonata.91 I am indeed amazed that you should have spoken so finely of the thing! To me it is empty, bombastic and uninteresting, “full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”92 It shows in the first and last movements decided influence of Macdowell whose Sonate Eroica and Tragica are in my opinion – not worth much, I guess you will say to yourself – vastly superior to it. I ask you what is there in that Sonata fit to be mentioned in the same breath with Rakhmaninov’s Opus 28, for instance, or Sigfrid Karg, Elert’s93 Sonate Opus 50, or Medtner’s94 Opus 25 in E minor? If you want 3 really fine modern piano Sonatas with something in them get these, especially the two Russian ones. Your obvious antipathy to Rakhmaninov is a puzzle to me. I should have thought that such sincere deeply felt music would have been bound to find a sympathetic response in yourself, and Rakhmaninov is full of feeling and soul, and that haunting so typically Russian and intensely attractive melancholy. It is not a morbid self-pity as it is so often with Chaïkovski, it is a real feeling that lies at the root of the Russian Character. And I am sure that you, extremely liberal and broadminded as you are, would be the last person in the world to find fault with the music of Rakhmaninov simply because it is not tricked out in “le dérnier cri” of fashionable harmonies!!! That attitude some do really adopt. It is ridiculous and contemptible. The Medtner Sonata in E minor is not particularly modern in idiom, but it is intensely Russian and quite individual. It is a strange sombre gloomy work with a curious pianissimo sighing ending. It has some curious Russian verses of Tiutchev95 attached as a motto, which tell of the moaning of the night wind and the tales it is supposed to tell. These verses were very kindly translated for me by that most brilliant and accomplished woman Mrs Newmarch. The Sonata evokes he impression of vast cold plains in the gloom of a winter evening; what I should imagine the Steppes or Tundras to look like in the winter. There is

62  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 every whit as much depth and intensity of feeling in these two Sonatas as ever there is in anything of Delius that I have hitherto heard. The Sigfried Karg-Elert is also a very fine work, glowing with passionate intensity and quite modern in feeling. Of course it is absolutely different. Cherepnin96 and Akimenko97 are two more very interesting composers of Russia but they are not as typically Russian as the others. The genius Scriabine of course stands alone in glorious isolation but even there you can find the same sadness and melancholy. But of course otherwise he is like no one else. There is nothing in contemporary music that in the smallest degree resembles him either as regards idiom or the feelings he evokes. He is absolutely individual far more so than Schönberg or any one else. Schönberg has only progressed further along Straussian lines – the old Straussian lines as exemplified in “Salomé” and “Elektra” not in those sad aberrations, “Rosenkavalier” and “Ariadne”. (Someone said the other day that “Rosenkavalier” was indisputably his finest work!!!! That doesn’t say much for him as a composer does it?) Paul Juon98 and Taneiev99 are two more interesting Russians. I heard a fine Piano Trio of the former the other night and a very interesting Prelude and Fugue of the latter at Arthur Alexander’s100 recital some months ago. There was a very interesting account of an interview with Albert Coates in one of the London Dailies a few weeks ago. Did you see it? He says that in Germany there is a conspiracy of spiteful disparagement of all Russian Art. They are he says getting alarmed at the wonderful artistic awakening of Russia during the past 10 years and that they will soon be hopelessly eclipsed. Genius is amazing in Russia he says. It is springing up on every side in every art and untold of wonders will issue from that country. Fortunately they have no cramping traditions and conventions to cripple their development, and still more fortunately they show no tendency to fall under German influence. Indeed, as M. Calvocoressi rightly points out, Europe is shaking off German influence in art and it is well that this should be so. The heavy stolid German is wholly lacking in the qualities of the wonderful Slav temperament or Latin temperament which in sensibility and delicate imagination seems not unrelated to it; I speak of course of the finest specimen of the Latin race – the French, probably one of the finest of the European races today, if not the finest. Just compare German art with Russian. Compare Reger’s Music with Taneiev’s. They are both contrapuntists before everything but how different! Reger is dry as dust! Then compare Bakst’s marvellous settings and designs for the Russian Ballet with Rheinhardt’s much vaunted performances! One could go on multiplying instances. But lastly look at some of the work of the Munich Impressionists – heavy, dull, – and compare it with the Russian Chourlianis101 and Stelletzky102 – with their mysticism and imaginativeness!. . . . . . . . . . After an interval of some days I take up my pen again to ask you if you know Cyril Scott’s Piano Sonata? I know it well and like it immensely. I think it is quite his best work. It strikes me as being more sincere and genuine than some of his other work which feels very forced and artificial. It has not that atmosphere of posing and affectation, which clings around the Poems. By the By, the Bird call in “Paradise Birds” No V. of the Poems is a singularly shameless impudent theft from “Oiseaux tristes”; and like all borrowed plumes sits extremely ill on the borrower. “Oiseaux tristes” is a little gem;

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  63 Paradise Birds a worthless pebble in comparison. Some of his songs are charming: e.g. a “Picnic” and “Voices of Vision”; others are miserable things; such as are contained in the Album of Soprano Songs published by Elkin.103 I had heard that Hubert Bath104 and Haydn Wood105 wrote very good songs. I heard some of theirs a few weeks ago and they were awful! The real Chappell106 Ballad type and the worst of the type too; not nearly up to Guy d’Ardelot107 or Teresa del Riego.108 This is of course just as bad as bad could be. Do you know if they have written anything fit to be listened to? February. 28th. What nationality is Delius? I have it on the authority of a German that he is not of that nationality as this German declares that it impossible for a German to have a name ending in “ius”. It is not German he says. It is perhaps Finnish or Scandinavian? Compare Sibelius. I did not think he could have been even of German extraction; what German could write such delicate impressionistic work as the two new Poems for Orchestra? While it is quite conceivable that a Finn should have done it. Please shed some light from the 40,000,000 C.P. Light House of your knowledge! I hope you will not be so foolish as to be offended because I have spoken rather freely about the Dale Piano Sonata. I have been wondering since I wrote whether I ought to have said so much but the recollection of your own splendid words in that never to be forgotten article in the Musical Times, give me courage:– “Let him feast at the banquet of the Muses as he will, and let no one attempt to coerce his taste: for is not the fact that he has taste his sole qualification for admission to the said banquet?” This was the gist of your remarks was it not? I  am quoting absolutely from memory so may have got it a bit wrong in the phraseology. I wanted very much to hear Mengelberg conduct “Heldenleben” at the Philharmonic the other night but was unluckily not able to go. I heard him conduct it about a year or more ago and it was splendid. But it is a curious thing that he cant conduct “Zarathustra” to save his life. He doesn’t nearly give such a fine reading of the work as Sir Henry Wood. The latter seems to bring out so much more than Mengelberg. I cannot understand why he should have gone so astray over the “Dance Rhapsody”. But as a frequenter of his concerts I can assure you that such abberations on his part are hardly of rare occurrence. At the last season of the Promenade concerts he distorted the orchestral part of the Glazunov Piano Concerto and entirely disregarded the printed directions; playing at a uniform fortissimo, completely drowning the excellent and unfortunate soloist who, poor devil, was trying his hardest to make himself heard. Then again the “Vales nobles and sentimentales” were treated in a fearfully heavy handed manner. It was like an elephant tramping over maiden hair fern! It is all the more extraordinary as he is usually in his element when conducting modern music and as a rule does it wonderfully well. Witness his beautiful reading of “L’après-midi”; which is quite exquisite in delicacy. But you must make allowances, you know. Musicians, and for that matter, all artists, be they plastic, graphic, or literary, are essentially

64  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 creatures of mood. And probably that Saturday was not one of his good days. You know of course that it is said of Paderewski that on occasion, no one can play more divinely than he, but that also, on occasion, no one can play worse! It is unreasonable always to expect them to be just up to the mark. It is not humanly possible. I am afraid too many people overlook this fact. How many times have I subsequently been compelled to change my opinion about a singer or instrumentalist whom on a first hearing I have thought to be indifferent or bad, when it has only in reality been one of their bad days. Why even in my own small way, there are days when I cannot touch the piano and my fingers will simply not go. Other times I feel I can play till I drop. How much more then must his be, in the case of great artists! Whatever do you mean by the “score-stealers who try and prevent performances” of Delius’ works? Please shed some more light from your Lighthouse alluded to above. It sounds mediaeval and Borgian! March 14th. I have been to a whole host of things since leaving off last. I was at the Oriana Madrigal Society’s concert to hear Sea-Drift.109 You will be disappointed to hear that I was not impressed by the work at all. It seems to be continually striving or aiming after something but never attaining its object. It “misses fire” in fact. There are some beautiful moments in it but as a whole it left me very disappointed. It is not to be compared with the two new Poems for Orchestra or the “Mass of Life.” Moreover there was absolutely no balance between the chorus and the orchestra. The latter were swamped and very often inaudible. The lack of balance was further exaggerated by the very injudicious arrangement of the chorus. They were literally a wedge splitting and breaking up the Orchestral line. Surely this is not Delius’ idea! When the chorus is so large it is quite sufficiently prominent ranged at the back of the orchestra especially when the orchestra is so much smaller. The conductor’s antics were very irritating too. Why does he think it necessary to jump up and down like a cat on hot bricks? It is not impressive. Thorpe Bates110 though he sang beautifully was not in at all his best voice: and it was quite distressing when he forced it. It became so hard and harsh. He was obviously tired. I didn’t think much of the Balfour Gardiner111 “April.” But I liked the Gustav von Holst muchly.112 I also went to Benno Moiseiwitsch’s recital to hear the first performance of John Powell’s remarkably fine ‘Sonata Teutonica’.113 It is a monumental work taking up over an hour in performance, but such is the high quality of the music that one was – i.e. I was not, conscious of any abnormal length, and it did not seem any too long. Indeed I have heard many a Beethoven Sonata one tenth its length which seemed a hundred times as long as this Sonata. It is very modern in tone, and from what one could gather from the preposterous rhodomontade and inflated bombast of the “explanatory” (??!!!!) note in the programme, the Idea underlying the Sonata is much the same as that underlying Prometheus: i.e. as expressed in plain language; the gradual upward struggle of the Âtmâ – (soul) – towards union with – as a Vedantic would say – Bramah: or as a Buddhist would put it, “entering into Nirvana.” (The only person who really seems capable of writing a sane instructive, and really explanatory analytical note is Mrs Newmarch.) It is very disgusting to see how Europeans pilfer bits from

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  65 Oriental and particularly Hindû philosophy, trick it all out in their own words which no one can understand – which is perhaps as well – and palm it off as the results of their own philosophic speculations and researches. Not content with robbing us of our country and oppressing us and screwing out of us the very last farthing they can screw, they must needs filch our thought as well. I expect you will have seen quotations from the programme in question? It is ridiculed in the March  14th column of the “Daily Telegraph.” Today, March  14th, I  heard the glorious and ineffable Prometheus with the great composer wonderfully playing the marvellous piano part. One cannot put into words the emotions and feelings which this music arouses in one. There is only one word for it, and that is, transcendental music. Well and aptly is it called the “Poem of Fire,” but what Fire!! Did you hear the creature who hissed? The same individual hissed Frank Bridge’s “Dance Poem” at the Philharmonic on Monday 16th. Was it not quite wonderful, the reception that was accorded to “Prometheus”? May we, dare to hope that the apathetic B.P. is at last beginning to wake up and realise that music does not begin and end with the “Maiden’s Prayer”114 or the “Rosary”?115 I also went to Franz Liebich’s concert of modern French and Hungarian music.116 The programme consisted of Ravel: Bartók: Debussy: and Kodály. Liebich is noted as a fine musician and a distinguished exponent of the modern school but from the shockingly bad way he played I am sure he must have been feeling ill. From Bartók’s two fine Elégies, whole bars were left out; hands came in on wrong beats; chords left out and wrong ones played; and he played from score too! Some songs of Kodaly: harmonisations and settings of Hungarian folk tunes I liked very much. How different are these genuine Hungarian tunes with their free unfettered rhythms and strong Eastern flavour from the Tsigane or pseudo Hungarian tunes of Liszts Rhapsodies with their vulgar jumpy rhythms! There was also played a piano and ’cello Sonata of Kodály which took my fancy very much. I found it so refreshing. I hope you were there. . . The Cyril Scott was there looking round for recognition and admiration. He looks one of the people who ought to have a herald in front of them crying out “Room! Room for the one and only the almighty Cyril Scott”. His conceit and affectation make any decent minded person sick! But do you not always find the third rate ones so? The really great ones are modest and reticent about their work and in their demeanour: e.g. Strauss; Schönberg: Scriabine: Debussy Ravel; and I am sure Delius. The latter looks – if I am not very much mistaken – the very last person from whom one would expect conceit, arrogance, affectation, insincerity, and swelled-head: all these I have found invariably go together. They excite in me nothing but loathing and disgust. The “superior” person generally possesses them all. But oh! dear, how fearfully prevalent they are over here! I find the insufferable arrogance and conceited affectation of many English people unbearable. One day I will tell you some tales of what Indians have to endure at the hands of British arrogance; but not now. No. I do not find my work a bit uninteresting until one has a good groundwork of orthodox technical knowledge one cannot hope to understand music and modern developments which have grown out of the old. This is why in my humble

66  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 opinion, the Futurists proper are too extreme. They want to sweep away the past and everything connected with it. They forget that but for the past modern developments could never have come to pass anymore than a plant could grow if you go and cut away its roots. In any case I think one must – however ultra modern ones sympathies are or may be – be careful not to become bigoted. The extreme bigotry of ultra-modernism, i.e. Futurism is surely just as bad as the bigoted academicism of the Corders and Bridges n’est-ce pas? I had the pleasure of meeting a pupil of Stewart Macpherson’s117 the other day. She said that he advised her to hear as much modern music as possible. That’s all right isn’t it? March 20th Dr Eaglefield Hull publishes a first instalment of a series of articles called “Schönberg explained’(!)” in this month’s Musical Record. Have you seen it? In this he “explains” nothing at all. He talks very wisely about “harmonic planes” and “enharmony” of Villermin118 without giving any clue as to what is meant thereby and no one I have asked seems to know. I have asked him to be so kind as to “explain his explanation”, at the same time pointing out that this sort of “explanation” is the fallacy of “ignotum per ignotius.” Any one can talk about “psychology” “pathology” “harmonic planes” etc. etc. without meaning anything in particular. Still worse was Mr  Leigh Henry’s “exposition” of Schönberg in the Daily Telegraph some weeks ago. A verbose pompous jargon with much talk of “psychology” – (that hard worked word which seems to be a sort of portmanteau word made to take any meaning you like) at the end of the reading of which one asked oneself “and what does his information amount to?” It thus dawned upon one that the “exposition” exposed nothing of value or illuminating about Schönberg’s Opus 16. But stay! Yes! It did expose one thing. It exposed the fact that the writer was trying to impress you what a fearfully clever person he was and what a fool you were. There are people of whom you must have come across whose overweening conceit and arrogance urges them to say they can see clearly the meaning of a matter which is hidden from other eyes. I very much fear Mr Leigh Henry is one of these. When a man thinks it necessary to wrap up his thoughts in complicated verbose phraseology one is bound to become suspicious. If he has really something of value to say he will not swaddle it up in a mass of verbiage. We can now-a-days quickly detect the composer who having nothing to say takes 1½ hours to say it like the late Gustav Mahler! The same thing applies to words. In any case, all this talk about psychology is, I maintain, of no help whatever, to the appreciation of the music. What profits it us to know the composer’s state of mind when he wrote such and such a work? Surely it is the music that matters. That stands or falls by its own merits apart from any extraneous considerations. For instance the great sublimity and moving grandeur of “Prometheus” is its justification apart from the ideas underlying it. Therefore I assert that it is futile to pretend that the “psychology” of Schönberg’s Op. 16 justifies it. We cannot say yet whether we find Sch. expressive because it is in a language at present unknown to us, which only time will make clear. Moreover no two people will feel music in exactly the same way. In one it arouses one emotion, in another another. One will

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  67 say “surely the composer felt so” and another “oh! no he felt so!” Seeing that this is so and that few people will agree as to how the composer felt you will, I think admit that I have some justification for saying that the “psychology” doesn’t matter a brass farthing; for no two people will agree thereon: further, they may all be quite wrong as to the composers feelings and intentions as has indeed been the case when a piece of programme music was performed before some musicians without their previous knowledge of the programme. No two thought of the same meaning, and not one coincided with the real programme. Just another instance in support of my contention. (I do hope you will not be bored stiff!) Take all the absurd things that have been said about Mona Lisa. To one she is “actively evil” – to another she is “silly and sensual” – to a thousand and one other persons as many other things. Each thinks he is right, and probably has as much grounds for so doing as his neighbour. But an artist will say “admire the picture for its intrinsic merits and beauty without indulging in vague fruitless speculations as to Mona Lisa’s psychology or Leonardo’s when he painted her which cannot affect the merits of the work one way or another as a thing of expressive art.[”] Pardon please, for having laboured the point at such length but I like to make my meaning clear, so that anyone could understand. I am not like Mr Leigh Henry (and hope most sincerely never to develop into such an arrogant conceited jackanapes). I like to be understood. He would seem to prefer not to be! “Omne ignotum pro magnifico”119 is I suppose his motto. I have got seats for all the Operas and Ballets of the forthcoming Russian Season at Drury Lane. We are in for something good. Here is an instructive story for you. It is true, for my mathematical tutor was concerned in it. Staying recently in the South of France he saw two vile little gamins cruelly tormenting a kitten. He rescued the kitten and trounced the gamins. A passive spectator of the tormenting process was an old curé. Dr Edwards asked him how he could stand there – he a priest of a so called Christian faith and see a dumb poor helpless little creature tormented by two little devils in human form. And what, What, my dear Mr Heseltine do you think the Christian curé replied?? “Ça ne fait rien monsieur! Çe nest qu’un animal et les animaux n’est point d’âme! D’ailleurs il faut que les enfants s’amusent!”120 _______!! __________!!! __________ This is only equalled by the attitude of the Church of England towards the barbaric atrocities of hare coursing, fox- and tame-stag hunting, so much beloved of the English sportsman. Evidently the Church of England adopts the same attitude, “Il faut que les guvs s’amusent”??121 But in this case it is the bread and butter that is at stake. It would never do to offend those in whose gift the living is and on whom you depend for subscriptions for proselytising the Fiji Islanders or propagating the Gospel to the inhabitants of the South Pole!! I should be the last person in the world to quarrel with the Church if it really preached against evils such as we see about us in flagrant states; sweating; a hundred and one forms of cruelty and oppression etc. But it doesn’t. It concerns itself with a mass of legend and ridiculous fable long since exploded by science and research. Last year £2,000,000 were wasted on foreign missions!!! And think of the suffering in London alone that that would have alleviated. Instead of practical

68  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 good works we have the laughable Kikuyu controversy122 and other fripperies about (as Voltaire would have said:) such things as:– “La grace suffisanté qui né suffit point, “la grace coöpérante qui n’epère pas, “et la grace efficace qui est sans éfficaceté”.123 March 23rd. I wonder what you will say when you get this letter. It has grown to most appalling proportions. But it is really more than one letter. It is half a dozen combined. And think of the saving in stamps and envelopes!! March 28th I was so delighted to meet you that Friday. I will be honest with you. I was a little bit afraid. But there was I could see no need for that. I was afraid lest you were a rather formidable person! I was at the third Ellis concert and heard the Delius “Summer Garden”124 which is truly exquisite; but am I not right in saying that it was very badly done? I  have never heard it before and I will tell you what I think was wrong with the performance. In the first place it was obviously deplorably insufficiently rehearsed. The raggedness and out of tuneness of the wind being especially disagreeable. Secondly the conductor was out of sympathy with the work. The treatment was much too coarse and clumsy. It wants extremely delicate sensitive playing. It should quiver with a restrained intensity which it did not do. It is the sort of work for the Colonne Orchestra125. I liked the London Symphony very much. The spirit of London – or as the Leigh Henry genus would say – “psychology” of London is splendidly captured. I am glad that Robin Legge126spoke so well of it: It is very different from the Phantasy quintet!! That was a thing! I  was not at Ornstein’s recital but I  went with my professor to see if there were any free seats going. But as there were none or were said to be none I came away. I saw you come in. You passed within 2 feet of me but did not see me. I would have accosted you but you were with a lady, so refrained. I had not 2/- to spare for a seat!!!! I did not see you at the Queen’s Hall although I scoured the Balcony to find you; but perhaps you were below? I hope you have read Robin Legge’s article on “Audiences and the New music” in March 28th “Telegraph”. It was splendid. I wonder how the affected posing students to whom he alludes felt when they read it? I wrote to him about it and he sent me a charming letter back. April 6th. Thank you very much for yours duly received. I was very pleased to get it. We may run over to Paris for Easter, but I am not quite sure. I am afraid I absolutely disagree with you over the “London Symphony” of V. Williams. I  think you are inordinately severe on it! I  notice you say in your letter that you suppose you will have to study the theoretical part of music with some old academic. But surely you have already a thorough technical knowledge to have made piano arrangements of Delius’ work and to be able to help him correct scores and proofs?? Of course sound technical knowledge is an absolute necessity. Otherwise how can one hope to understand the construction of music? And one must learn orthodox methods to see how the ultra-modern methods have – and they have – grown out of them. Some amateurs affect to decry technical

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  69 knowledge. That is an affectation, a pose, to hide their own laziness to learn. Look you. If a man knew nothing say of orthodox harmony what meaning would Lenormand’s “Étude sur l’harmonie moderne” have for him? It would be Greek to him!! There has just been published Leonard Borwick’s127 piano solo transcription of “L’apres midi.” It is exquisite – so purely pianistic and a perfect delight to play but outrageously difficult as all the beautiful things are. He has also arranged “Fêtes” but that I have not yet seen; but I intend to have a look at it. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival over here of Ravel’s work for Piano and Orchestra on Basque melodies. It is sure to be of extreme interest. Have you seen his “Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé” for voice and piano? They have only lately appeared. They are exquisite – monstrously difficult as of course goes without saying – I do not think that there can possibly be more difficult piano parts to any songs hitherto written. It is quite wrong to call them “accompaniments.” Have you seen the piano part of “Prometheus”? it is wonderful! It is a beautiful piece by itself. Rhythmically it is the most fascinating as well as the most difficult thing I know. You ought to get it. It is only 2/=; for an unending use: –

Musical example 1.4  Chord from Scriabin’s Prometheus/Piano Sonata no 7

in extended compass. I find it a most effective one and it has the justification of being a chord frequently used in the 7th Sonata. It is simply a 6/3 on G, with F# as an unresolved appogiatura. Over leaf you will find another chord do you know what it is? Dr Churchill Sibley128 could not make it out yet it is quite simple really.

Musical example 1.5  Another of Scriabin’s chords

??? I am just commencing Helmholtz’s “Sensations of Tone” it is most interesting.129 I think it is a work every musician should have read. You of course have

70  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 done so, I doubt not, long ago? I do not know that there is anything more I have to say just now; after having filled 24 pages with scrawl so I will draw to a close. Ever Yours Very Sincerely. C. L D S Sorabjî P.S. I  would give much to see the expression of your face when you get this document _________!! ________!

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 9: 46R-59V] April 14th [1914] [in green ink; not in Sorabji’s hand:] Kaikoshoro Sorabji 25A, HIGH STREET, ST JOHN’S WOOD, N.W. Dear Mr Heseltine. Many thanks for your letter. You flatterer! I  wonder why you will persist in saying such charming things about my lucubrations? I will say in all sincerity that I wish I had your charming style. Unfortunately I have only the power to write down my ideas as they come, and cannot fashion them into a presentable literary shape. This of course is a gift – the gift of but few – and you, to my envy, have it in a marked degree! Do you think it quite fair or even just to stigmatise Cyril Scott or Zoltan Kodály as charlatans? for my part I think it most unfair and absolutely unjustified. A charlatan is one who having no powers or qualifications seeks to impose on the public the idea that he has both. Neither of these two are guilty of that. They are both undoubtedly accomplished technicians and have both written really good stuff. Surely it is rather absurd to call Kodály a charlatan or to judge him merely on the strength of “Valsette” Op. 3. no 1? One might just as well dismiss the Great Doctor Richard as a composer of rubbishy Viennese waltz-music because of “Der Rosenkavalier.” I have heard some songs of Kodaly as I told you and also his piano and ’cello Sonata which I thought very good indeed: the songs particularly. We must not allow our likes and dislikes to run away with our fairness and justice. After all it is quite conceivable that a work may be a good one in the opinion of someone quite as competent to form a valid opinion as ourselves? Then again why do you go and condemn V. Williams entirely on the score of some misuse of common chords in his “London Symphony”? Will you please say whereabouts and how they occurred? I cannot for the moment call the work sufficiently to mind, as I  am always hearing and working at so much new music. Besides did I not understand you to say that he had written some fine songs?

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  71 To return to charlatanry. I will give you an example of what I think might with far better justice be called charlatanry, and that is Glazunov’s Second piano Sonata in which two out of three long movements are largely built up out of two notes

Musical example 1.6  Two-note motif from Glazunov’s Sonata no 2 for piano

B,E. All his vast technical skill is brought to bear to work these two notes for all they are worth. It is hugely clever, but does it not amount to a sort of fraud – a piece of charlatanry in fact – to cloak poverty of invention and absolute lack of inspiration? But I am very far from condemning Glazunov just because of this one lapse. I  admire his work immensely especially his Fantaisie Finnoise: the Introduction and Dance of Salomé; and his very fine piano concerto which I have already spoken of to you in my last letter, I think. Whatever we do we must avoid all bigotry narrowmindedness and prejudice. I assure you that I think the bigoted ultra-modernism of Leigh Henry every bit as bad as the bigoted academicism of Corder, Bridge Stanford etc: and really don’t you think it is? April 15th. I have just played through “Elektra.” What marvellous music it is! How suggestive and how it conveys the feelings of the characters. The furious outburst after Elektra’s recognition of Orest. and the climax following the end of her gloating over Klytaemnestra. I suppose one may safely say that Salome Elektra and the ineffably exquisite “Pelléas” – in which I  have been recently rejoicing – are the finest music-dramas in existence taken as a whole. Musically of course they deserve to be placed beside the great Wagner dramas and dramatically above them. One word more about Mr Delius and his statement to you that Kodaly is a “charlatan” of the same kind as Cyril Scott: I should not if I were you set very great store by that statement. Neither M. Calvocoressi nor Mr. Liebich consider the former a “charlatan” nor does apparently Debussy consider Cyril Scott so. Instead as you must know, he has spoken in the very highest terms of him and I think it is quite excusable nay justifiable to think the opinion of two great conoisseurs of modern music as Calvocoressi and Liebich of quite as much value as Delius’, great composer though he be. Then surely Debussy’s opinion is worth as much although of course we know that composers have often gone wildly astray in their opinions of one another e.g. Chaikovski with regard to Grieg whom he thought greater than Brahms – (this I suspect to be mere jealousy:) and his opinion of Wagner. Then you know those who themselves are of advanced tendencies have often been as obscurantist towards those who have gone a step further than themselves as the academics have been towards them. Witness Berlioz and Wagner; Schumann and Chopin; then more glaringly conspicuous still Saint-Saëns and contemporary musicians. Saint-Saëns was in his young days

72  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 considered a composer of very advanced views. Then again take the example of the Impressionists. Manet was shocked because Cezanne went so much further than himself. Cezanne was outraged at the “excesses” of Gauguin and van Gogh who in their time deprecated the more advanced methods of Seurat & Signac130 – the pointillistés who had two perfectly exquisite studies in the last Post Impressionist and Futurist group exhibition at the Doré Galleries. I can quite appreciate and enjoy the work of the neo- and Post-Impressionists and also the Fauvistés (John D. Ferguson and Anne Estelle Rice).131 I do not understand the work of the Cubists or Futurists however. The whole of the ultra modern movement in painting turns upon this: that the function of Art is something higher than the mere slavish representation of external objects. The object is to evoke by means of line and colour the emotion aroused by the object. This principle is seen to actuate in greater or less force in the various exponents of the movement. In Cézanne outward form or I should say definite objective form is clearly recognisable although he is by no means tied down by it. In Henri Matisse, objective form is treated with considerable freedom producing distortion etc. but there is no denying the compelling force of wonderful realism – realism quite different from that of a R.A. portrait – of such things as “Joaquina” or “Portrait de Marguerite” both in the Grafton Galleries at the 2nd P. Impressionist exhibition, In Derain and L’hôte132 you have still greater freedom but still the forms are quite recognisable. With Picasso we come to the Cubists. In his early work – his astonishingly fine, but ugly and grim etchings of his were at the Doré galleries – one can still see the conventional style. “Head of a young lady” is quite normal: then comes the “lady with the mantilla” with a growing tendency to disregard the form and finally the extreme examples such as the “Portrait of Mounsier Kahnweiler”133 show a disappearance of outward form altogether marking as they themselves term it extreme abstraction of line. Picasso’s colouring is curious too. It is grey, brown or drab. Finally the Cubists merge into the Futurists whose work as regards painting is said to have developed out of Picassos more recondite works. They apparently combine the daring colour harmonies of the PostImpressionists with the extreme abstraction of form of such Cubists as Picasso and Braque.134 I find it amazingly interesting. And whether one understands it or not, it is most fascinating and it is alive! The ordinary conventional stuff seems dead and effete after it. It is their colour grouping that I find especially fascinating and stimulating. A  post-Impressionist or Futurist colour scheme is I  think entrancing. Picture a room with a black ceiling – why should a ceiling for ever be white?? – vivid orange carpet – gleaming yellow walls – purple painted wood work and a few touches here and there of scarlet – cushions or upholstery. Who could feel miserable in such a room? You see being an Oriental I have all the Orientals’ colour-sense, in which Englishmen are lacking, and I feel quite at ease and at home in juxtapositions of scarlet, yellow and orange at which the ordinary person pretends to be horrified. And after all what is the accepted scheme of colour grouping but another convention such as that of consonance and dissonance which the ultra-modern artists and musicians are seeking to upset. Of course the average blasted Britisher will call any Oriental’s ideas of colour, or anything

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  73 else for that matter, barbarous though what could be more hideously barbarous than his own attire and often his whole personality? But let me not get on the subject of British injustice to us again or my pen and feelings will run away with me and I shall perhaps offend you unconventional and refreshingly un-British though you be. I wonder when we are going to be allowed to hear Albert Roussel’s135 “Evocations” of which M. Florent Schmitt spoke so highly and indeed all the French critics as well and Ravel’s delightful “comedie musicale” “L’heure Espagnole”? There are at least 5 very notable works we should hear:– I. L’heure Espagnole: II. Pénélope by that wonderful old Gabriel Fauré, (the doyen of the Modern French School and teacher of Ravel, Florent Schmitt and I believe Albert Roussel.) III. Debussy’s “Saint Sebastien[”]: IV. Paul Dukas’ Ariane et Barbe Bleu. V. Sibelius’ 4th Symphony. I was astonished that you do not know anything of Florent Schmitt’s work! He is one of the most prominent of the modern French school. His ballet or poèmé dansé “La tragédie de Salomé” (not Oscar Wilde’s but a poem by Robert d’Hamières) is splendid and gorgeous. His piano Quintet is a beautiful work as are his piano compositions and songs. I hope you wont be vexed when I tell you that I smiled very broadly over your statement about what you termed the Oriental sumptuousness of colour of Cyril Scott’s Piano Sonata!!! Will you believe an Oriental when he tells you there is absolutely nothing Oriental about this work either in spirit, feeling, or expression or atmosphere: it is pure Occident! A  work of genuine Oriental feeling is Rimsky Korsakov’s “Antar” or Bantock’s Omar Khayyam. The latter is the only man who can evoke a genuine Oriental atmosphere not the stereotyped conventional absurdity which does duty but the real thing – apart from using of course the scale of sroútis136 or Eastern melodies. The Dance of the Seven Veils evokes the feeling marvellously as does I think the whole of “Salomé”. But Cyril Scott!!! —— I should like to know if Scriabine is very much interested in the East as I feel it very strongly in one or two places in his works. I may as well say that the “Chinoiserie” in the Chaykovski “Casse Noisette” is absolutely not Chinese. To start off with; it is not pentatonic as is the greater part of their music it is vulgarly and wholly occidentally diatonic. Cyril Scott’s “Trois danses orientales” are likewise wholly lacking in Eastern atmosphere. I don’t think he would know it if it were there. The Trois danses orientales might with just as much propriety be called “Trois danses americaines” – “Trois danses esquimaux” or “Trois danses anything” When the average composer strives to give us something Eastern, you may hear some fearful & wonderful things!! May  22nd. I  have just received yours. I  expect you have been wondering at my tardiness in replying? Well I  have been fearfully busy, among other things helping my mother flat-hunt! Then my father has just returned after an absence of six years!! So you can judge that I have not had heaps of time. Your letter and its contents were extremely welcome. So glad you like the Scriabin. I am very interested in what you say about him. My chief feeling about his music is its radiant spiritual, exstatic and especially, unearthly qualities?

74  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 I have been doing battle in all directions especially with Mr Leigh Henry on Chopin & Futuristic Music. See Musical Standard for April 11th 25th

May 9th “16th “23rd

In the first appeared an article on “Drama in Music.” The usual bombastic nonsense and a ferocious attack on Chopin. 25th is my attack 9th his rejoinder 16th my reply 23rd two more fierce attacks on him backing me up. One exposes the empty hollow nonsense of his articles and their “empty verbosity.” but no counter reply from him yet! Do read them! The second tussle has been with no less a person than Dr W.G. McNaught and someone writing in his paper saying that the characteristic Scriabin (if you so like!) chord made an excruciating dissonance!!! Old McNaught said: “Scriabine simply plays with the tonal material he arbitrarily selects.” The only question is, is the result a work of art, or words to that effect. I went for him and his correspondent. I said that surely the expression of sublimely beautiful ideas in a language of transcendent beauty could not be called playing with a tonal material: I added that I failed to see how Sc. could be said to play with his material seeing that he used it with most consummate skill and mastery: and that his thémes and their development could be very easily followed even in his very latest works, and that as regards form that he was almost a formalist. The Dear Doctor wrote back to say that I had read my own meaning into his words: that it was incontestable that in Prometheus Sc. had arbitrarily selected his tonal material and surely his use of his material could be judged as a work of art, not as a selection of material: that there was no merit nor demerit in working with a given material: lastly that he did not see his way to publishing my letter. I replied thus. “When I wrote my letter to you I was taking your words “simply plays with” in their ordinary accepted sense, which is, to put something to an idle, frivolous, incompetent or unskilled use. If this is not what you meant, & it is difficult to see what you could have meant, will you be good enough to say what you did mean? I repeat what I said before; that Scr. does not so use his idiom. He uses it with marvellous skill power and eloquence. Further I do not see how in “Prometheus” he can be said to have “arbitrarily selected his tonal material” His idiom therein is the result of a long course of regular musical evolution extending over 60 opera, and not in the least an arbitrary selection for that work as you assert. Even in the earliest opus numbers is to be found here and there the germ that is fallen to fructify in the ineffable glories and beauties of “Prometheus.” And as for your correspondent anyone who could call

Musical example 1.7  Chord from Scriabin’s Prometheus

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  75 an excruciating dissonance must simply be, and Mr Liebich would say, tone deaf. And has he nothing better to do: in default of being able to appreciate and sympathise with modern music than to indulge in cheap jibes and frothy sneers thereat? It is a spectacle at once ridiculous and pitiful – yet another instance of Dame Partington and her mop.137 So long as the academic purists [pages XVII-XX missing] but of deliberate sleight of hand”!!!!! thereby insinuating that Sc. is insincere! My reply and his rejoinder are to appear in the Monthly Musical Record for next month so I will not trouble to repeat what I have already written and which you will soon be able to see. Incidentally I  remarked that to retain C. Scott on the ground of (presumably) sincerity and to reject Scriabine on the score of it seemed to me grotesque inversion and perversion of justice!!! If ever there is an insincere person it is C. Scott. His whole personality reeks of pose and conscious affectation. The most absolute opposite is true of Sc. one has only to see and hear him to be convinced of his earnestness, which one would believe even if he wrote the wildest stuff. But his music! Such a steady development and growth of individuality is absolutely inconsistent with conscious pose or affectation. There is the voice of intense sincerity in all his work. A friend of a friend of mine knows him well and worships him. He too says that he is absolutely incapable of pose or insincerity; & that his whole rather frail being is absorbed in his Art and its furtherance. But though small and frail in physique, the moment he came on to the Platform at Queen’s one was conscious through ones senses of a stupendous, gigantic and compelling personality of a genius and more than ever when he played, in a wholly electrifying manner the wonderful and monstrously difficult piano part. The Sonatas 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 are all wonderful especially 7, 8, and 10. Opus 65, 3 etudes are most beautiful. 1 and 2 have the most exquisitely poignant endings I know in all music. All the Sonatas though not long are on very big splendid lines. They are of course outrageously difficult especially 8!!! No 7 works up to a colossal climax which thunders out like a trumpet – a wonderful revelation of piano possibilities – marked “avec un joie débordante.”; “en délire” which perfectly expresses it. No 6 is quieter mystical and dreamy with that vein of Russian sadness all through it. A beautiful work No 9 is fine but I do not like it so well as the others. No 10 contains a wonderful middle section of dazzling brilliance marked as always with wonderful felicity and truth: “puissant radieux” It dies away softly with a beautiful chord. He has an engaging fondness for an exstatic morendo close, except of course “Prometheus” where the music rises to a climax! – – – There never was such a climax! It seems the concentrated essence of all the passion and intensity that ever were. How perfectly does it carry out the composer’s intention of the supreme goal achieved! The close of Etude 3 Op 65. is a furious stormy uprush of enormous power. Many many thanks for your invitation which I would like very much indeed to accept, but you see as it is I cannot possibly. It is very good and kind of you and I expect you to compensate by coming very often to visit me when you come

76  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 to town. Do excuse this awful scrawl wont you. Good bye for the present. Don’t stagnate whatever you do!! Yours ever affectionately & sincerely Dudley S. Do excuse! Dead tired!! Eyes & hand weary!!! Midnight!!!! How is the work on Delius getting on138 Have got piano scores of all the ­Choral & Orchestral works obtainable except V. Rom. & Jul.139 coming later. Am waiting with great eagerness Ravel’s Concerto for piano. Why not do at Balfour Gardiner concerts: Borodin Symphonies 1 and 2. Sibelius. Symphony 4. Roussel. Evocations. Liapunov140 Rhapsody for piano & Orchestra on Ukranian themes    2nd Concerto for p. & Orch

}

or Balakirev:– piano Concerto. Mahler. Symphony VIII Schönberg Gurrelieder

}

Delius  Appalachia Mass of Life Songs of Sunset. Strauss Deutsche Motett.

} }

Debussy. La Mer. Rondes de Printemps Gigues Bantock: Omar Atalanta NOT  Vanity of Vanities

}

Schönberg. Kammer symphonie für grosses Orchestra bearbeitet.

}

Rimski Korsakov  Antar Concerto piano.

}

Scriabine  Le poème de l’Extase Le divin poème

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  77 Busoni  Symphonic Nocturne (new) (Know nothing about it) Pratella141????!!!??? **___________*** ?____________ Delius = {Piano Concerto again

}

Holbrooke. Gwynn ap Nudd. Apollo & the Seaman (Dont know anything about it)

}

Rachmaninov. The isle of the Dead. Symphony. The Bells. Cantata.

[9a: Philip Heseltine to Olivia Smith (excerpt)] Monday [?4 May 1914]

Christ Church Oxford.

[. . .] I am thinking all the time of Didbrook and London – how lovely it will be: I picture to myself convivial nights at the Café Royal – perhaps in company with my picturesque tame Parsee, whom we shall have to meet! – then there is the Cubist and Futurist exhibitions, the concert of the works of Delius and others of surpassing interest, the wonderful Granville Barker production of the ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, the double bill of Shaw and Chesterton at the Little Theatre and a thousand other delicious devices for delight! [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 10: fol. 60R-61V] June 28th 1914.

29 Clarence Gate Gardens. N.W. London.142

Musical example 1.8  Skip from Schoenberg’s String Quartet no 2143

78  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 “Schoony”. Op 10. what a nice little skip for a voice!!!!! My dear Mr Heseltine: Just a few hurried lines to tell you what you wanted. The Roussel “Evocations” is a work of an Oriental Character having been written after a visit to India. There are 3. They are called as far as I can remember: I. La ville rose II. Au bord du fleuve sacré III. Les dieux dans l’ombre de Caverne. Both M. Calvocoressi and M. Florent Schmitt – himself a composer of the very front rank – have spoken of the work in the very highest terms the latter saying – “at the risk of being burnt alive in the Place St. Jacques, I boldly state that I would sacrifice for it the nine Symphonies the frigid Requiem of Mozart and the Beatitudes!” Of its length I cannot tell you anything as I do not know. On second thought I must ask you to urge your friend Mr Gardiner to delete the Balakirev piano Concerto. I have been looking at it thoroughly and am forced to admit that it is very poor stuff. The piano part is nothing but octave and arpeggio bravura passage-work. Do implore him for my sake to do the Delius Concerto!! Bring also to his consideration Rakhmaninov no 3 in D minor! Rimsky Korsakov C# minor: Glazunov. F minor (a very fine work indeed date 1912) Also the Ravel Concerto if ready in time or perhaps the Cyril Scott also if ready. For orchestral items why not Borodin’s 1st & 2nd Symphonies but especially and above all Sibelius’ No 4 in A minor which created such a sensation at Birmingham two years ago? Then again how about Debussy’s Symphonic suite “La mer”? or some works of Charles Koechlin?144 In great haste. Will write again soon. Ever yours D.S. P.T.O.!! P.S. It is very kind and good of you to keep on inviting me to stay with you but we are going away ourselves I believe. My father to Bad Nauheim for heart trouble and my Ma and I to Whitby. Besides, my dear friend, I could not, situated as we are at present, think of accepting an invitation to stay unless I were in a position to reciprocate the kindness, which both my mother and I hope to be able to do before long when we get settled down in a home of our own!

Notes 1 Sorabji and his mother lived in an upstairs flat in this red-brick terraced building between 3 October 1913 and 14 April 1914 (see Illustration 3). (Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears lived in the same terrace in the 1940s.) 2 See Appendix 1. 3 Joseph Willem Mengelberg (1871–1951), Dutch conductor, famous for his performances of Mahler and Strauss with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  79 4 Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (1877–1944), French-born multilingual music writer and critic. 5 Edwin Evans (1874–1945), English music critic who championed the music of Debussy and Ravel as well as that of Russian composers. 6 Florent Schmitt (1870–1958), French composer. 7 Louis François Marie Aubert (1877–1968), French composer. 8 Paul Abraham Dukas (1865–1935), French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. 9 ‘Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié’. Attributed to Charles Maurice de TalleyrandPérigord (1754–1838), French politician and diplomat. 10 Frederick Corder (1852–1932), English composer and professor of composition at the Royal Academy of Music. 11 Opera in five acts by Claude Debussy, the libretto adapted from Maurice Maeterlinks’s symbolist play of the same name, premiered at the Opéra-Comique, Paris, 1902. 12 Charles Abraham Trew (1854–1929), English pianist and composer. Trew acted as Sorabji’s private music tutor (see Derus 1992, 201); he was the dedicatee of the Concerto pour piano et orchestra da camera (no 3), 1918 (KSS16). 13 A Mass of Life (Eine Messe des Lebens), choral work by Delius based on the German text of Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra (1905). Part 2 was premiered in Munich in 1908, with a complete performance in London a year later conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. 14 ‘Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon’, 2 Samuel, 1:20. 15 Beethoven, Missa solemnis. 16 François-Marie Arouet (1694–1778), known by his pseudonym Voltaire. 17 This couplet could be rendered: ‘Our priests are not as fools believe; sophistry lets us self-deceive’. 18 Voltaire’s works, especially his private letters, frequently contain the word ‘l’infâme’ and the expression ‘écrasez l’infâme’ or ‘crush the infamous’, a phrase referring to abuses of the people by royalty and the clergy. 19 ‘I’m no orator, as Brutus is . . . I just speak directly’. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, 3, ii. 20 Arnold Schoenberg, Drei Klavierstücke op. 11 (1909). 21 M. Montagu-Nathan (1877–1958), author of books on Russian music. 22 I Gioielli della Madonna, opera by Wolf-Ferrari (1911). 23 Rosa Newmarch (1857–1940), English writer on music; one of the first English critics to champion modern Russian music. 24 Breitkopf & Härtel, the world’s oldest music publishing house, founded in Leipzig in 1719. 25 ‘What the hell was he going to do in this galley?’ from Les Fourberies de Scapin, a three-act comedy by Molière first staged in 1671. 26 I.e. ‘Great Soul’ (Sanskrit). 27 Queen’s Hall, a concert hall in London’s Langham Place, opened in 1893. With room for an audience of about 2,500 people, it became London’s principal concert venue from 1895 until 1941 when, during the Second World War, the building was destroyed by an incendiary bomb in the London Blitz. 28 For the first twenty years of its existence, the only staged performances of Parsifal took place in the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. Bayreuth lifted its monopoly on Parsifal on 1 January 1914. 29 In 1913 Sir Henry Wood had arranged and conducted an abbreviated version of Parsifal, without voices, at the London Coliseum to accompany a series of ‘tableaux vivants’ (a popular entertainment of the time). 30 Britannicus, a five-act tragic play by the French dramatist Jean Racine (1639–1699). 31 In fact, in October  1901 Schoenberg married Mathilde Zemlinsky, the sister of the conductor and composer Alexander von Zemlinsky. 32 Heseltine began his studies at Christ Church, Oxford in October 1913 but soon became disenchanted with university life and did not return after the 1914 summer vacation.

80  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 33 Heseltine’s Welsh family home and periodic domicile. 34 The Blarney Stone, a block of bluestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with the ‘gift of the gab’. 35 George Tyrrell (1861–1909), Jesuit priest (until his expulsion) and Modernist theologian and scholar. 36 Alfred Firmin Loisy (1857–1940), French Roman Catholic priest, professor and theologian who became the intellectual standard bearer for Biblical Modernism in the Roman Catholic Church. 37 Goethe, Faust, from the ‘Prologue in Heaven’. 38 Shapurji Sorabji (1863–1932) was a civil engineer of Parsi heritage from Bombay, India. 39 1907. Madras: Srinivasa Varadachari & Co. 40 1883. London: Trübner & Co. 41 Géza Zágon (1899–1918), Hungarian composer. 42 14 Bagatelles, op. 6. 43 A London firm of music publishers founded in 1853. 44 17 December 1913. The programme included Ravel’s String Quartet in F and Introduction and Allegro. The singer was Rhoda von Glehn, with the English String Quartet and Gwendolen Mason (harp). Musical Times 55 (857) (1 February 1914): 118. 45 Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881–1916), Australian pianist and composer, killed in action in France. 46 ‘Half of Europe is slaughtering the other half for want of a word that once meant sweet charity!’ 47 ‘The Holy Father held God in his stomach, his mistresses in his arms and the money wrenched from indulgences in his coffers’. 48 ‘The Catholics eat God without bread, the Lutherans do so with bread and the Protestants eat bread without God’. 49 See endnote 23. Sorabji had asked Newmarch to translate some Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev for him in 1912 (specifically, the verse motto for Medtner’s Piano Sonata op. 25, no 2 – see letter 8). 50 Arthur Fagge (1864–1943), founder of the London Choral Society. 51 Op. 13 for unaccompanied chorus (1907). 52 By the eighth century, Vedanta came to mean all philosophical traditions concerned developed by interpreting the three basic texts, namely the Upanishads, the Brahman Sutras and the Bhagavad-Gita. 53 Alfred Kalisch (1863–1933), English music critic and librettist. 54 William Hayman Cummings (1831–1915), English organist, tenor, musical scholar and composer. 55 Arthur Eaglefield Hull (1876–1928), English music critic, writer, composer and organist. 56 Fauvism, the style of les Fauves (‘the wild beasts’), a loose group of early twentiethcentury Modern artists (led by Matisse and Derain) who favoured strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. This style lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions. 57 Ernest Newman (1868–1959), English author and music critic, notably of The Observer (1919–1920) and The Sunday Times (1920–1958). Heseltine clashed with him on several occasions (see Part III, Documents 30b, and 31b–d). 58 See Appendix 1. 59 William McNaught (1883–1953), English music critic and editor. 60 J.H.G. Baughan (d. 1926), editor of The Musical Standard (1902–1913). He also wrote for the Daily Mail. 61 Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 (1909).

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 81 62 E.A. Baughan (1865–1938), English critic, editor of the Musical Standard from 1892–1902. 63 Alexander Pope. An Epistle from Mr Pope to Dr Arbuthnot (1735). 64 The Piano Concerto in C minor is one of Delius’s early compositions. It underwent repeated revisions and the three major versions differ significantly. 65 Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace, ep. II.i. 66 ‘No art, no science, no perfect manners at any time in this atrocious nation’. 67 All famous English public (fee-paying) schools. 68 Billingsgate Fish Market takes its name from Billingsgate, a ward in the south-east corner of the City of London where the riverside market was originally established. The raucous cries of the fish vendors gave rise to ‘billingsgate’ as a synonym for profanity or offensive language. 69 Manvantara or age of a Manu, the Hindu progenitor of humanity, is an astronomical period of time measurement. Manvantara is a Sanskrit sandhi, a combination of words manu and antara, manu-antara or manvantara, literally meaning the duration of a Manu, or his life span. 70 Atalanta in Calydon, choral symphony by Granville Bantock (1912). 71 Omar Kháyyám for solo voices chorus and orchestra by Granville Bantock, 1906–1909. 72 The City of Dreadful Night, poem by the poet James Thomson. He sometimes used the pseudonym ‘Bysshe Vanolis’ (B.V.) in honour of Shelley and Novalis. 73 Ebenezer Prout (1835–1909), English theorist, writer, teacher and composer. 74 Heseltine had published an article, ‘Arnold Schönberg’, in The Musical Standard (21 September  1912: 176–178). Embodying both introduction and polemic, the article offers a defence of the composer against the uncomprehending and negative critical reaction to his newest works, notably the op. 11 piano pieces. Heseltine’s arguments in the article are essentially that a) Schoenberg’s controversial harmonies are explainable as unresolved chromatic dissonances, sometimes polytonally layered; and b) that in any case his harmonic structures arise intuitively: ‘The most amazing part of the whole matter is that Schönberg admits that his only justification for writing such chords is based on his inspiration, which, as he says, is so strong that it literally dictates his music to him’ (178). A letter was subsequently published from a reader using the pseudonym ‘S.O.G.’ (‘What is Cacophany?’ 28 September 1912), challenging Heseltine’s failure to commit to an explicit aesthetic judgement and proceeding to offer their own: ‘I am convinced that it [Schoenberg’s music] is essentially ugly – brutally ugly. . . . Schönberg’s music is cacophany, or there is no cacophany. The only question is, do we like cacophany?’ (40) 75 Richard Moritz Buhlig (1880–1952), American pianist. 76 An art gallery in Mayfair, London. The first major exhibition in Britain of Impressionist paintings took place there in 1905. 77 The Doré Gallery, situated at 35, New Bond Street, London was originally opened to exhibit and publicise the work of the French artist Gustave Doré (1832–1883). 78 André Lhote (1885–1962), French sculptor and painter; an active and influential teacher and writer on art. 79 Léon Samoilovitch Bakst (1866–1924), Russian painter and scene and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes. 80 Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (1876–1937), English art critic, curator and activist. 81 Leigh Henry (1889–1958), British conductor, author and critic. 82 The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM), a British professional body for musicians founded in 1882. 83 René Lenormand (1846–1932), French composer, teacher and author. 84 Leo Ornstein (born Lev Ornshteyn) (1893–2002) Russian-born, American composer and pianist. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic.

82  Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914 85 Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen (Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None), philosophical novel in four parts, 1883–1885. 86 British Roman Catholic publishing house founded in 1835. 87 Evidence for the date of this letter comes from Heseltine’s report of meeting Sorabji in the letter to his mother of Wednesday 25 March: Document 7a. 88 Ariadne auf Naxos op. 60. 89 ‘Großmächtige Prinzessin’. 90 ‘Dark brown hair’. 91 Benjamin Dale (1885–1943), English composer. A reference to his Sonata in D minor for piano op. 1, first published 1906. 92 Macbeth, V, v, line 27. 93 Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933), German composer best known for his compositions for the organ. The work referred to here is the Piano Sonata no 1 in F sharp minor, first published 1907. 94 Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (1880–1951), Russian composer and pianist. 95 Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803–1873), Russian poet. 96 Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (1873–1945), Russian composer, pianist and conductor. 97 Theodore Akimenko (1876–1945), Russian composer. 98 Paul Juon (1872–1940), Russian composer. 99 Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856–1915), Russian composer, pianist, teacher, music theorist and author. 100 Arthur Alexander (1891–1969), New Zealand-born pianist and composer, professor at the Royal College of Music. 101 Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875–1911), Lithuanian painter and composer. 102 Dmitry Semionovich Stelletzky (1875–1947), Russian painter, sculptor and theatre designer. 103 Elkin & Co, a London music publisher founded in 1903 (now part of Music Sales). 104 Hubert Charles Bath (1883–1945), British film composer, music director and conductor. 105 Haydn Wood (1882–1959), twentieth-century English composer and concert violinist. 106 William Chappell (1809–1888), English writer on music and partner in the London musical firms of Chappell & Co. 107 Guy d’Hardelot (1858–1936), pseudonym of Helen Rhodes (née Helen Guy), French composer, pianist and teacher. 108 Possibly Teresa Clotilde del Riego, later Teresa Leadbitter (1876–1968), English violinist, pianist, singer and composer of Spanish heritage. 109 10 March 1914, conducted by Charles Kennedy Scott. 110 Thorpe Bates (1881–1958), British singer and actor (born Thomas Thorpe Bates). 111 Henry Balfour Gardiner (1877–1950), English composer. 112 Hymn to Dionysus op. 31 no 2. This was the first performance, conducted by the composer. 113 On 7 March 1914 in the Bechstein Hall, the British pianist of Russian heritage Benno Moiseiwitsch (1890–1963) played the said sonata by John S. Powell (1882–1963), American pianist, ethnomusicologist and composer. The Bechstein Hall (re-opened as the Wigmore Hall in 1917) was built between 1899 and 1901 by C. Bechstein Pianofortefabrik, the German piano manufacturer, whose showroom was next door. 114 ‘A Maiden’s Prayer’, a composition of Polish composer Tekla Badarczwska-Baranowska (1834–1861), published in 1856 in Warsaw as a short piano piece. John Stowell Adams (1823–1893) wrote the first English lyrics for the piece. 115 A song composed in 1898 by the American composer, Ethelbert Nevin (1862–1901). 116 On 11 March, Franz Liebich organised a concert featuring Debussy’s Clarinet Rhapsody (1909–1910), Kodaly’s Cello Sonata (1909–1910) and his own rendition of several of Bartók’s piano pieces dating from 1908–1910. 117 (Charles) Stewart Macpherson (1865–1941), English musician of Scottish heritage.

Letters and documents October 1913–June 1914  83 118 Louis Villermin (1877–1926), French composer and theorist. 119 ‘Everything unknown appears magnificent’, Tacitus: Agricola, Book 1, 30. 120 ‘It does not matter, Sir! It’s only an animal and animals have no souls. Besides, children need to have some fun’. 121 ‘The guvs must have fun’. 122 In June  1913, during an interdenominational missionary conference in Kikuyu, British East Africa (now Kenya), controversy erupted after the Bishop of Zanzibar denounced the Bishop of Mombasa and the Bishop of Uganda as heretics, an issue which was debated in the press for weeks. 123 ‘A sufficient grace that is not sufficient. A compliant grace that does not work. and an efficient grace that is without efficacy’. 124 In a Summer Garden, fantasy for orchestra (1908). Premiered in London under the composer’s baton on 11 December that year. 125 French symphony orchestra founded in 1873 by the violinist and conductor Édouard Colonne (1838–1910). 126 Robin Humphrey Legge (1862–1933), English music critic of The Times and from 1906 the Daily Telegraph. 127 Leonard Borwick (1868–1925), English concert pianist. 128 John Churchill Sibley (1858–1938), English musician, composer and conductor. 129 Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821–1894), German physician and physicist known for his ideas on the perception of sound. His On the Sensations of Tone went through various editions between 1863 and 1812. 130 Paul Victor Jules Signac (1863–1935), French neo-impressionist painter who with Seurat developed the pointillist style. 131 John Duncan Fergusson (1874–1961), Scottish painter, one of the major figures of the Scottish Colourists school; Anne Estelle Rice (1877–1959), American sculptor and artist. 132 André Derain (1880–1954), French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. 133 Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (Retrato de Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler), an oilon-canvas painting by Pablo Picasso in the Analytical Cubist style (1910). 134 Georges Braque (1882–1963), French painter and sculptor who developed Cubism. 135 Albert Charles Paul Marie Roussel (1869–1937), French composer. 136 The twenty-two parts into which the Hindu scale is divided. 137 A taunt against those who try to withstand progress. Dame Partington and her mop refers to someone staunchly opposed to progress or reform, even when it is inevitable. The phrase is thought to have originated from stories in nineteenth-century England. 138 Heseltine was staying with Delius in France at the time. 139 A Village Romeo and Juliet, opera by Frederick Delius based on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the Komische Oper Berlin in February  1907; Thomas Beecham conducted the British premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in London on 22 February 1910. 140 Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov (1859–1924), Russian composer and pianist. 141 Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880–1955), Italian composer, musicologist and essayist associated with Marinetti’s Futurist movement. 142 29 Clarence Gate Gardens, London (NW1 6BA). Sorabji and his mother moved to a first-floor flat in a red-brick mansion block containing nos 22 to 42, located on the west side of Glentworth Street between Melcombe Street (south end) and Ivor Place (north end). See Illustration 5. 143 Quotation is from the third movement (a setting with soprano voice of Stefan George’s poem ‘Litanei’) of Schoenberg’s String Quartet no 2 in F sharp minor, op. 10 (1908). 144 Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin (1867–1950), French composer, teacher and writer on music.

Part II Letters and documents September 1914– June 1917

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 11: fol. 63R-68V] Commenced September 8th. [1914]

29 Clarence Gate Gardens. London N.W.

My dear Friend What has become of you all these days that I  have had no word from you? Have you perhaps enlisted? The vitality of Saint Cecilia is at a very low ebb dans ces jours-ci n’est pas? One has not the heart to do much when nameless horrors are being hourly perpetrated within a hundred miles of our shores. Oh dear, what ghastly platitude every kind of exclamation about this War does seem doesn’t it? One great thing will come out of it together with the “Summum Bonum” of the crushing of Germany and that will be the explosion of the ridiculous myth of German “culture”. This we now know to be a vile delusion a lie and a fraud – what we have suspected all along. From posing as one of the highest types of civilisation they have now shown themselves the very lowest. “Beastlier than any beast.” By “culture” is not meant as they seem to imagine the amount of book learning that has been crammed into a nation’s head. Real culture is a nation’s progress towards higher morality and humanity and it gives one great satisfaction to see the English – whom they have always ridiculed and insulted as they do everybody a bit better than themselves – as far above them in these respects as the sun above a farthing rushlight. I am no blind worshipper of the English, but they have many supreme qualities that shine forth very prominently in these times and we of India thank the Supreme that we are associated with them and ruled by them instead of ces autres under whom our condition would be too horrible to imagine. We should be treated as outcasts – for with all their “education” and culture” has not enabled them to discern the fact that we are immeasurably above them in this respect – for we have not yet attained to that level or pinnacle of civilisation whereon innocent inoffensive citizens are fiendishly murdered and young girls of tender years violated and outraged under their parent’s eyes!! And these vile wretches call themselves Christians and invoke the blessings of the Supreme on their atrocities!!! Could hypocrisy go further. Was there at any time a more hideous perversion and distortion (even by the Ecclesiastical Christians themselves) of the teachings of

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 85 the great Arahat,1 second only to the Lord Buddha and almost his equal (certainly deriving much of his teaching from the Tathagâta2)?? Never mind. It is the end I hope and trust, for Germany and anything it stands for; its ruthless militarism despotism, tyranny and mediaeval oppression. A nation that repudiates every law of humanity and righteousness cannot endure. Evil destroys itself: and Germany is certainly doing that as much as anybody. After all this, I look forward to a wonderful creative artistic impulse. It is certain that Russia is going to do great and wonderful things, and old England who for some time past has been showing very unmistakeable signs of waking up from her long artistic sleep, and freed from the incubus of German influence will do too. I am attempting – how you will jeer!! – a piano arrangement of ‘In a Summer Garden’.3 Have got as far as 16 where it gets so big that one pair of hands cannot cope satisfactorily with it, though I am trying to manoeuvre it so that they can. It is an exquisite work. I know a lovely garden on a hillside at Robin Hood’s Bay4 in Yorkshire where it might have been written and every time I see that lovely garden I think, Oh! To hear ‘In a Summer Garden’ in such surroundings! All the languorous heat and quivering intensity of such a spot on a sultry summer’s afternoon are conveyed with marvellous fidelity and power in this most perfect work. It is always a matter of great regret to me that Mr. Delius should have wasted such glorious music on the preposterous drivel and senseless stuff of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. A truly great and glorious work could he write around say, some of the Vedic Hymns, the Zarathustrian Gathâs5 (the real thing & not N’s piffle.) The beauty of the language and richness of imagery of these last are inconceivable and must surely prove an inexhaustible fount of inspiration to such an one as Mr. Delius. Put the suggestion to him at some more propitious time, in let us hope, the not very distant future. In November we move from here to a home of our own which will be 10 Great Russell Mansions. Gt. Russell Street. W.C.6 I do not know if I  told you that we had my father with us since May? He returned after an absence of 6 years!!! He had gone just recently (3 weeks before the War, to be precise) to Bad Nauheim for treatment for heart trouble but had to return after having completed but two weeks’ of his 6 weeks’ cure for the whole of which he was made to pay in advance and being robbed in addition on his return home just before the declaration of War, of 55£ in Bank of England notes. He has now had the pleasure of discovering that all his time trouble and money might just as well have been thrown away as the little benefit that had accrued from the two weeks’ cure was entirely annulled by the turmoil and worry of his perfectly appalling return journey, and he has now to start the cure all over again in London! It was fortunate that we did not go and join him as we had arranged to do and should have done had not the owners of a house my mother had previously rented at Whitby for August refused to release us, so there we went and he followed us after getting back. Do you know Whitby at all? It is a lovely place. Glorious air and surroundings, right in the heart of the North Yorkshire moors and close to sea as well. The Surroundings are exquisite. It is a small strip of coastland known as “Twixt Heather and the Northern Sea.” It starts from Robin Hood’s Bay (another

86  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 lovely spot) a few miles south of Whitby and continues as far as Staithes a few miles North. It is the finest bit of coast in England so they say and we know it well having visited it for years at a stretch. Sept 15th A  very interesting letter from Professor Vinogradoff7 appeared in the “Times” a few days ago. I  wonder if you saw it? It was on the subject of German “culture”. In present day Germany we have the terrible spectacle of a nation obsessed by the demented ravings of shrieking maniacs like Bernhardi,8 Nietzsche, Treitschke9 etc. It is the doctrine of savage unbridled violence. Justice, Truth, Honour, Mercy, Compassion; every quality in fact that Mankind has always instinctively looked up to and regarded as the highest and best; all these are nothing. Cruelty, savagery, unbridled vileness treachery lust and outrage, these are the Treitschkean virtues; reverting in fact to barbarism. A state of society on such principles would simply be a community of wild beasts, nay worse for the beasts know nothing of the depths of infamy possible in Treitschke’s load-star, War. How true are these two old sayings “By their fruits shall ye know them” – (for by Lousoir, Liège, Malires, Fermonds, and their unnameable unspeakable atrocities in Belgium we now know the Prussians better than ever we knew them before) – and “Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.”10 Here is a whole race seized as with a madness most deadly and dire. But what a grave miscalculation they made about India and the colonies! They quite counted on our revolting knowing of disaffection there – India I mean. But they forgot this one thing. We have always felt, in spite of indignities and clumsiness that England has meant well by us. That her rule has conferred great good no sane one of us attempts to deny and it is the fact of our lively appreciation of that that is the cause of our loyalty to her today. Picture our condition under Germany – an impossible state of things of course, for no one could hold us against our will (300,000,000!!!) – for one moment only! Do you suppose that we even wish to run the risk? I have every hope and confidence however that this will be a new era for India as for the world and that she will be treated with greater generosity than [Page 9 missing] have except 2. and 4. They are Préludes, Études, Poèmes. Very modern indeed, showing in places influence of Scriabin, and the fact that it was he who arranged Prometheus for 2 pianos 4 hands first drew my attention to him: and the other day I took a peep at such of his works as Breitkopf had. There are no works I know more intensely and tragically gloomy and sombre. The tone is as a whole subdued rising now and then to wild outbursts of marvellous poignancy and intensity. Especially noticeable thus are Opus 2.   “     3. Opus 5. Opus 6. Opus 7.

Nos 1. and 3 (Quatre Préludes) Nos 1. and 2 (Deux Préludes) Nos 1. and 2 (Impromptu and Prélude) Nos 1. and 2 (Poéme & Etude) 3 pieces all most interesting.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  87 Opus 8. Etude and Prélude. Opus 9. 3 and 4 (4 pieces.  Feullet d’album Esquisse.     Poéme      Prélude I have also unearthed a very fine and interesting piano Concerto of Nicholas Chérépnin, of the existence of which I suppose hardly a soul is aware over here except Breitkopf! I shall now have to lay low for a while having spent 12/= on music this week!!! I will now draw to a close with a quotation from Sabanéiev.11

Musical Example 2.1  Excerpt from Sabaneyev’s Poème12

*. There are many instances such as this of notes outside the keyboard compass and often as much as a 6th outside.13 Ever Yours. Dudley Sorabji

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 12: fol. 69R-70R] Dec 27th [1914]

10. Gt. Russell Mansions. opp. British Museum W.C.

With infinite difficulty and after promenading Maida Vale from end to end, asking 4 policemen and 6 postmen I discovered Southwold Mansions,14 which – wretch! – you carefully omitted to tell me were half a mile from Maida Vale and left with the Porter at 32. a parcel for you containing “Blast”.15 If he has not yet given it to you or forgotten, or supposed to have forgotten it please ask him for it. I wrote upon

88  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 it your name and address so that there should be no mistake and ought to have sealed it as the dear sweet angel of a concierge is pretty certain to undo it and see what it is if I am any judge of character. I was not surprised to find you out so don’t apologise as I shouldn’t have been able to stop had you even been in. Augener has just brought out a cheap edition of Mussorgski’s wonderful “Tableaux d’une Exposition” have you seen it I wonder? I see that Beecham is going to do Borodin no 2. at the next Phil. that will be a treat. I was rather afraid it would be Balakirev’s “Thamara”16 for which is absurdly overrated & quite uninteresting work he appears to have an inordinate affection. Yours. . C.D.S.S.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 13: fol. 71R-75R] Jan. 11th ’15

10. Gt. Russell Mansions op. British Museum W.C.

Dear Mr Heseltine! Do forgive me for not answering your letter before but I have been so fearfully seedy that I haven’t felt fit to do a thing. I am now in the grip of periodic attacks of neuralgia in the head and face which is only gradually subsiding. I should be only too pleased to write articles about Louis Aubert,17 Charles Koechlin and Albert Roussel but their works are not very accessible. I  have only 3 pieces of Louis Aubert, nothing of Koechlin or Roussel. If you would like care to entertain the idea, I might try my hand at a short article on Sabaneiev the new Russian of whom no one here has ever heard a note or has a note. Breitkopf tell me I am the only person who has bought anything by him. I have only written an article once or twice before and am rather afraid it would not meet with your approval! One thing I should like to do is to make a fierce attack on the condition of the concert platform in London at the present time, the incompetent amateurs who are hailed as heaven sent geniuses by a venial Press. The way in which fine artists are neglected and 5th rate accepted rapturously cases in point being Miss Mignon Nevada a delightful artist whose skill and consummate artistry can even make old Bellini and Donizetti tolerable, and the miserable frauds Felice Lyne and Florence Macbeth,18 though of course one would not be allowed to mention or even hint at the latter if Beecham is to be a power in connection with the “New Hat”,19 seeing that she appeared at a concert of his, nay made her début with his orchestra. His wails therefore about the state of singing in this country do not ring quite true. Perhaps you have not heard the lady so you cannot realise the seriousness of my remark!! I will say no more. I differ from you absolutely in your wholesale condemnation of Dr  Hull’s “Modern Harmony:”20 and I think your criticism not by any means a fair one. You

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 89 isolate certain musical examples of an unsatisfactory nature and present them as a portrait of the book as a whole. That the examples as a whole are not nearly so interesting (with the exception of Scriabin.) as in M. Lenormand’s book21 there is no doubt whatever. But the work shows forth a keenly sensitive and responsive appreciation of modern music. Now about the exercises which appear to have angered you so much will you just listen to a little attempt at reasoning? – Yes I see you sneer! – You will probably be induced to assent to the fact that Modern Music makes use of a language vastly different from that of the “Old Music”? It is a different language in fact? A language with which it is highly desirable to have some familiarity? And in which anyone having good ideas should be able to express them? Take the case of a gifted student of the Königliche Conservatoire in Berlin. Brought up musically in an atmosphere of text-books of tradition and academicism and being compelled to study a dead musical language he knows nothing of the use of the newer language. Now if he has good ideas is it not as well that he should express them in Contemporary not Dead language? But I ask you, how are you going to learn to write in a new language without studying it and working in it? If he is a great genius he will no doubt acquire the language as a linguistic genius acquires a language merely by being in the country – i.e. by contact with works written in the “Modern Language.” Having acquired some knowledge of it, it remains for him to use the language with power and individuality. To say this is cultivating conscious insincerity is childish. You might just as well say of a person who wished to be able to write in Russian that to study that language & to practise writing it is to cultivate conscious insincerity of expression!! I do not know of anyone ideally fitted to write a book on “Modern Harmony.” Clutsam22 oh dear no! His views are too narrow and circumscribed. Calvocoressi perhaps if I might be allowed to write the Chapter on Scriabin and you the Delius chapter. Not that he has said anything disparaging of this latter, far from it, what little he has said appears highly sympathetic and appreciative, but I don’t think he knows enough about Delius’ music. As for writing on Scriabin he is unthinkable. His views on the latter are absolutely mistaken and perverted, as can be easily shown by a serious study – by a sympathetic person, which he is plainly not – towards Scriabin – of the latter’s glorious music. Edwin Evans might also be a suitable person. Clutsam is as a matter of fact engaged on a work on Harmony for his brother told me all about it & I am to meet him one day next week as for some reason best known to himself he wishes to meet us of all people in the world! Apparently the work is to be on a somewhat novel plan, for there will be no examples except those of his own! It is to be a work of decent size, for I am told the “Minor Mode” is to take 3000 words alone. I wish someone would write a profound work on “The Philosophy of Modern Music” – going deeply into the scientific and psychological sides of it. For I feel quite certain that there are many obscure laws of Sound which would be found to have an extremely interesting bearing on some of Scriabin’s & Ravel’s Harmonies for instance. All kinds of fascinating investigations and deductions might be arrived at. I  am quite convinced that before long we shall witness

90  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 the introduction of instruments with a smaller division of the octave than the semitone say 22 notes to the octave as the Hindûs have. Everything points to it. The cult of the semitone per laquelle “l’ècole moderne paraît hypnotisée” as Leonormand says seems to me one indication. The stupendous revolution that will then take place will only be comparable to the effect of the revolution caused by the establishment of your present Occidental equal temperament. It will of course postulate a finer aural sense. More than the cycle of 53 to the octave however it is impossible and is likely to be for thousands of years impossible for the human ear to distinguish. Helmholtz maintains that with a little practice it is perfectly easy to distinguish the various degrees of the 53 note octave. Unfortunately it is not practicable as yet owing to the impossibility of maintaining such small intervals accurately tuned. However I don’t see why we shouldn’t at once have the 31 or 22 note octave. String players would not be very much bothered by it while the wind instruments could give their natural series without any appreciable difference between them and the strings being observable. I wonder if a piano on the principle of the resonophon bell is a practical possibility? You know this do you not? A long plate of Bronze is fixed above a resonating chamber of bronze, a circular tube. The tone is of the utmost depth richness, beauty and power. The modern pianoforte, splendid instrument that it is, is not quite all that is wanted especially against a great orchestra.23 I must take leave of you now, it is my bedtime! Goodnight! Ever Yours. CL.D.S. Sorabji. Our neighbours are regaling us with “I  dreamt I  dwelt in marble Halls”24 Con variazioni!! They are what is called in this country “very musical people!” As you slate the unfortunate Dr Hull so unmercifully I wonder what you say about me behind my back. – “Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name”25 it!! If you had any intention of popping down this week, don’t, because I and my mother are going to be out such a lot that you will have your journey for nothing.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 14: fol. 76R-77V] 24-1-15

10. Gt. Russell Mansions Gt. Russell Street. W.C.

Dear Mr Heseltine Herewith enclosed is an attempt – to be greeted by you & your fellow conspirators with howls of derision – at a bit of scribble about Louis Aubert.26 I told you what to expect so you will only have yourself to thank. I am no Calvocoressi!

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 91 It is quite news to me to learn that consciousness of one’s limitations is a fault in your eyes: but I am afraid I must continue to sin even at the cost of forfeiting your good opinion and I take leave to think that our Eastern saying is a good deal wiser than you are: “The first great step on the road to knowledge is to know that you do not know” and the other: “The fool thinks he knows everything the wise man knows he knows nothing.” Goodbye. Have been still very seedy with this filthy weather. What a climate! It is said that people get what they deserve!! If so the English race must we working off a particularly heavy burden of evil Karma to be plumped down in such a climate! Ever Thine. D.K. Sorabji (as I propose to say in what articles I write K. not S. being I to aver the initial for my second last name)27 P.S. I have just received your letter. Can give you no help at all. I know nothing of the composers you mention & care less. I believe as a matter of fact that Novello28 publish their works. You might enquire of them.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 15: fol. 78R-89V] 2-3-15

10. Gt. Russell Mansions. Gt. Russell St. W.C.

Dear Mr H. Thanks for your note. We are moving next week so no time for Concerts of any sort. I see you are back at 34? You are somewhat of an enigma. That you have the feeling of a fine artist I  do not doubt, yet you actually talk of letting me hear mangled corpses, mutilated hideously of Ravel & Debussy on a Player Piano!!!! I have heard the best of these under the guidance of a skilled expert – Easthope Martin29 – but they remain mere parodists of great music. Do not run away with the idea that I oppose the pianola for the reason of the Superior Person – which foul vermin I loathe and execrate – viz. that it is a piece of mechanism! Nothing of the sort. The human hand itself as any anatomist will tell you is merely a marvellously perfect piece of mechanism the levers and cranks and motors of which are muscles sinews and tendons while the wires are nerves which convey electric current to the “motors!”

92  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 [inserted on blank page in Heseltine’s hand:] Sun. April 25

M 26 Music Club? (Delius) T 27 Dedara QH. W 28 Th 29 F 30 S May 1

Sun M T W Th F S.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8



Sun M T W Th F S.

9 L[ondon]S[ymphony]O[rchestra]. 10 LSO May 31 11 British Festival Q[ueen’s]H[all]. and June 7. 12 13 British Fest QH 14 15 British Fest. QH.

Sun M T W Th F S

Dedara. QH.

16 17 LSO. QH. 18 19 20 21 22

Su M T W Th F S

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Dedara QH.

The possibilities of the pianola are tremendous. They are as yet, however possibilities only; and anyone who tries to conceal that is only committing a piece of self-deception. Now the Welte-Mignon30 is really a marvel. When the ordinary foot controlled or driven pianola attains that stage then it will be really something great. Will you try and induce Mr. Beecham to give us Cyril Scott’s Piano Concerto. at one of the British Music Festival Concerts? This would be somewhat interesting I think. I have been working particularly at Ravel lately. The more I study him the more I admire his marvellous music. Scheherazade is a miracle! What atmosphere, what

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  93 supersensitiveness, what profound but delicate feeling! No Blarings no declaiming, all so subdued and what “tacte” in the French sense!! Unfortunately there is absolutely no singer here who could do them justice. Calvé’s31 is the voice wanted for them, & I can imagine her singing them adorably. I have no intention of endorsing your statement that there are no female English singers whatever. This is merely a silly exaggeration and quite unworthy of you as a profound and discerning critic. Is Kirkby Lunn32 no singer with her wonderful voice and consummate artistry? She is of course by no means appreciated as she deserves over here. But Berlin thinks otherwise. She alone of the English singers has sung at the Singakadamie before the most critical discerning audience in the world – and with the greatest éclat. Considering too that English musicians have always been regarded as something of a joke in Germany, – as something unworthy of serious consideration – this fact speaks for itself. Possibly you have never heard her. Then again is that superb artiste Maggie Teyte33 “no singer” – famed as one of the finest living interpreters of Mélisande and of Debussy’s songs? Is GleasonWhite “no singer”, the finest Fricka one has ever seen or heard and an Isolde the equal of Ternina?34 My mother who is anything but a lover of English singing or singers and herself a competent authority having for long been the pupil of Delle Sedie35 – one of the very greatest of singing masters – has heard the “Ring” about a dozen times in London 11 times with all the famous Continental exponents of that work participating and once with English singers, and assures me that never was it so finely or so beautifully done. The music was really sung, not barked, spluttered and coughed à la Bayreuth. On several of these occasions: Kirkby Lunn was Erda, and my mother declares her to be in every way the finest Erda she has ever heard: the heavy rich drowsiness of her wonderful voice when Wotan calls her up, is a thing to live forever in the memory. Clara Butt36 at whom you sneer is not an artist of course. But that she has one of the most wonderful voices in the world it is pure childishness for you or anyone else to deny. Her worst enemies must recognise that. One’s supreme regret, when listening to her is that she should so have wasted and misused her wonderful organ, with which she might have been one of the greatest of living singers on the plane of Chaliapin, Destinn,37 Ackté38 and Kirkby Lunn. Her great fault is and was her laziness. I know for a fact that when she was a student at the R[oyal].C[ollege]. and of Bouhy39 in Paris she would never work hard. And being gifted with a glorious voice she found a sort of success came to her without much trouble and took it. Her voice is said to resemble Scalchi’s,40 of whom you must of course have heard. There is no lack of beautiful voices in this country at all as those who really know what they are talking about will tell you. What is lacking is industry – that indolence and lack of thoroughness which are so typical of you English in matters of Art and Education and the defectiveness of the systems and the teachers of singing. Probably Visetti41 and Hermann Klein42 (neither of them English you observe) are the only two really good. As regards faultiness of what is incorrectly called “enunciation” (what is really meant is elocution) or articulation, I quite fail to see that the

94  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 average English singer is any worse than the average German. The articulation of Gerhardt43 – supreme artist that she is – is very far from being anything near what it should and I find it difficult and often impossible to make out the words she sings without a programme. The same remarks apply to any number of great artists from Germany that I have heard. You will perhaps say that it is because my knowledge of German is not good enough to enable me to tell what they sing? This is not the case – my knowledge of German is not extensive I admit – for when I hear the Russians at Drury Lane I can hear every syllable although also highly ignorant of that wonderful language. These and French artists are the people to go to if you want magnificent articulation – especially the artists from the “Opéra-Comique” – which as you know lays especial stress on this important branch of vocal technique. I am going to send the “Musical Standard” a destructive article on the atrocity known – why I know not – as the “British” (!!!!!??) Piano.” I hope they will publish it. If I can succeed in making some of the Billingshurst crew abusive I shall have achieved my entire object – viz that they give themselves away! – Goodbye Best Love!!! Yours Ever K.L.D.S.S. (Gote, a friend has nicknamed me.) The books were. “Esoteric Buddhism.” Christianity & Buddhism. (I think) “Buddhist Catechism” “Blast.” P.S. Send me back my books before Saturday as I want to send them to the warehouse, also the pamphlet on Louis Aubert if it is not in the Waste paper Basket. [In pencil in Heseltine’s hand:] Dunhill project Wednesday March 2nd Moiseivich Monday March 8th. Bethnal Green Tuesday March 9th.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 16: fol. 90R-91V] March. 1915 My dear Mr P.A.H. In your very interesting remarks on M. Delius you say that “he does not, however, limit himself to any fixed scale or system like Debussy (!) or Scriabin (!!!) Do you calmly assert that these two confine themselves harmonically the former to the Tonal Scale, the latter to his Harmonic Scale?? This is, however what

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 95 you say. It would mean for instance that Debussy used nothing but Augmented chords; but what could be further than the truth? With regard to Scriabin the charge is utterly ridiculous: the amazing fertility of that wonderful series gives us every chord known and a number of new ones as well. Even so, he does not confine himself to it but makes extensive use of all the 7th 9th 11th 13th chords and all kinds of derivatives therefrom in the way of chords with incorporated appogiature and passing notes. You might as well accuse Mozart of “monotony” because his music is almost wholly diatonic!! – “Confined to one fixed scale”!!! – A superficial judgement of and imperfect knowledge or incomplete sympathy with a composer might cause the intensely original and personal nature of such an idiom as Scriabin’s to be stigmatised as “monotony.” Let me tell you that the same charge – grotesque and absurd though it is to those who know better  – has been brought against the music of Mr. Delius himself and by an otherwise quite rational critic!! You would seem to hint that the passage of “Appalachia”44 quoted by Clutsam would not sound much on the piano. On the contrary it sounds extremely, penetratingly beautiful. The remarkable feature of Delius’ music is that it sounds glorious even on the monochrome piano – and let me tell you that in my opinion, that is the supreme test of orchestral music – its sounding well in a piano arrangement. By skilful orchestration an empty commonplace can be made to sound quite interesting. You must have come across this very often yourself. I hope some day to give you in my poor way a feeble presentation of the new works of Scriabin. Opp. 71, 72, 73, 74. The last contains one number which in its portrayal nay expression – of extreme torment surpasses anything I know. Here will I finish off the late “avec art” as in Klingsor’s and Ravel’s Asie45 —— Thine. K.L.D.S.S. (“Gote” if you will!)

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 17: fol. 94R-97V] May 12th [1915]

177 Clarence Gate Gardens. N.W.46

My dear Mr P.A.H. You will doubtless in your own forceful and vigorous parlance think me a “bloody fool”, but you remember what you said to me the other day about chucking the “Daily Mail” at some future time? You asked me if I would care to take it on. I refused at the time, but have pondered since that at any rate it would be something as a start. So if you really do chuck it, think of me as you so kindly suggested, if you really think I am a fit and proper person for such a matter. In any case it was extremely good of you to make such a suggestion and I am afraid my refusal must have seemed a little ungrateful and ungracious, if so please forgive for it was not so intended!

96  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 But seriously, if I were you, I don’t think I should “chuck it”. At any rate it is safe and secure. It enables you to go to a quantity of concerts and hear heaps of music gratis, and you need have no feelings of shame or pricks of conscience in writing your notices for it. Few people would ever think of glancing at what the “Daily Mail” says in matters of Art. This may perhaps seem mercenary. But really there is not the slightest harm in doing so in order to make money out of the most thoroughly sordid mercenary rag that ever issued from a printing press. I enjoyed “Sea-drift” enormously last night so did “Ma”! It was really astonishing the utter difference between this and Kennedy Scott’s47 performance. “C’était tout autre chose!” But even so a good deal was left to do. The Orchestra and Chorus are unresponsive and Heyner48 although a thousand million times preferable to Thorpe Bates is yet not an ideal soloist. The “Bells”49 although appallingly noisy and blatant has a few fine moments don’t you think? “Fifine”50 is most uninteresting in every way. It conveyed absolutely no impression or emotion to our minds whatever. We did not stop for the rest of the programme. You will be amused to learn that the “New Age”51 have this week suppressed my rejoinder to that brute’s insulting abuse of last week, with what idea I do not know. It seems to me that it would have been much more to the point to suppress his effusion which contributed absolutely nothing to the argument either this way nor that. Thanks so much for the Moret preludes52 and the Schönberg “Harmonielehre”.53 The Moret preludes have a most imposing appearance but it is all nothing at all except the number you marked which is quite nice. You have the “Crépuscúles d’Automne”54 from the library so I hear. They are exquisite songs. Perfect gems. The Library is really splendid and Mr Blom the librarian is an awfully nice fellow with a quite cultured musicianly taste. He and I are great friends! Let me know as soon as ever you should want the Schönberg or the Moret and they shall be returned instantly. My mother commands me to send you her kindest regards and hopes the Mariani pastilles55 had good effect??!! Ever D. K. Sorabji. P.S. What weather! What a change. Another liver attack for me!! Visions of Calomel56 and Karlsbadfuhrer!!! You will find I have in my excitement done something idiotic with this letter. You will I hope find your way through it.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 18: fol. 98R-99R] August 24th 1915.

177 Clarence Gate Gardens. N.W.

Sweetest and Best! Your letter gave me great joy. I had been wondering why I had had no reply to mine of over two months ago. The description of the party amused me greatly.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  97 “The lean hyaena-like person from Haiderabad” intrigues me muchly. I exult at hearing that M. Suhrawardy57 is writing such a book and I hope he has made sure of a publisher or will it be privately printed? Please keep me au courant as I desire to receive a copy of the work at the earliest possible moment. Under the question of the Registration form to which you refer we just wrote down No. 1 in very large black type heavily underlined! I am sending an extremely interesting book on the “Music of Hindostan” by one Fox Strangways.58 I have also been reading some extremely absorbing pamphlets published by the I[ndependent] L[abour] P[arty]. I have got all the most interesting concerning the manufacture of the war by the various groups of blackguards who “govern” the wretched peoples of Europe. The sight of thousands of young men going off to sacrifice their lives, and inflict on others (when not receiving themselves) hideous suffering and mutilation fills me with horror: and to think that it is all for the sake of the skins and pockets of the bloody swines who “run” countries and peoples for their own profit! Oh! it is hideous! Horrible! The pamphlets in question will become somewhat scarce, now that the Government has ordered the prosecution and raided the offices of the “Labour Leader.” If any clearer proof than that were wanted of the truth of the pamphlets I do not know where it could be found! I am sending you one or two herewith to read: They are “British Militarism” “Britain and the War” “Nationality and Patriotism” “Belgium and the Scrap of Paper” “Is Britain Blameless”? and “How the War came.” Do read them especially the first, second, fourth and last. Please take care of them as they will not be easy to get again. I have had 3 sets. One I sent to my father one I keep myself, and the 3rd I circulate among friends. M. Suhrawardy would do well to pour the vials of his scorn on the “Allies” side of the case: their fight for the “sanctity of treaties” remembering Oudh, Persia, Korea, Morocco and Turkey; and their mission of bringing freedom help and all and every blessings to oppressed nations remembering Ireland, India, Persia, Poland, Finland, the Ukraine, South Africa, Egypt, etc. etc. (oh and the Congo, the happy hunting ground of those dear and noble Belgians. I suppose you never read the Casement report?59 If you want your blood frozen with horror and to have sleepless nights for weeks read!) You will get a Virginal i.e. Spinet from Gaveau60 of Paris who specialises in “Instruments anciens.” He makes perfectly charming ones. I have seen a small table one of about 4 or 5 octaves by him and so small as to be perfectly portable. The one I saw was beautifully made and finished, and looked vastly preferable to the ramshackle museum object that one sometime sees. Failing this do you know the “Dulcitone”? It is a sweet little keyboard instrument the sound producing medium whereof is tuning-forks. I send you a little pamphlet about it. It can be seen at Hopkinson one of that elusive body of “British” Piano chuckers-together in Wigmore Street No. 52. For full details make Enquiries of Thos. Machell 45 Gt. Western Road. Glasgow. I believe Pleyel also makes Spinets and Harpsichords. As to price I can give you no idea. I should think from about £12 upwards. The Concerto progresses with measured tread and slow the first section is nearly complete!!61 Have done one or two more French songs62 and also the very moving and heart rending work enclosed.

98  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 When you want a furnished flat go to Sidney John Wright 2. Wellington Road. St. John’s Wood. I should try for one in Wellington House or Somewhere round behind High St. St. John’s Wood. So much better than Maida Wilderness and close to Primrose Hill the Park, Station and the ’bus. Goodbye. Your Loving Gote!!!

[18a: Philip Heseltine to Edith Buckley Jones] January 4th 1916. c/o D. H. Lawrence Porthcothan St Merryn Padstow Cornwall. My dear Mother The flat will be vacated at the end of the week I think – possibly before, but I will let you know definitely. In any case you could safely move in next Monday and it shall be thoroughly swept and garnished before that date. The glass panel and the sink were both mended before I  left. Nigam Khan will have departed for ever, I expect – But if he or Chrustchoff or Suhrawardy or any other Indian (except Sorabjî) turn up (which is unlikely) do not admit them or listen to a word they say. I have suffered enough from them! Your loving Philip.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 19: fol. 100R-101V] February 11th 1916. Mon très-cher ami – do not let yourself get into such a state of mental tension. I can see quite enough that it is well nigh unbearable for you, but you will only do yourself harm. Relax! Why has it not occurred to you to go to Ireland? There is no reason why you should not, and the change of surrounding and race would do you incalculable good. I was so anxious at not hearing from you that I did not know what to do! I rang up 13a. again and again but either no reply or no one could tell me of you. I then greatly presumptuous rang up Goossens63 and asked him. What he could have thought I cannot imagine for I gave him no name nor said who I was! He could tell me nothing. I then bethought me of the “Sackbut” offices and asked them. They it was from whom I got it. It is exceedingly good and generous of you to suggest sending the Concerto to M. Delius and I feel I ought to accept. But I am afraid it will be sometime before I can manage to let you have a copy of the score. As I told you it is only

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 99 about a quarter through and the labour of copying is immense when one must do it all one’s self. I shall dread the verdict!!! And I command you that you on no account send it to M. Delius unless you can in all truth, honesty and sincerity, say it is worthy of such a man’s attention. If you deceive me I will never forgive you!!! La vérité! La Vérité!! And remember whatever may hap – I will not be called a “British” composer. Heart mind body and soul I am Indian and would wish to be nothing else, though duly grateful for the soupçon of Spanish – “avec un peu d’Espagne autour”! Dear me what a very egotistic rigmarole nicht wahr? I went to hear Pachmann64 at the Philharmonic. He played Chopin [piano concerto] no 1. divinely. What a marvel he is, what a range of nuance from p. upwards! That is pianistic art in its purest and highest form. He was in splendid form and accompanied finely by Beecham – for a wonder – although there were some bad slips on his, or the orchestras part. The Chopin–Pachmann ‘rubato’ proved betweenwhiles rather much for them! I picked up recently a beautiful edition of Flaubert’s “Tentation de Saint Antoine” recently containing all 3 versions. It is one of 100 copies of the “Édition definitive” exquisitely printed on “papier de Chine” What a work! I mean to try and set it “un bel di.” I also acquired a sweet little “La Bruyère”65 and a Pickering66 “Diamond Classic” Terence67 for 6d! in its original cloth covers 1827! This is an exquisite little series 48mo! in minute and wonderful print. Have you ever seen it? Warwick Evans is going to do the new Debussy “Sonate pour Violoncelle et Piano” with Mrs Hobday68on March 4th. I got this. It is a curious work not altogether satisfactory I find. Do you know aught of Gregor Krein69 a new Russian? A  composer of great interest – I hope to show you such of his work as I possess before long. Goodbye for the present – the Peace of Nirvana be with you is the wish of ever Your DKS.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 20: fol. 102R-103V] 177 Clarence Gate Gardens. N.W. 23.2.16. Mon trés aimable et trés-cher! Many thanks for yours of the 21st (so dated) It is very sweet of you to invite us to dinner and we both thank you very much, but the truth is we never go out to dine these days. My mother is quite a mole in winter and it is impossible to get her out to anything of the kind. Nevertheless once again a thousand thanks. Now what about Bechstein’s one morning for the Concerto? or rather I should say one afternoon? I can manage Friday afternoon at 2. or Saturday morning at 10., or Monday morning at 10. Let me know which will suit you and I will arrange

100  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 a time at the Bechstein Studios. You will be doubtless vexed with me to learn that under no circumstance will I allow it to be published in England. Nothing can or will shake my convictions that it is hopeless. Besides, any sort of English reputation has no attraction whatever for me except with such select souls as your own dear self, and such as you are in proportion of perhaps 1/100,000. As I have already told you, we intend at some future date to take up our abode either in France or Italy. We suffocate, we choke here, especially my poor mother who loathes England with intense loathing and has for years desired nothing better than to escape. This country reacts not only most unfavourably on her spirits but on her health as well. “The Rainbow” is a wonderful work.70 It has one supreme fault. That style, that mode of expression cries out for the French language. The author himself seems to have felt that unconsciously himself. The book is full of idioms with a decidedly Gallic flavour and the turns of many phrases are thoroughly Gallic. Have you remarked this? The suppression of this work is a monstrous absurdity. The “Decameron”71 “Nana”,72 “La maison Tallier”,73 “La Terre”,74 Rabelais,75 and above all “La Tentation”76 all a very great deal bolder and more outspoken can be purchased anywhere about. If the subject of sex were handled in a spirit of mockery, jeering or sacrilegious manner – as it is in 99 out of 100 Marie Lloyd77 music hall songs, one might have a faint understanding. But it is useless to pursue the argument further. All, and the worst that can be said of such an action is how English! The Whitaker78 songs are most beautiful and interesting. Poor unhappy man – Rochdale!! They are saturated with Delius influence in a very subtle way. I have all kinds of ideas in my head. I have thoughts of writing a little book about Ravel. I am I think peculiarly qualified to do so. I am not only thoroughly conversant with everything he has written, but I understand and enter in to the spirit of this super subtle personality in a way few can or do, being a passionate admirer to boot. Yes, it would be great fun – an Eastern on Ravel!!! ______ Toujour à toi. D. K. S.

[20a: Philip Heseltine to Colin Taylor (excerpt)] 13 Rossetti Mansions Flood Street, Chelsea SW 

Ken. 6319. 13. 3. 1916.

[. . .] Sorabjî, the Parsee born of an Anglo-Spaniard, has written a soul-shattering Piano Concerto, in a style evolved from late Scriabin + Ravel with a dash of Stravinsky (post-Petrouchkan period), but not ape-ishly imitative of any of them.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  101 He claims perfect mental auditory powers, for all the complexity of his harmonic scheme. If it’s true, he is a psychological phenomenon of the most astounding order – for a year ago he had no thought or even desire of composing anything at all. Even the piano passages were evolved without any reference to an instrument!! [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 21 (postcard) fol. 104R; address on V] [Postmarked London N.W. 17 March 16A] Mon cher! Je regrette infiniment de n’avoir pas repondu plus tot à votre trés aimable carte postale, mais comme toujours je m’occupe tellement de mes travaux. La premiere partie du Concerto est achevée il y a peut-être quinze jours. Je’n suis à la moitié de la deuxième. Mais vous voyez qu’il faut absolument que j’en fasse une copie de crainte que n’en deviennee! Vous allez voir et essayer le “Dulcitone” chez Messieurs Hopkinson 52, Wigmore Street. C’est la que j’ai vu d’abord cet instrument charmant et bijou. Les pris les voici 3½ Octaves. £12. (mais je crois qu a cause 4   ”  ” £15. de longuerre [la longueure] vous auriez 5   ”  ” £19. a payer un peu plus.)79 Toujours a vous D.K.S. _________________________________________________________________ P. Heseltine Esq., 13. Rossetti Mansions. Flood Street. Chelsea. S.W.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 22 (postcard) fol. 105R; address on V] [Postmarked London N.W. 23 March 16A] Mon cher! Mille félicitations. Que je suis content de vos nouvelles!! La partition pour piano complète de Daphnis et Chloé et publiée au prix de 12 fr. On l’obtient chez Augener. La partition d’orchestre miniature se vend aussi chez Augener au prix de 30 francs. Cet une oeuvre superbe que jai vue representée à Drury Lane en 1914. trés que je vous à vue jai écrit une vocalise pour soprano colorature – la voix trop negligée par les maîtres contemporains. Envoici l’accord final

102  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917

!!! Musical Example 2.2  Chord from Sorabji’s Vocalise pour soprano fioritura80

Est ce que vou voulez bien que je vous dédie un de mes chants? Je le désire tellement!81 Votre dévoué D.K.S. _________________________________________________________________ P.Heseltine Esq. 13. Rossetti Mansions. Flood Street. Chelsea. S.W.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 23: fol. 106R-111R] 177 Clarence Gate Gardens N.W. 21.4.16. Mon cher! Pourquois cette phrase “cher Mâitre” – ce titre là m’intrigue beaucoup, veuillez expliques!!82 Yes I was at the Goossens concert.83 Who the Devil told you I was upstairs and what did they mean by doing so? Is one never to slip in anywhere unnoticed??? I know you will think me a perfect pig for not waiting but I loathe the crowd who come surging out so much that I go to any lengths to avoid them. I am a silly fool no doubt – but I am what I am voilà tout. It was a most wonderful evening compact of rarest emotions. To think of that amazing genius mewed in this vile country fills me with rage. That scarlet badge of infamy on its appropriately dung colored background on his arm of all!!!. . . . Sheep numbered for the slaughter . . . house . . . The case of your friend Mr. Allinson84 distressed me very much. Of course he will never yield I am sure _____ I digress. Yes, the “Prose Lyriques”85 are utter attitudinising on “Edwin [Evans]’s” part: – “Le plafond de mon espirit est emaillé d’espoirs: en voici plusieurs”!!!!!86 There

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  103 are expressions that a Frenchman would not use I am sure, did you remark them? No neither did I. The titles of the movements of “Impressions of a holiday”87 repel one – at least they do me. One thinks of cheap oleographs of the beauty spots of the neighbourhood on sale in the village general shop – almost involuntarily. A more fatuous judgment than that of the creature Legge was never expressed perhaps even by him of-the-one-and-a-half-ideas-of-which-one-{stolen/ borrowed}-and-other-worth-not-quite-a-penny. This person affects to see in M. Goossens’ work the influence of Debussy. I am probably as well acquainted with Debussy’s work as anyone but I cannot recall in any work of M. Goossens that was played the other night even so much as a phrase which should suggest by no more than its contour anything of Debussy! Does it not seem to you I  am right? Quite often however I did feel the influence of Delius, Ravel, Scriabin and occasionally Stravinsky – but such influence is quite fleeting and of no particular moment. It affects in no way the validity of the assertion that here we have one of the Masterminds of Contemporary music. Comparisons are I know foolish, but I cannot help drawing your attention to the very feeble sound of Cyril Scott after This! I believe I saw him there. You I did not see. So you have moved again!88 Me you will not see for some time as we are in the throes of moving. As soon as we are a little bit settled I come if I may on Sunday morning – that is my day for other’s to be at home to me!!! Your black cats interest me very much. I expect to be introduced when I come. Yes I did telephone because I hoped for a little word from you over it but you had gone. Yes I have heard of Mr. Alvin Langdon Coburn89 he is I believe an American is he not? I have a little book of Cubist Poems by Max Weber90 dedicated to him and containing a short biography of that poet by the dedicatee himself. You will be interested and pleased to hear that William Murdoch combines within himself the qualities of Bauer, Moiseiwitsch, Busoni, and Pachmann possessing all the virtues of these great men to a greater degree than they – according to one W.J. Turner.91 To satisfy myself as to the falsity of the grotesque claims made for this prodigious marvel, I took the trouble to go and hear him at his recital a short while ago – of course I was not such a fool as to pay, I was a lead head at the Aeolian. I am quite sure that I  never heard Bach so abominably played even by Sir Wood’s Orchestra when they do to death his orchestrated version of the F major Organ Toccata92 – which Miss Bauer, one of Bauer’s sisters played to me once and which at her hands (and feet!) sounded superb, she being a magnificent organist. As for the Debussy it was a nightmare. For the Chopin group I  dared not stay having heard a few nights before Pachmann perform miracles with the 2nd Concerto. I am certain too that I never sensed from the concert platform a more utterly repellant and repulsive personality. It has a marked family resemblance with that of F.S. Kelly93 who is just such another beast and whom I believe we both heard murder Sonata V of Scriabin at the Bechstein in December  1913, at the Ravel Concert was it not?

104  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 You should have a look at the new Sonata for Violin and Piano of Ornstein.94 It is really a most wonderful work. I find it appeals strongly to me, far more than anything else of his I know. Its difficulty is of course terrific. It may be seen at Augeners. Did you get your music and the “Rainbow”95 back safely, that Sunday? As soon as I heard you were engaged,96 I fled as though 10,000 devils were at my heels till I landed panting and on the verge of collapse in Kings Road!!!! The “Signature” numbers97 I will let you have later. I forgot to return them at the time but will do so at the first opportunity. The opening bars of that Yeats’98 song of yours haunt me continually. I think it an extremely beautiful thing. Out of the whole lot I have from the very beginning singled that one out as the gem of what I supposed to be all Whitaker’s work – you cheat! – what else have you done? I demand to know at once!!! May I ask you a great favour? Will you ask M. Suhrawardy next time you see him what he has heard about the Sinhalese affair?99 I am particularly desirous of knowing. The accounts are conflicting, and so little has appeared in the papers about it. I am also awaiting the “Impressions of England” with eager anticipation. Did you see the astonishingly fatuous remarks of Mr. Clutsam about that exquisite passage from “Canope”100 of Koechlin which he quotes in the April “Musical Times”?101 What an extraordinarily wrong-headed thing to say:– “much nonsense in most of the extravagant passages from the pen of Mr. Charles Koechlin” – a “rival of Schönberg”!!!!! I had hoped for better from Clutsam than that sort of thing. It might be Corder or Stanford! Now goodbye. I go to bed. So tired. My beautiful eyes are heavy with slumber my pen faltereth in my hand and. . . . !! Your D.K.S. N.B. Henceforth write to 175 instead of 177.102

[23a: Philip Heseltine to Frederick Delius (excerpt)] 14 Whiteheads Grove Chelsea, S.W.

April 22nd 1916.

[. . .] Did I tell you in my last letter about the amazing Piano Concerto written by Sorabjî, my Anglo-Hispano-Indian friend? I believe I did so I will not weary you with repetition. Last week Goossens (happily exempt, like myself) gave a chamber concert of his own works. The Aeolian Hall [see n. 104] was fuller and more enthusiastic than I have seen it since the war began. To hear a representative selection of Goossens’ work in one concert was indeed an artistic revelation. Most heartily do I  endorse your verdict that his is the finest music England has yet produced – and although he will no doubt be submerged for years, as you were, beneath the tide of mediocrity, yet one day the tide will ebb and leave at least two figures standing firm amid the wrack. . [. . .]

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  105

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 24: fol. 112R-V] May 3rd 1916.

  175 Clarence Gate Gardens.   Regents’ Park. N.W.

Mon cher ami. Thousand and one thanks for your charming note to which you should long ago have had an answer but that I have – to use a vulgar phrase – “had my guts rushed out of me”!! We have been moving under particularly trying and uncomfortable circumstances. To begin with our new flat was not ready for occupation by the time our tenancy expired at 177 – to go on with, we could not get an extension of tenancy as it was let and had to take another furnished flat for a fortnight! The above is the permanent address till after the War although we are not yet in residence there. I can’t imagine why you should want to hang an article on such a sorry peg – still if it gives you any pleasure to do so I will be the last to deny you provided you mention no names. If you would like, we could arrange a meeting at Bechstein’s once again in a few weeks time and you may have a peep at the Partition d’Orchestre of IT103 (!!!?!!) as far as it goes i.e. end of 2nd movement. You did not say who disclosed my presence at the Aeolian Hall104 the other night????? Mr. Blom105 swears it was not he. Goodbye. Your own Gote.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 25: fol. 113R-V] 31. mai. 1916.

  175. Clarence Gate Gardens.   N.W.

My very cher PH. Be sure and let me have a card if I am not to come to you on Sunday as I purpose so to do. It was very pleasant to see you again after nearly 3 months is it? With my usual genius I forgot to ask you a most important question – Will you let me dedicate the Concerto to you instead of the group of French songs? I feel I owe you this much, for I am quite sure that but for your encouragement and “bonté” the Concerto would never have seen the light of day. If I have not spoken this to you it is because a certain diffidence comes over one when vis à vis – if you know what I mean? Please do let me do this there’s a good soul. I shall be very upset and hurt if you refuse!!! Madre mia agrees that I am quite right in asking this. I await your reply with violent impatience.106 Your Gote.

106  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 26: fol. 114R-V] Le 6. juillet ’16

  175. Clarence Gate Gardens.   N.W.

Mon très cher Philip of Macedon.107 I am going to pay Mr. Scherek a visit shortly to talk about the Concerto [no 1]. Of course if I cannot secure the Copyright for all countries I shall not risk having it done as if it were pirated, I should have no redress: in the meantime I am making various enquiries. I suppose I had better make a fresh 2 piano 4 hand version, as the one you have done does not correspond with the full score as I have told you. Oh! dear! more work for me!! It would be very nice, if – later on – the Orchestrelle Co.108 thought it worth their while – they would take the rights of reproduction for Mechanical instruments! But no such luck. If such a thing did happen, it would I suppose have no effect on the subsequent disposal of Copyright to a publisher? All these things have to be made sure of, and as I am quite a novice it behooveth me to go warily. Yes, I think I castigated Hugh Arthur109 quite nicely: you remarked his frenzied wrigglings???? I have just finished a second vocalise and have started the musicdrama “Medea”.110 In the meanwhile, there seetheth at the bottom of the cauldron of my mind the plan of Concerto 2!!!!!111 But this is as yet quite nebulous and vague: –

Musical Example 2.3 Excerpt from Sorabji’s Concerto 2 pour piano et grand orchestre op. 10

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  107 This is how it will commence I think. It is in my usual mood of ungovernable violence as you will remark from the above fragment! Toujours à Toi. KS. [symbol (see Illustration 9)]

26a: The Musical Times 57(881) (1 July 1916): 332 ‘THE MELODIC POVERTY OF MODERN MUSIC.’ TO THE EDITOR OF ‘THE MUSICAL TIMES.’ SIR, – Mr. Scott is evidently one of those people to whom a melody is – well – not a melody if it is other than strictly diatonic. He speaks a great deal about melodies, tunes, and themes without defining clearly what he means by any of them. The term melody he apparently restricts in a manner not in the least warranted. How, one would like to know, would Mr. Scott classify the following Indian fragment:

Musical Example 2.4  ‘Indian fragment’

This typical specimen of our vocal melody certainly does not fit in with Mr. Scott’s ‘tunes which everybody can get hold of,’ nor has it the smallest feature in common with anything to be found in Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, &c. It is therefore not a melody according to Mr. Scott! What you and your readers will observe in the quotation above is its very striking affinity with many a theme from ultra-modern Occidental music – a fact of the very highest significance. Mr. Scott, I think, ventures too far in saying that melody – his idea of melody presumably – and thematic interest ‘should be one of their [modern composers’, that is] most invaluable resources.’ To speak of the ‘all-powerful’ effect of ‘definite melody’ is presumptuous, to say the least. May I ask Mr. Scott to consider for a moment that stupendous masterpiece of modern music, Ravel’s song ‘Le Martin-Pêcheur’ – a thing impossible outside modern music or Ravel. Will he dare to suggest that the composer would have made a greater work of art of this gem had he made use of ‘definite melody’? What conceivable ‘definitely melodic’ phrase could approach that perfectly magical chord-motive preceding the words ‘Je ne respirais plus. . .’? There is no possible place for Mr. Scott’s ‘definite melody’ in modern music – a thing which, with his apparent knowledge, he ought to know and recognise. Melody as understood in a wide and not unwarrantedly restricted sense there is in abundance of rarest and richest beauty, as moving and eloquent, I dare to think, as

108  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 anything to be found in the ‘old masters,’ together with – especially in the case of the modern French masters – an absence of exaggerated emphasis and redundance of which the former are anything but guiltless. – Yours truly, 175, Clarence Gate Gardens, N.W. D. K. SORABJI. Mr. H. A. Scott, to whom the foregoing has been submitted, writes: ‘It would require another article to reply in detail to Mr. Sorabji’s interesting letter, and for the present I must content myself with pointing out that in criticising my article he appears to have overlooked the following paragraph: I am not suggesting that they [modern composers] should not write music of what may be called the non-thematic type when they are moved to do so. On the contrary, music of this type has always existed, as have pointed out already.  .  .  . But in no previous age has it been favoured exclusively. Even granting that the current examples in this style are all that their warmest champions can say, why need such an overwhelming proportion of modern music be cast in this particular mould? From this Mr. Sorabji will perceive that I expressly guarded myself in advance against the particular line of criticism which he adopts. Whether he is right in his assertion that ‘there is no possible place for “definite melody” in modern music’ I will not stay now to discuss; but if he is, I am disposed to reply in the terms of the historic advocate, ‘That is my case, m’Lud.’

26b: The Musical Times 57(883) (1 September 1916): 209–210 ‘THE MELODIC POVERTY OF MODERN MUSIC.’ (See June, p. 276; July, p. 332; and August, p. 360.112) TO THE EDITOR OF ‘THE MUSICAL TIMES.’ SIR, – Both Mr. Scott and Mr. Colles allege that I said that there was no place for definite melody in modern music. Will these two gentlemen be so kind as to read my letter once again? They will then observe that what I really said was that there was no place in modern music for Mr. Scott’s definite melody. I took especial care in my letter to lay stress on Mr. Scott’s definition of melody, and particularly on his words, ‘tunes which everybody can get hold of.’ I also said: ‘Melody as understood in a wide and not unwarrantably restricted sense there is in abundance [i.e., in modern music] of richest and rarest beauty.’ That a melody is not a melody because any Tom, Dick, or Harry cannot grasp it as such, I repudiate. The right of the melodies of practically all your great European masters to be considered as such was denied by some of their contemporaries. The artist must express himself as he feels by means of the processes that seem to him most adequate for his purpose; and whether or not these processes happen to fit in with the notions of the man in the street cannot be expected to be a matter of concern to him.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  109 Mr. Colles considers my Indian fragment somewhat irrelevant. I wonder why. Mr. Scott appears to postulate a melody among other things as ‘a tune which everyone can get hold of,’ and, so far as I can see, would deny that title to one which does not conform to his condition. My quotation is typical of Indian vocal melody of a simple form, but does not conform to this condition. Where is the irrelevancy! If a melody is a melody in one place, it can scarcely cease to be so somewhere else! My fragment is written in a modality absolutely outside the ordinary European ones. Further it is not sung in your Western scale at all, but in one containing twenty-two intervals to the octave. 175, Clarence Gate Gardens. D. K. SORABJI. [Lack of space compels us to abbreviate the much longer letter sent by Mr. Sorabji. – ED., M.T.]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 27: fol. 115R-117V] 27. VIII. XVI.

  175. Clarence Gate Gardens.   N.W.

My dear Phee:– The little Rehearsal Theatre about which I spoke to you this morning is situated in Maiden Lane just a few doors from Bedford Street Strand. All one can see from the outside is a small door with the words “The Rehearsal Theatre” written above it. It is very small and from what I have heard would suit the purpose to admiration. I have however, myself never been in it, but as I told you it is frequently let for lectures etc. As you will of course have to hire pianos  – in the event of the scheme materialising  – let me implore you to have nothing to do with anything but Steinways which are the only ones fit for the presentation of the music you propose to do. Il me vient une idée! Why not put Rébikov’s “Abgrund” on one of your programmes?113 It is a fine little work, very short and the fact that it is partially by such a notable Russian Writer as Andréev,114 would increase the interest of doing it. I think it would be best to keep the affair private or semiprivate, that is, not announce it widely but canvas as it were for subscriptions among a chosen circle and people whom the scheme is likely to appeal to e.g. such as myself, your own friends, and people like Edwin Evans etc.115 With regard to people who are likely to be quite unknown to the audience, it would be interesting I think, and instructive to give either a little introductory lecture about them – for which purpose thine own self is admirably fitted or written notice about them in the programme. But I think the lecturette is nicer it helps to break down the absurd barrier between the audience and the artists, which however justifiable it may be in the case of such a rabble as form the average Queen’s Hall audience – and the

110  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 farther apart the artists keep from that sort of “canaille” the better – is quite out of place in the case of an intimate affair such as that which you are proposing. I forgot to tell you this morning that I had heard from the Mcnaught creature who now wants to publish my letter versus Colleywobbles116 and Great [Hugh Arthur] Scott in an abbreviated expurgated form. I  have consented solely on 2 conditions, that a footnote be appended indicating that the letter as published is greatly abbreviated and that the unexpurgated original be either sent or shewn to Colleywobbles and Great Scott, who, he informs me are ‘valued contributors’, precisely for what reasons is not forthcoming, and I have so far not asked him.117 Now! Put your hand on your heart and swear solemnly, in the name of the Mason and Hamlin Concert Grand,118 the Clutsam Cradle Keyboard119 and the Gote to answer me truly to the question I ask you. Do you think my interpretations of Scriabine are good? It is so difficult to tell oneself, when one is playing. For although as far as I  am concerned I  put my whole heart and soul into them and I feel every note as few people can, yet I am by no means certain that I convey those feelings to my “auditoire”. Of course I know that I could do them ever so much better were I not so hampered technically and physically, and I feel pretty certain that if I had the requisite technique I could interpret them probably as finely as any one living. It is cruel and diabolically tantalising to find one’s powers of expression gagged and throttled by defective media and sometimes a great disgust seizes me, and I feel I will never play another note!! Do tell me what you really think. I still await a visit from you one afternoon which cometh not! Your Gote. [Drawings (see Illustration 10)] Futurist Impressions of the states of mind of Colleywobbles and Great Scott after a reading of the Epistle.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 28: fol. 140R-141R] [June (or earlier) 1917]120 [First three pages missing] except people like the Ernest Newman of today, to assert that the adept is devoid of all human feeling! Of all mere human feeling he may be and very likely is, but he has feelings above and beyond those of the ordinary mortal It is the greatness of Scriabine and Ravel that they have such, so to say, superhuman emotions and can express them Scriabine especially with such amazing force and power. Only those with a considerable degree of inner vision and marked supernormal receptiveness can hope to grasp and sense such music, which is the reason that both these composers appeal so powerfully to Indians, in whom by right of birth these qualities are inherent to a degree far beyond that of humanity in the rest of the world except in very rare isolated instances. Certainly many people will appreciate such music as sound but they will get no farther than that, as anyone with any sort of ear cannot fail to appreciate the sheer beauty of sound of Sanskrit.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 111 It is odd that Cyril Scott, profound and sincere occultist as he truly is has no power of musical utterance in that respect. Delightful and fascinating as are such things as the Piano Sonata, the Second Suite, the Concerto beside those of whom I  have been speaking it is all essentially “journalier.” His work compared with theirs is like a very exquisite specimen of eccentric turning which I possess – a purely mechanical soulless thing – beside the fantastic dream like beauty of the Taj. Heavens! I wonder if you will succeed in delving your way through this jungle of muddledickop? At any rate I have given you one or two hints as to my meaning! I leave it to your clairvoyance to grasp the rest. Will you come one day to Bechstein’s and hear the Sonata121 and parts of the new Concerto?122 I should love to hear what you think of them. You may damn them utterly but I shall not mind. I have said what I wanted and what I felt in my own way and am satisfied – as for the others, if they don’t like what I say or my way of saying it be damned to them, it is no business of theirs!! ___ Your own Gote. P.S. Do you know the enclosed effusion of Rupert Brooke?

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 29: fol. 92R-93V] [June 1917]123 Many thanks for music and ‘Review’.124 Although as you know I violently disagree with you on many points it is such a relief to read something by one who does know what he is talking about. The first step to knowledge, a Parsi proverb has it, is to know that one does not know. It is not only the first but a very big step, far beyond the Lilliputian mental stature of creatures like R[obin].L[egge] who will never learn it. It was an absolutely false step on your part to issue tickets to the critics. The very conditions make what they say worthless. You should never have deigned to notice their existence. Having done so you might have explained your attitude in the N[ew] A[ge].125 I have sent a letter partly supporting you against the cretinous F[rederick H.] E[vans]126 mentioning a few facts about you which should have an “effet écrasant” on the microbe. You might also keep your eyes on the M[usical] Standard for the next week. I  am administering reproof to an individual who has the effrontery to claim Delius as a British composer.127 At the present moment three artistic figures of primary importance are claimed as Britons two of whom have not one drop of British Blood in their veins – Delius and Epstein,128 while the 3rd Goossens far more Flemish than ever he is an Englishman. The British Composer! As they have failed to produce an interpretative artist of the highest rank so they fail to produce a creative artist of such. They are obliged to cry “Albert Sammons129 William Murdoch” who are just about fit artistically to serve as scullions to such as Kreisler130 or Bauer (who is also claimed as a British pianist a man of Bavarian Jewish origin) could shameless hypocrisy go further. For composers they have one second rate individual – Cyril Scott, who might have done great things had he never been born in England but he has been

112  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 crippled by environment. No. I did not mean he was an occultist of the calibre of our very good friend Meredith Starr131 and I ought not to have made use of words giving that impression. That he is a deeply sincere one and that it means much to him I believe, from what he said to me. Read the Gitâ and you will learn what I meant about Ravel & Scriabine. My dear boy why on earth should you expect a furious attack from me? Your opinions are your own as mine are mine. Neither has any right to try and ram his down the throat of the other. I have learnt a lot since reading the “Gitâ” I assure you. I knew that R. & S. [Ravel and Scriabin] were never to you what Delius is, nor am I greatly as you know I admire him, anything like so intensely responsive to him as I am to them. Yes the Personal Equation is Everything. The rest is nothing. For myself, my own work means to me just this, the expression of my own emotions and individuality as I will, with all the force sincerity and conviction at my command. I don’t know if it is what is called “swelled head” but I find my own work satisfies me more completely than anyone elses. Should this be so I wonder? Yes I think it should. It is a sort of guarantee as it were! I don’t know what you will think of Concerto II [KSS14]. I am bursting to play it to you. I think it is miles beyond I. The orchestra is as “megalomaniac” as before with the addition of Organ a 4th Trombone a picc. Clarinet a Bass Oboe (!!) and Caisse Claire but it is used very sparingly. I may come and see you one evening before I go away early in July but I cannot promise absolutely as I have so much do of one sort or another. Let me know when you can call on me at Bechstein’s. Or you might come here when we come back. I  would brave the wrath of the neighbours. We are going to hire a Steinway grand when we come back, which we have always longed to have. Your K.S. Thanks for the “Kaikhusru”. No more D.K. please. K only please. I abandon D to the outer darkness.

Notes 1 The exact interpretation and etymology of arahant and arhat remains disputed. The term was in use before the appearance of Buddhism. Based on a possible Sanskrit etymology, arhant can be translated as ‘deathless’, since ‘hant’ in Sanskrit means death or killing, and ‘ar’ is often used for negation, implying ‘cannot be killed’ or ‘beyond death’ or ‘deathless’. This fits well with the central philosophical thought in Buddhism. 2 Tathagâta is a Pali and Sanskrit word the Buddha of the Pali Canaon uses when referring to himself. The term is often thought to mean either ‘one who has thus gone’ or ‘one who has thus come’. 3 This Delius transcription might be Sorabji’s first musical work. See Rapoport (1992, 109; 214). 4 Robin Hood’s Bay is a small fishing village and a bay located within the North York Moors National Park five miles south of Whitby and fifteen miles north of Scarborough.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  113 5 The Gathas  – the most sacred texts of the Zoroastrian faith  – are seventeen hymns believed to have been composed by Zarathustra himself. 6 Great Russell Mansions is at 60 Great Russell Street, London (WC1B  3BE). From November 1914 to 2 March 1915 Sorabji and his mother lived in the left section of this mansion block comprising a basement, a ground floor and five floors (for a total of twenty-six flats) located just across the entrance to the British Museum, located between Museum and Bury Streets. See Illustration 4. 7 Paul Vinogradoff (1854–1925), Anglo-Russian historian and medievalist. 8 Friedrich Adolf Julius von Bernhardi (1849–1930), bellicose Prussian general and military historian. He advocated a policy of ruthless aggression and complete disregard of treaties. 9 Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (1834–1896), German historian and political writer. 10 ‘Whom Jupiter would destroy, he first sends mad’. Unattributed but used by James Duport (1606–1679) in his Homeri Gnomologia of 1660. 11 Leonid Leonidovich Sabaneyev (1880–1968), Russian musicologist, music critic, composer and scientist. 12 Quotation is from the final bars of Leonid Sabaneyev’s piano Poème op. 6 no 1 (1912). 13 Writing of the two low Gs below the conventional bottom A, Derus (1992, 215) makes the reasonable supposition that Sabaneyev (and later Sorabji) was writing for the Bösendorfer Imperial Grand, whose lowest note is C0. 14 Heseltine was living at 34 Southwold Mansions, Maida Vale at the time. 15 Blast was a short-lived British literary magazine of the Vorticist movement. Two editions were published: the first on 2 July 1914 (delayed from the scheduled publication date of 20 June 1914) and the second a year later on 15 July 1915. 16 Symphonic poem (1867–1882). 17 Louis François Marie Aubert (1877–1968), French composer and pianist. 18 Mignon Nevada (1886–1971), English operatic soprano; Felice Lyne (1887–1935), American opera singer; Florence MacBeth (1891–1966), American operatic soprano. 19 In December 1914, Beecham had offered Heseltine the editorship of a new arts periodical to be called The New Hat. In the event nothing came of it. 20 Eaglefield Hull, Arthur. 1915. Modern Harmony. Its Explanation and Application. London: Augener Ltd. 21 Lenormand, René. 1915. A Study of Modern Harmony (Étude Sur L’harmonie Moderne). London: Joseph Williams. 22 George Howard Clutsam (1866–1951), Australian pianist, composer and writer. Having moved to London in 1889, he wrote music criticism for The Observer and The Musical Times from 1908–1918. 23 ‘The resonophone was a bass glockenspiel. Hawkes and Sons built it for Percy Grainger who used it for the first time in Bournemouth in February 1914 in his orchestral arrangement of Molly on the Shore’. Derus 1992, 217. 24 The best-known aria from the opera The Bohemian Girl (1843) by the Irish composer, Michael William Balfe (1808–1870). 25 Shakespeare: Macbeth, II, iii. 26 An article for the proposed The New Hat which was not used. See endnote 19 and postscript to letter 15 (2 March 1915). 27 The wording of this clause is speculative as the handwriting is not entirely clear at this point. 28 Novello & Co, London-based music publishing company specialising in choral music, founded in 1811 (now part of Music Sales). 29 Easthope Martin (1882–1925), British composer known primarily for his popular songs. 30 The Welte-Mignon player piano (1904) reproduced not just the notes of the music but also tempo, pedalling and other expressive aspects of a particular performance.

114  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 31 Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet (1858–1942), French operatic soprano, one of the most famous French opera singers of the Belle Époque. 32 Louise Kirkby Lunn (1873–1930), English contralto, a leading singer earning praise for her performances in concert, oratorio and opera. 33 Maggie Teyte (1888–1976), English operatic soprano and noted interpreter of French art song. 34 Cicely Gleeson-White, British soprano active ca 1906–1912; Milka Ternina, née Katarina Milka Ternina (1863–1941), Croatian dramatic soprano who enjoyed a high reputation in major American and European opera houses. 35 Enrico Augusto Delle Sedie (1822–1907), Italian operatic baritone and singing teacher. 36 Clara Ellen Butt (1872–1936), English contralto. 37 Emmy Destinn (Ema Destinnová) (1878–1930), Czech operatic soprano. 38 Aino Ackté (originally Achte) (1876–1944), Finnish soprano. 39 Jacques-Joseph-André Bouhy (1848–1929), Belgian baritone. 40 Sofia Scalchi (1850–1922), Italian operatic mezzo-soprano. 41 Albert Visetti (1846–1928), singing teacher at the Royal College of Music. 42 Herman Klein (1856–1934), English music critic, author and teacher of singing at the Guildhall School of Music. 43 Elena Gerhardt (1883–1961), German mezzo-soprano. 44 Appalachia for choir and orchestra by Frederick Delius (1896, reworked 1902–1903). 45 Tristan Klingsor (Léon Leclère, 1874–1966), French poet, musician, painter and art critic; author of the text for Ravel’s song-cycle Shéhérazade for soprano and orchestra in three movements: ‘Asie’, ‘La flûte enchantée’ and ‘L’indifférent’. 46 177 Clarence Gate Gardens, London (NW1 6AR). From May 1915 to April 1916 Sorabji and his mother lived in a first-floor flat in block 8 (containing nos 168–189) on the east side of Glentworth Street, at the corner of Siddons Lane. See illustration 5. 47 Charles James Kennedy Osborne Scott (1876–1965), English organist and choral conductor who played an important part in developing the performance of choral music in England, especially of early and modern English music. 48 Herbert Heyner (1882–1954), English baritone. 49 The Bells, ‘dramatic poem’ op. 50(a) for chorus and orchestra (to words by Edgar Allan Poe) by Joseph Holbrooke (1878–1958), first performed at the 1906 Birmingham Festival. 50 Fifine at the Fair, orchestral work by Granville Bantock (1868–1946) first performed at the 1912 Birmingham Festival. 51 The New Age, a British literary magazine noted for its wide influence from 1907 to 1922 under the editorship of Alfred Richard Orage (1873–1934). Sorabji was later to write regularly for the publication. 52 Ernest Moret (1871–1949), 10 Préludes. 53 First published 1911. 54 Crépuscúles d’Automne, six songs by Louis Aubert to texts by various French poets active at the fin-de-siècle, published 1909. 55 ‘Pastilles Mariani’, trade name for pastilles containing cocaine marketed by Angelo Mariani (1838–1914), a French chemist originally from the island of Corsica. 56 Mercurous chloride, a white powder formerly used as a purgative. 57 Hassan Shahid Suhrawardy, one of Heseltine’s Oxford friends (1890–1965), educationalist, poet, linguist, art-critic and diplomat. 58 Arthur Henry Fox Strangways (1859–1948), English musicologist, translator, editor and music critic; author of The Music of Hindostan, 1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 59 The Casement Report was a document of 1904 written by the British diplomat Roger Casement (1864–1916), detailing with human rights abuses in the Congo Free State, which was under the private ownership of King Leopold II of Belgium. 60 Gaveau of Paris, French piano manufacturer. The company was established by Joseph Gabriel Gaveau in 1847 and was one of the three largest piano makers in France (after Érard and Pleyel).

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 115 61 Sorabji completed this, his first concerto (KSS6), on 19 June 1916 (‘de 15 de l’aprèsmidi’). Styled ‘Concerto. /pour Piano et Grand Orchestre. /Opus. III.’, the three movements are marked respectively Moderé, Trés lent, and Impetueux et impatient (see facsimile page Illustration 7). See also letters 19, 20, 21, 25 and 26, and Heseltine’s reactions in 20a and 23a. 62 The Poplars op. 2 no 1 (KSS1), Chrysilla op. 1 no 1 (KSS2) and Roses du soir op. 1 no 2 (KSS3). 63 Eugene Aynsley Goossens (1893–1962), English conductor and composer. 64 Vladimir von Pachmann (or Pachman) (1848–1933), Russian-German pianist especially noted for performing the works of Chopin and also for his eccentric on-stage style. 65 Jean de La Bruyère (1645–1696), French philosopher and moralist. 66 William Pickering (1796–1854), English publisher, notable for introducing cloth binding to British publishing before 1820. In 1819 he began his series of Diamond Classics – small books set in tiny type, which were offered in a uniform binding of cloth or leather at an affordable price. 67 Publius Terentius Afer (195/185–159 BC), playwright of the Roman Republic and of North African heritage better known in English as Terence. 68 Charles Warwick Evans (1885–1974), British cellist in the London String Quartet founded in 1908; Ethel Hobday, née Sharpe (1872–1947), Irish pianist who became famous in England. 69 Grigory Abramovich Krein (1879–1957), Russian composer. 70 Heseltine was staying with D.H. Lawrence in Cornwall at this time (see Document 18a). 71 The Decameron, a fourteenth-century medieval allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), told as a story encompassing a hundred tales told by ten young people. 72 Nana, novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola (1840–1902). It tells the story of Nana Coupeau’s rise from streetwalker to high-class cocotte during the last three years of the French Second Empire. 73 La maison Tallier, short story by Guy de Maupassant published in 1881. Built around a prostitution theme, it is considered as one of his best realist short stories. 74 La Terre (The Earth), novel by Émile Zola published in 1887. 75 François Rabelais (between 1483 and 1494–1553), French Renaissance writer, physician, monk and Greek scholar. 76 La Tentation de Saint Antoine, a book Gustave Flaubert spent practically his whole life working on, publishing the final version in 1874. 77 Marie Lloyd, born Matilda Alice Victoria Wood (1870–1922), English music hall singer, comedian and musical theatre actress during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 78 George Whitaker (1884–1955), English pianist, teacher and composer. 79 ‘My dear! I regret infinitely not having answered your postcard sooner, but as ever, I’m busy with my work. I finished the first part of the Concerto some fifteen days ago. I’m half way through the second. You see though that I must make a copy of it in case anything happens to it.   You can see and try the ‘Dulcitone’ at Messers Hopkinson 52, Wigmore Street. It’s there that I first saw this charming gem of an instrument. Here are the prices 3 1/2 Octaves 4 Octaves 5 Octaves

£12. £15. £19.’

  (but I think that due to the length you’ll have to pay a little more.)

80 Chord is from Vocalise pour soprano fioritura op. 2 no 3 (KSS5), dated 23 March 1916. 81 ‘My dear! A thousand congratulations. How happy I am with your news!! The complete piano score of Daphnis and Chloé is published at 12 francs. It may be found at Augener’s. The miniature orchestral score is also on sale at Augener’s at 30 francs. It’s a superb work which I saw performed at Drury Lane in 1914.

116  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917   Since I saw you I’ve written a vocalise for coloratura soprano – the voice most neglected by contemporary masters. Here's the final chord!!!   Would you like me to dedicate one of my songs to you? I’d so much like to!’ 82 ‘Why this phrase “Dear Mâitre” – this title intrigues me a lot, please explain!!’ 83 A concert of works by Goossens was given at the Aeolian Hall on 14 April 1916. Included were the Phantasy-Quartet, a suite for violin, flute and harp, two Proses lyriques, settings of poems by Edwin Evans, a suite for piano, flute and cello and two Sketches for string quartet. See Heseltine’s (similarly positive) reaction to it in 23a. 84 Adrian Allinson (1890–1959), English painter, potter and engraver. 85 Proses lyriques (1892–1893), four songs by Claude Debussy to his own texts. 86 ‘The ceiling of my spirit is enamoured of hopes: in several voices’. 87 Eugene Goossens, Five Impressions of a Holiday op. 7 (‘In the hills’, ‘By the rivers’, ‘The water-wheel’, ‘The village church’, ‘At the fair’). 88 Heseltine had moved to 14 Whiteheads Grove in Chelsea. 89 Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882–1966), American photographer who had moved to London in 1904. His portrait of Sorabji is Illustration 2. 90 Max Weber (1881–1961), Jewish-American painter and one of the first American Cubist painters. Cubist Poems was published in 1914. 91 William David Murdoch (1888–1942), Australian pianist, composer and author; Harold Victor Bauer (1873–1951), English pianist who began his musical career as a violinist; Walter James Turner (1889–1946), music critic of the New Statesman, drama critic of the London Mercury and literary editor of the Spectator. 92 J.S. Bach, Toccata and Fugue in F, BWV 540. 93 Frederick Septimus Kelly (1881–1916), Australian pianist and composer. 94 Violin Sonata, SO614 (1915). 95 A novel by British author D.H. Lawrence (see endnote 70). His frank treatment of sex caused The Rainbow to be prosecuted in an obscenity trial in late 1915, as a result of which all copies were seized and burnt. 96 Heseltine became engaged to Minnie Lucy (Bobbie) Channing (1894–1943), nicknamed ‘Puma’. Their son, Nigel (1916–1995) was born on 3 July and the couple married on 12 December 1916. 97 The Signature: a short-lived magazine founded by John Middleton Murry and D.H. Lawrence in 1916. 98 Probably ‘The Cloths of Heaven’ (March 1916). 99 The 1915 Ceylonese riots were widespread and prolonged ethnic riots in the island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) between Sinhalese Buddhists and Ceylon Moors and the brutal suppression of it by the British colonial authorities. 100 Charles Koechlin, ‘Le Sommeil de Canope’ from Six Mélodies for voice & piano, op. 31 (1902–1908, orchestrated 1912–1921). 101 George Clutsam wrote an article ‘Progress and Poverty’ over several months’ issues of the Musical Times. The April 1916 reference is in 57(878) (1 April 1916), 191–193. 102 Sorabji and his mother moved from flat 177 to 175 in April 1916, remaining till the early 1950s. 103 Sorabji’s (first) piano concerto-in-progress. 104 Aeolian Hall, built in 1876 and located at 135–137 New Bond Street, began life as the Grosvenor Gallery. By 1903 the whole building was taken over by the Orchestrelle Company of New York (the Aeolian Company). As manufacturers of musical instruments, and especially the mechanical player-piano known as the pianola, they converted the space into offices, a showroom, and a concert hall. Now called Renoir House, the building that fronts New Bond Street was redeveloped with only the frontage preserved; the hall at the back survives, however, and has been divided into offices for Sotheby's auctioneers. 105 Eric Walter Blom (1888–1959), Swiss-born, British-naturalised music lexicographer, musicologist, music critic, music biographer and translator.

Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917  117 106 Heseltine’s reply was evidently positive (in line with his responses to the Concerto generally), for the score is inscribed ‘à Monsieur Philip Heseltine en témoignage d’amitié [to Philip Heseltine as a sign of friendship]’. 107 One of the kings of Macedonia and one of Sorabji’s nicknames for Heseltine. 108 See note 104. 109 Hugh Arthur Scott (1878–1951), British music critic. His article ‘The Melodic Poverty of Modern Music’ had appeared in the Musical Times, 57(880) (1 June 1916), 276–279. In this anti-modernist polemic he decries the lack of ‘actual rounded tune’ or memorable figures in the music of the ‘ “advanced’ ” composers of the ‘ultra-modern school’: ‘Material seemingly goes for nothing, and treatment is absolutely everything. . . . The maximum of skill and labour is expended on the treatment of the least worthy themes’ (277). Scott perceives a lack of public appreciation for the identified composers (including Debussy, Ravel, Delius and Cyril Scott as well as Schoenberg and Scriabin), which is ascribed to just this ‘very extraordinary state of affairs’ (279). For the correspondence which ensued – wherein Sorabji urges a broader and, in every sense, more inclusive conception of melody, as well as drawing a connection between modernist music and non-Western tradition – see Documents 26a–b. 110 These pieces are not extant. 111 Concerto II pour piano et grand orchestre, op. 10, 1916–1917 (KSS14). Only a twopiano reduction is extant, notwithstanding the intriguing references to its ambitious orchestration in letter 29 (see also reference in letter 28). 112 H[enry] C[ope] Colles (1879–1943; chief critic of The Times from 1911) weighed into the debate in the 1 August issue, arguing for the importance of harmonic context in the perception of melodic shape. Through a brief analysis of Sorabji’s ‘Indian fragment’ (which he feels was quoted ‘perhaps a little irrelevantly’), he identifies rhythmic and structural connections with traditional Western melodic concepts. He concludes that only its basis in an unfamiliar scale mitigates against assumption of harmonic context and hence easy memorability (360–362). 113 Der Abgrund (Bezdna), a music-psychological drama by Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov (1866–1920), Russian composer and pianist. 114 Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev (1871–1919), Russian playwright, novelist and short story writer. 115 This is probably a reference to a concert of Bernard van Dieren’s music which took place in February 1917 (see n. 124). 116 A reference to Henry Cope Colles. See n. 112. 117 See Document 26b. 118 Mason & Hamlin, American piano manufacturer founded in Boston in 1854. 119 In 1915 a new piano keyboard was announced: ‘The Clutsam Cradle Keyboard’ by Mr Clutsam of South Molton Street, London. 120 Notwithstanding the missing pages and late appearance in the BL manuscript, internal evidence places this letter after 27 and close to 29: i.e. references to an unnumbered piano Sonata (see below) and a ‘new’ Piano Concerto (no 2); and discussion of the spiritual qualities of the music of Ravel and Scriabin (and lack thereof of Cyril Scott) which is continued in letter 29. 121 Sorabji’s initial attempt at a piano sonata, completed on 8 March 1917 (KSS9). This precedes his first published Sonata (styled no 1 and dedicated to Busoni) which was completed on 5 August 1919 (KSS20). 122 Sorabji’s second piano concerto (see letter 26, n. 111). 123 The British Library foliator added ‘03.1915’. Internal evidence, however, suggests this later date: the sign-off ‘K.S.’ doesn’t appear till after 1915; the mention of ‘Concerto II’ indicates it was written after 1916; most compellingly, the reference to Heseltine’s New Age article (see below) places it no earlier than 14 June 1917. 124 A reference to a disastrous concert of Bernard van Dieren’s music (including the hour-long orchestral Diaphony) at the Wigmore Hall on 20 February 1917 organised

118  Letters and documents Sept. 1914–June 1917 by Heseltine and Cecil Gray and critically panned. See The Palatine Review 5 (March 1917), 25–29. 125 Heseltine 1917. In this article, Heseltine critiques the nascent contemporaneous discourse around British music  – the critical and socio-economic construction of the ‘English Musical Renaissance’ – concluding that: ‘it would seem that in spite of the “Patron’s Fund,” the Carnegie Trust and Mr. Cobbett, with his galaxy of mediocrities, its prospects are not very bright’, while acknowledging that ‘this is a short-sighted view’ given that ‘Music is a young and comparatively undeveloped art. At present it seems to be passing through the critical period of puberty’. Heseltine rounds off with a prescient call for the reappraisal of music as an art form and a paean to the then-unknown music of the Elizabethan virginalists (Heseltine’s interest in buying a virginal is evidenced by letter 18 from two years earlier.) 126 Frederick H. Evans (1853–1943), British photographer. Evans (1917) responded to Heseltine’s aforementioned article, complaining of vagueness in his arguments and the lack of an answer to Heseltine’s questioning of the nature of musical expression. 127 See Sorabji (1917, 439). 128 Jacob Epstein (1880–1959), American-born British sculptor. 129 Albert Sammons (1886–1957), English violinist, leader of the Beecham Orchestra. He gave the first performance of Delius’ Violin Concerto, which was dedicated to him. 130 Friedrich ‘Fritz’ Kreisler (1875–1962), Austrian-born violinist and composer. 131 Meredith Starr (1890–1971), an occultist who Heseltine met while staying in Cornwall. Described as a psychotherapist, writer and poet, in 1929 he opened ‘a large establishment where new methods of psychology’ were taught and practised and was the ‘founder of Constructive Psychology’ (Ince 1935, 262).

Part III Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 30: fol. 118R & V] P.S. The Quintet nearly finished1 String parts full!

26-1-20. 175, CLARENCE GATE GARDENS, REGENTS PARK, London. N.W.1.

You poor soul! Ten thousand sympathies is all I can offer you, but take them with all my heart! Yes. I went four times.2 Twice no answer: the 3rd there was a light in the small room, but not in the sitting room, so I did not ring: knowing you would not be there: the fourth time was yesterday morning Sunday. This time the door was answered and I was informed “He does not live here now”, also that there was no knowledge of where you had gone but that probably I should hear from you, which glory be to God, I have.3 I can’t pretend I was astonished at what I heard because I knew it was coming. Latterly when I  saw you, the atmosphere was loaded with electricity: but I was a bit staggered at the sudden – or what to me seemed sudden – consummation of matters. I saw Boris4 in the Reading Room about a week or ten days ago, or it might not have been so long, but he gave no hint of anything untoward happening.5 En attendant: now that you, my sole intermediary in the affair of the “Nightmare” of our lightfooted friend Robert the Devil or Nikola,6 are gone, how shall I hear what happens in that quarter: & what about the ‘music’ thereof? Have you it safely? And dare I hope for the long promised article on my own unworthy self in the not too distant future?7 How long will you be away? Will you swear to let me know at once when you come to London again, also to write to me apprising me of your movements from time to time? Shiva open his eye of wrath on those who mar your peace, the Rakshasas8 rend their astral bodies and burn them with monstrous unquenchable desires in Kamaloca9 is the prayer of the ever faithful and affectionate

120  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 Hircus Olens.10 P.S. My Ma asks to be remembered to you, and all her best regards.

[30a: Philip Heseltine to Frederick Delius (excerpt)] March 15th 1920

35A St George’s Road Kilburn N.W.6.

[. . .] Could you spare the time this week to come and hear my Indian friend’s piano sonata? I  have heard him play it again several times during the last few days and I become more and more impressed by his quite extraordinary talent. I am sure you would be interested. It is the bigness of his conceptions and the sheer, overwhelming emotional power of his music that seem to me so wonderful and so welcome in these attenuated days when composers set out to ‘purge themselves of the domestic emotions’ and other such miserable things!! (That superb phrase, I have discovered, is the invention of our great and genial compatriot Mr Vaughan Holst – one can but congratulate him on having achieved what he set out to achieve). When one hears Sorabji, one cannot stop to marvel over his technical mastery of means, nor over his novel and peculiar chord-combinations – though to the analytical mind these things alone would be interesting enough – one is simply swept along by a whirlwind of amazingly significant, evocative sound. What a joy it is to find a big sweep and surge of emotion in modern music – most of what one hears nowadays inclines one to despair of the future! [. . .]

[30b: Philip Heseltine to Cecil Gray (excerpt)] THE ORGANIST 18 BERNERS STREET, LONDON W.1 Telephone: Museum 3721. Subscription One Year, 6/Post Free. Monday [May 1920] 35A St George’s Road

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 121 All’s well I ’opes milord?. . . . . The enclosed looks almost like an olive branch, but it will have no softening influence on Prosdocimus whose leading article, entitled ‘Ille Reporter’ (including both Sorabji’s letter to Sunday Times – which never appeared – and Busoni’s encomium),11 will I think make Newman (and a great many old men) sit up and take notice. [. . .]

[30c: ‘A.C.’ to the Sunday Times (16 May 1920), reprinted in The Sackbut I(2) (June 1920): 55] Sir, – Mr. Newman seems to think that it is possible, somehow or other, to make a selection of our English music, as it were, in vacuo, behind the scenes, and then introduce it to the public. It is not possible. If we are ever to have any music worth considering, we must search for it diligently – and when I say “we” I mean executants, the public, and critics too. Mr. Newman must know perfectly well that the German masterpieces of song (for instance) were not “found” by the German public easily. For every song by Wolf, Schumann, Schubert, the Germans must have listened patiently and hopefully, to hundreds of songs comparatively worthless or indifferent (a fact often lost sight of). If we are ever to have our own music we must do the like. For my part, in opposition to Mr. Newman, I welcome the appearance of the British Music Society’s test, believing that it will help the public, performers, and critics to “find” the British masterpieces they are always inquiring for – if they really want to find it. A. C.

[30d: Kaikhosru Sorabji to the Sunday Times (18 May 1920), unprinted; published in The Sackbut I(2) (June 1920): 55–5612] Sir, – A propos of the letter of “A. C.” in the Sunday Times of last Sunday (16th) I can give from personal experience some highly interesting and instructive information regarding the way in which Mr. Newman pursues his search after the potential masterpieces of British or of any other music. Having taken to show Mr. Newman some work of my own which had previously been strongly commended to him from an outside and independent quarter, I  was informed that Mr. Newman did not look at the manuscripts, and subsequently there came into my hands a printed notice whereon it was stated again that Mr. Newman did not look at manuscript scores.13 There was a time when one thought Mr. Newman the most alert and enterprising of the critics, but this one staggering revelation of his methods shows that the others are not more like themselves than he is like to them. Not a week after this incident, Signor Busoni – to whom my work went entirely without introduction or recommendation of any kind – asks me to play certain of my compositions to him, and, as a result, is kind enough to give me a letter of high

122  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 commendation wherein he expresses himself as greatly interested in what I had played him, describing at some length the qualities of my work that had seized his attention. KAIKHOSRU SORABJI.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 31: fol. 119R-120V] Telegrams:– “Pier Hotel, Boscombe.” Telephone No. 981 The Boscombe Pier Hotel (Private). Bournemouth. 21-VIII-20. England. Sweetest and bestest Phee: = Ever so thank for the letter. We must talk about the “Sackbut”14 concert on which I have set my heart.15 I guessed that “Socrate” would be bloody:– and it is as well to have eliminated it but a pity to have lost the Cooper16 cash!! Yes! I will remember to sniff in the wood on behalf of Frederick.17 Got another letter from U[niversal].E[dition]. saying that they would very gladly have taken my “most interesting opus” but are so in arrears with work already on their hands that they could give no assurances about it. They also express the hope to have something else of mine at some future time. The “technical difficulties” were as I thought nothing to do with my work but business difficulties – Gawd what a sod of a pen! – So I shall try [Edition] Peter’s next!!!! Have made up my mind to get the Concerto18 cut and am going to see the Aeolian Co. as soon as I get back about it. Sonata II. grows steadily 7 pages of the 49 completed!!19 Ein staunendes werk schätzlein!20 Amiable weather here and a respectable piano. I expect to return 31st. Your loving Gote N.B. I received this morning a cheque for £3.3.0 from Winthrop [Rogers] for the “Modern Piano Technique” article.21 Why less than the first, which was shorter by half a page,22and for which he gave me £3.15.0?? Dost thou know? Gote [the following in Heseltine’s hand] Voules. re Sorabji scores & furniture. Rogers:– {copies of partsongs D’s royalties on Cello Sonata Three piano pieces incidental music

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929  123 Jebe’s violin Tischer & Jagenberg songs Lorenz Cooper Sorabji Goss Smyth Voules Tischer Hertzka – Rootham

[31a: Philip Heseltine to Cecil Gray (excerpt)] chez F[rederick]. D[elius]. Grez-sur-Loing August 21st 1920 [. . .] Bartok has recently published a 2nd String Quartet, in addition to a ‘pantomime’ (puppets, I’m afraid, or at least puppetismus), a Suite (to be played at the Proms) and an Allegro barbaro for piano. I have ordered these to be sent me from Vienna. I wish we could give his 1st Quartet at a Sackbut concert. The first programme (Sorabji’s Sonata, Gesualdo and Delius) is practically settled, but I personally can’t afford to risk losing the expenses of a String Quartet ‘Also’, sprach Zarathustra ‘Sir’, said Dr Johnson

[31b: Philip Heseltine to Frederick Delius (excerpt)] Saturday Oct 23rd 1920. 122 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea S.W.10. [. . .] The Sackbut is in imminent danger. Rogers is a damned old milksop if ever there was one and has behaved so preposterously that I have been compelled to refuse to edit the paper any more under his proprietorship. His idea is that all controversy is vulgar and injurious to a paper (!!) and that however virulently anyone attacks you or your paper, you must never reply! (much less ever attack anyone yourself!) Of course this sort of thing would be intolerable, as much to one’s contributors as to oneself  – even if it were not the worst possible policy from a journalistic point of view. My article ‘Ille Reporter’ (June number) has had the direct result of getting an ‘advisory board’ of well-known musicians set

124  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 up to examine the MSS of unknown composers and report upon those suitable for publication or performance. Of course E. Newman has been very much riled at this, and without replying to my finishing blow delivered in August, started abusing me and Sorabji all over again in another paper, just as though one had never answered his ridiculous Sunday Times attacks. Following this comes a paragraph in the S. Times directly calculated to prejudice the public against the Sackbut concerts before the event. [. . .]

[31c: Philip Heseltine to Anthony Bernard23 (excerpt)] 24. 10. 1920

122 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea S.W. 10.

[. . .] The Sackbut is in imminent danger, thanks to the anile imbecility of the proprietor who tried (without success, though) to suppress the current issue because I had replied, vigorously and without mincing matters, to the attacks made upon Sorabji and myself by that august and greatly-to-be-revered personage E. Newman. Mr W.R. also thought it fit and proper to write and offer E. Newman his personal apologies for the Sackbut’s attacks on him! Naturally, neither I nor my friends can agree to a milk-and-water policy by which we are denied the rights of free speech and self-defence. So now it is a question whether, before the 15th of next month, Rogers can find a new editor who will do the work I have been doing for the salary I have been receiving (viz: £0:0:0.), or whether I can find a new proprietor for the Sackbut. Meanwhile a great deal of litigation seems to be indicated. It is a horrible nuisance and I sincerely hope the old idiot will lose every penny he ever put into the paper, in order that he may learn the value of his pig-headed policy. [. . .]

[31d: Philip Heseltine to Edith Buckley Jones (excerpt)] October 28th 1920

122 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea S.W. 10.

[. . .] Already my article ‘Ille Reporter’ in the June number has had the direct result of getting a committee set up by various members of the British Music Society to examine the manuscripts of unknown composers and help them to get published and performed. Newman had to admit this fact and is of course very sore about it, as also, no doubt, he is about my rejoinder to him in the August number and Cecil Gray’s in the July, to neither of which did he, ever attempt to reply. Still, the main point at issue is this: that a paper which is afraid or unwilling to speak out boldly and attack what it considers is wrong with musical conditions will never do any good. And further – a paper which does not reply – and reply ­vigorously – to those who attack its own policy will inevitably be regarded as a weak milk-andwater affair by the general public. When the October number appeared, Rogers

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 125 tried (and failed, thanks to the enthusiastic support I received from the business manageress, Miss Voules) to suppress it altogether on account of dear Ernest’s feelings – Ernest who has never missed an opportunity of letting fly at an opponent in all his life – and, to add insult to injury, wrote a letter to Newman apologising for the fact that the Sackbut had ever attacked him!! This, of course, was more than I could stand, so I told Rogers at once that neither I nor my contributors would have anything more to do with him. (Incidentally I may mention that he, in his imbecility, really imagines that controversy is indecent in itself and that the public don’t like it. Anyone with the smallest experience of journalism – musical or otherwise – will tell you that that is the exact reverse of the truth. And as regards this particular controversy, everyone I have met – people of all shades of opinion – have told me how pleased they were to see someone paying back Newman in his own coin. Newman’s chief weapon is to get his opponent’s replies suppressed – if they attempt to reply in the papers he writes for – and this is not merely my own experience, and Sorabji’s (the Sunday Times will print a letter of Sorabji on any subject but music!) but also that of Edwin Evans and Joseph Holbrooke – to mention only two instances that have recently come to my notice. This merely by the way in order to show you the uses of a free and independant paper that is not afraid to attack – and how much it is appreciated). [. . .]

[31e: Philip Heseltine to Arnold Schoenberg (excerpt)] November 20th 1920

122 Cheyne Walk London S.W. 10

[. . .] We hoped to be able to supplement our literary activities by a series of concerts at which the most significant composers of the present-day would be adequately represented (for the fourth of these we were preparing a performance of your ‘Pierrot Lunaire’); but after the first two, at which we produced a string quartet by Bernard Van Dieren and a pianoforte sonata of Kaikhosru Sorabji (a young Indian composer of whom Signor Busoni entertains a very high opinion) we had to abandon the enterprise, for financial reasons. [. . .]

[31f: Philip Heseltine to Frederick Delius (excerpt)] January 2nd 1921

122 Cheyne Walk Chelsea S.W.10.

[. . .] The second concert was far worse. The Mortimer Hall proved quite unsuitable, acoustically, for a big volume of tone from a concert grand pianoforte and

126  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 Sorabji’s Sonata sounded like a mere mist of notes. Goss had the flue and a stomach-ache and alas, expressed both in his rendering of your songs. After this, there was no more money for the Béla Bartók concert, so it had to be abandoned. [. . .]

[31g: Philip Heseltine to Colin Taylor (excerpt)] Cefn-Bryntalch, Abermule, Montgomeryshire. October 17th 1921 [. . .] Promiscuous laudation of mediocrity continues apace in English musical life. Money seems to flow more copiously than ever in support of British music, despite high prices. Holst is considered a first-rate genius though his utter lack of inventive power and his impudent habit of helping himself to everybody else’s tricks become more and more obvious to all save those who wo’nt see – and nobody apparently will. Vaughan Williams is perhaps the most hopeful British proposition though a few years ago he seemed quite hopeless. He may become a great master at 70. The London Symphony – originally a work of portentous and unprecedented dullness – became after drastic revision a thing of real power and beauty; and now I  hear there is a new ‘Pastoral’ Symphony of his awaiting performance. In the concert world there is a sickening boom of Stravinsky and kindred charlatans – but I think it will soon subside. Sorabji is publishing all his works at his own expense in Austria – very cheaply, the crown standing now at 7000 to the £. The Sonata and some piano pieces which I think you heard are out already – obtainable at the London and Continental Music Co, 40 Great Marlborough St.W. I’d send you them and other things but I’m dead broke and heavily in debt as well. [. . .]

[31h: Harvey Grace, ‘New Music: Pianoforte Music’, The Musical Times 62(945) (1 November 1921): 781 (excerpt)] PIANOFORTE MUSIC So far I have heard of no public performance of Mr. Kaikhosru Sorabji’s Sonata No. 1 (London & Continental Music Publishing Co.), nor have I seen any pronouncements thereon by my brother reviewers. No doubt they have been waiting for an opportunity for hearing the work before passing judgment. Anyhow, that is my case. Not often is one so baffled by the printed page. Sir Henry Hadow, Mr. Ernest Newman, and others who are fond of hearing music mentally in a comfortable armchair, undistracted by the noise of performance, may (or may not) have a delightful half-hour with this work. I seem to remember receiving a prospectus

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929  127 in which we were told the Sonata is so difficult that it cannot be memorised. Certainly Mr. Sorabji is entitled to such credit as is due to the composer of what is probably the most difficult pianoforte work in existence. But music of this type should be written for an automatic instrument, not one calling for the agency of human fingers. Mr. Sorabji would have done better to publish it straight away as a player-piano roll. I hear that a Sonata No. 2 is on the way, so perhaps he will consider the suggestion. Some worrying adventures at the keyboard with No. 1 leave me with a few impressions, which I  set down with diffidence. Properly played – which it is not likely to be until it is made available for the player-piano – the Sonata should prove wildly exciting. Like too much modern music, however, it appears to suffer from a want of contrast. It is in one continuous movement, and we look in vain for an occasional bit of simplicity. Three staves are employed, practically throughout, and as a rule the topmost of the three is to be played an octave higher than written, this being indicated by the sign I/VIII placed at the beginning of the stave. The resources of the keyboard, like those of the player (and hearer) are strained to the utmost. It is difficult to see how some of the effects can be made clearly. But of course one never knows how far clarity is the aim of the modern composer. Some of the passages wherein both hands play a series of unrelated chords over a pedal point, e.g., a long string of minor triads on this plan:

Musical Example 3.1  Excerpt from Sorabji’s Sonata no 1

over a C natural – can never be otherwise than confused in effect. No doubt the composer wants just that effect, but he must not complain if very few of us share his liking for it. (By the by, this kind of writing, for all its desperately original appearance, is as purely mechanical as any series of common chords by the despised old composers.) The febrile character of the Sonata is indicated by the

128  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 liberal use of such directions as Vertigineux, Tourbillonnant, Palpitant, Sauvage: très rude et dur, Avec langueur et épuisement, En délire, Eclatant radieux, and other stimulating flowers of speech, which seem to owe something to the later Scriabin, as does a good deal of the music itself. What a long way we have travelled from the old days when music was a recreation and a solace! Once the heavenly maid was young: now she seems to be degenerating into a neurotic old harridan. All the same, I  look forward eagerly for a chance of hearing this extraordinary work. I note that Mr. Sorabji has thoughtfully – perhaps ironically – reserved the right of performance.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 32: fol. 121R-122V] Nov. 8th 1921

175, CLARENCE GATE GARDENS, REGENTS PARK, N.W.1

Sweetest and Bestest Phee! Why haven’t you written to your neglected and unconsoled Gote? As if it weren’t bad enough to be deprived of the inward luminousness of your distinguished countenance but into the bargain you must needs be silent? Poor van Dieren is very very bad again. I went up and saw him on Saturday and it is really heartbreaking: in a week or two he has lost all that he had gained and looks almost as bad as ever . . . but still I hope, although one hardly dares to think it, I may have been the instrument of procuring him, indirectly alleviation from his sufferings. I heard the “Song of the Night”24 and liked it rather – to the extent of wanting to hear it again. There have of course been plenty of superficial simpletons to yell “Scriabine!” – they’ll go on doing that until certain quasi-neologisms of that author have become generally absorbed. It’s just like the Debussy “period” some 1½ decades ago: when anyone who used a couple of consecutive triads, fifths or sevenths was sure to have “Debussy” shrieked at him. They are doing it to me over Sonata I.25 Everything now – except the Concertos is in the Press or going to be very soon. I’m going to Vienna in a few weeks. Whom shall I descend on there? One wants a few hints of that kind. The Symphony goes on well – p. 164. now: but there still remains the Chorus and Organ parts to do which will occupy a small subsidiary score apart from the main one. I had Willie Walton & Sachie Sitwell26 here the other afternoon and dosed them with Sonata II. which they said impressed them enormously.27 I think it’s a good work – much better than no I. Did I tell you that the first 3 month’s sales of the Sonata produced £14. 10? Rather astonishing. 44 copies! I settled Michaud quite amicably. I think he’s quite all right. At any rate he’s been extremely fair and straight with me. Last night I was at L.S.O. [Strauss’s] “Heldenleben”. Ye gods how that work shows up the Stravinsky’s the Holst’s the Pisses28 and so . . . and it’s 23 years old into the bargain . . . the performance

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 129 was a disgrace. Willie Walton who told me he was at the rehearsal this morning said that the whole time over 4 hours was taken up with the macro-cosmohydrocephalic Universe of Holst.29 Willie and S. promenaded the Corridor doubled up with laughter . . . if only you had been there. Surely a feebler production never diarrhaeoaed from the pen of British Composer??? I had also at that concert an interesting lesson in bacteriology two creations of God – I suppose – came and buttonholed Willie under my nose in a manner that made one think of a very illtrained bad mannered charwoman laying dishes in front of one – he afterwards told me that they were Herbert Howells whose music gives me pains in my Bowells and Armstrong Gibbs.30 Howells, I hear in concert with a few other lewd fellows of the baser sort have conspired together to do me the honour of publicly expressing their execration of me. This is quite the most encouraging thing I have heard for a long time and still further convinces me – if that were necessary – of my own value. It is, however, good to have such startling confirmation of suspicion from such a quarter, and shows we are getting on. Congratulate me! Is it true that you are supposed to be in D.H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love”?31 I confess I can’t find you. There is someone who makes one think of Robert Lorenz32 – is that intentional? The book is colossal and mighty in its dullness relieved only by flashes of intelligence when dealing with “nous autres” if not explicitly at any rate implicitly for may not he who sees read – between the lines? Write to me there’s a dear and tell me when you’re coming to London again. Your devoted Gote.

[32a: Philip Heseltine to Fritz Hart33 (excerpt)] Cefn-Bryntalch, Abermule, Montgomeryshire. November 15th 1921 [. . .] You get your estimate direct from a firm of printers (the best in Vienna is Waldheim, Eberle. VII. Wien. Seidengasse 8–11), you order so many copies, pay for them and they are then your absolute property. All you have to do is to get hold of a retail music seller who will advertise and sell them for you on commission. You remember Sorabji’s piano sonata  – a work of excessive difficulty of which one would imagine very few copies would be sold. Well, it cost him just over £20 to produce34 (and this was printed in Germany where of course prices are higher for the English market than in Austria); the London and Continental Music Co, of Gt Marlborough Street, London undertook to advertise and sell the work at a 33⅓% commission, and in three months he has already sold 44 copies at 10/= shillings each, bringing in £14. 10. Not bad for a work which could not conceivably become popular in any sense of the word. I am sure that one could make a good profit on any good work that was not phenomenally difficult of execution nor too far removed from the general public’s

130  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 plane of musical comprehension. I myself have lately made a number of piano arrangements of Delius’ works for Universal Edition, and instead of being paid miserable sums in farthings for them, I am having some songs of mine engraved in Vienna, which I shall publish in the same manner as Sorabji. My best songs unfortunately cannot be published as the texts are by Yeats and I cannot come to terms with him about the copyright. [. . .]

[32b: Cecil Gray to Philip Heseltine (excerpt)]35 [December 1921] [. . .] Ah, yes. I  am giving Sorabji an introduction to Herzka  – how does one address the old bird. Herr Direcktor – or is he is a doctor or a professor or only Herr. Let me know by return as the Gote leaves very shortly. I always feel that if I address people wrongly or use the wrong formula for anything that nothing happens, as in magic. Everything depends on ceremonial and ritual in this our mortal life. Kaikosru played to me the 2nd sonata last Sunday and occasioned me acute distress. Being one of them stoics I showed no sign of what I was undergoing.

[32c: Philip Heseltine to Cecil Gray (excerpt)] Cefn-Bryntalch, Abermule, Montgomeryshire. Thursday. [?15 December 1921] [. . .] I am writing to the Sabbatic Goat myself – but if you want to write to Hertzka you address the envelope Hochwohlgeboren    Herrn Direktor Emil Hertzka      Universal Edition        Karlsplatz         Vienna And begin the letter ‘Dear Dr Hertzka’ (everybody with a University degree is a Doctor apparently). [. . .]

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929  131

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 33: fol. 123R-126V] January: 2nd 1922.

Hotel Krantz. Neuer Markt. 5. Vienna.

My Phee: I’m here as you see. I’ve met and played to Dr Wellecz36 who appeared greatly impressed and have also seen old Hertzka37 and his Kalmuck nephew – alias Herr Doctor Kalmuss – who is seeing to all the arrangements of my little 5 oclock concert in the small hall of the Musik Vereins Gebäude38 on January 13th. I shall play the 2 Sonatas . . . it will last about an hour and a half in all and is by invitation only: I thus hope to rope in some of the most interesting people. Dr Wellecz has promised to act as turner over of pages. Schönberg has not answered nor acknowledged the copy of the Sonata I sent him. Alban Berg I have not got at yet but hope to do so through Dr. Wellecz. The fabulous cheapness of Vienna is now at any rate entirely mythical: although one gets 22,500 crowns to the £ sterling ones expenses are just about what they would be in London. Prices are absolutely monstrous. Now for your commissions. (i.) I went to the Lute makers whose name and address is Gebrüder Placht: Rotenturmstrasse no 14. Wien I. The man remembered it perfectly and said that the lute was despatched but returned apparently as unclaimed to the carriers Schenker & Co. Ankerhof. Wien: at least this is what I gathered from his almost incomprehensible German coupled with my own scanty knowledge. Gerald Cooper had better immediately communicate with these people and find out what has actually happened. (ii.) I got your MSS. Back from the old Walrus and (iii) deposited it along with the others with Herr Direktor Becker of WaldheimEberle39: who will in the fullness of time send you all the estimates as I asked him. I gave him your address. But, with the violent fluctuations in the krone he estimates now in £. and he expressly tells you that his estimates are “without engagement” i.e. if the krone descends with a crash and prices treble as a result he has to charge you more. This has just happened to me over the 3 French songs: which when I paid for them some 7 months ago cost 21,000 crowns with the crown then some 2000 to the £: now I have to pay 51,000 more but it is only £2 so it doesn’t hurt much. Everything is now arranged for all the big works are in the press: the Second Sonata is going and the 2nd Concerto.40 . . . There remains now only Concerto I.41 and the as yet incompleted Symphony the flames of which have however risen as far as page 230 of the 300 allotted span.42 I don’t like Vienna: it is depressing drab and a ridiculously pretentious gimcrack city – the only tolerable part of it is of course the Innere Stadt where the

132  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 shops are quite amusing. The music shops are appalling! – cabaret ditties given equal prominence with a Reger work and so on. But worst of all is this bloody Mahler orgy. I cannot turn without seeing some bleeding Sonderheft43 devoted to the man – a photo or a medallion – there’s a street too after him. Even the art shops have abominable etchings (I never saw more miserable displays of colour prints or etchings than in some of the swell shops on the Ring or in the Kartnerstrasse & the Kolmarkt – there is not a shop of the kind whose wares deserve to serve as bum-fodder for the backside of the man who keeps that excellent little place next door to the Bond St. Tube Station) based on the “Lied von der Erde”! Still Mahler is better than Arthur Piss44 and I suppose one ought not to be astonished that the Viennese musicians have a Mahler to play with when ours have a pen[is] (I mean a Piss! pardon! . . .) But still no one has yet thought of renaming Lyons Corner House Piss House – they might of course very appropriately and proceed to enthrone 22 effigies of Arthur [Bliss] and Leigh [Henry] clasped in loving embrace. “Righteousness and Piss have kissed each other”.45 . . . I went to the Opera to hear [Verdi’s] “Ballo in Maschera” murdered except for one or two singers who really knew how to sing Italian opera  – but the others!!. . . . . . . The orchestra it must be confessed was superb. We were in the very front row of the Parquet but never a harshness a blatancy or a raw edge could we detect. Also very lovely was an exquisite performances of a Haydn A major Mass46 in St. Stephens on Christmas morning wherein we froze for an hour and a half till we could stand it no longer – not the Mass but the cold! The Cafés make me quite ill: they all together make Vienna like a gigantic Café Royal.47 We depart immediately after my little affair for Palermo – It has poured all today and the wind is infernal. The whole place shakes. The Hotel is very comfy indeed and admirably warmed but the service is execrable. 15 or 20 minutes to answer a Bell: half an hour waiting for a simple à la carte meal. There is a flamboyant green whore in the hotel – The waiter on being questioned by my mother as to the status & identity of this baggage informed us with gusto that she was “un dame terrible”: tout comme celles qui marchant dans le Kärtnerstrasse:– That in a month she had brought nine different messieurs in with her. Business must indeed be bad if a French strumpet in Vienna can’t catch more than 9 men in a month! And the waiter thought that quite a large number evidently. She sits nightly in the Lounge making furious eyes at all the men who come in. That’s how she gets a meal. When the eyes have done their work, the rest of course is plain sailing. I was rather enraged to see her get hold of a nice looking English boy – – – no – – not professional jealousy – – I was so hoping to see her get the fat lustful Jew strumpeter whom she was after like hot cakes:48 but it [seems that] he didn’t come off.49 He had his eyes on something else!. . . .50 Your loving Hicus hoctuus Sullabein

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[33a: Philip Heseltine to Fritz Hart (excerpt)] Cefn-Bryntalch, Abermule, Montgomeryshire. February 7th 1922. [. . .] You may also have read a rather tentative little paper of mine in the same number on ‘the mind’s ear’. This is a subject of supreme interest that has never yet been properly investigated. I wanted to treat it at some length in the Sackbut and invited several composers to send me some account of their methods of composition – for it is upon such data as they alone can provide that an investigation must be founded – but I obtained nothing satisfactory. I should welcome a letter from you giving (not, of course, for publication) your own views and personal experiences. I believe no two composers work in the same way. More, I believe there are very wide differences of method between one composer and another. What constitutes the initial conception of a work? What form does it take? How much is heard accurately by the inner ear, how much discovered at the piano, how much merely arrived at by theoretical and mechanical means? These and a hundred other questions every composer, if he could (or would) answer them at all, would probably answer differently. But every good composer’s answers would be interesting and all would help one to gain a clearer view of the whole subject. Sorabji (who recently gave a piano recital of his works in Vienna), although he writes exclusively for the piano (or piano and orchestra) works entirely without the piano and never alters a note when he comes to play the work. [. . .]

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 34: fol. 127R-129R] 12.4.22. Belovedest and Bestest Phee:– Thanks for the card with the picture of the dell on it which is charming. But my angel surely I wrote you either from Palermo or Vienna telling you about the Concert? I played the 2 Sonatas only at 5 oclock on Friday Jan. 13 in the Kammersaal of the Musikvereinsgebäude. The audience was small – all by invitation only not a hundred or any where near it but they were such an audience – – pupils of Schönberg and Dr. Wellecz . . . old Hertzka and Co. including the Kalmuck Litmus his nephew. . . . this creature’s mouth makes me think of a baby’s bottom or a pair of chicken and ham sausages superimposed lengthwise  – and everybody came swarming round me after expressing the utmost amazement and ébahissement first at the music then of my playing of it – Dr Wellecz said. . “It is so difficult to us so new and strange, that you must give us time – – such things in music we have never before heard: it is an order of mind and feeling we have never realized to exist”. . . . through his bad English this is what he said. Another man Bachert said he had never heard or dreamt of either such music or such playing – Becker

134  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 of W[aldheim-] E[berle] said I was a virtuoso of an order they had never heard . . . that the things that happened were astounding . . . breathtaking & so on . . . and I find that echoes have reached London about it. Michaud has heard all about it not only direct from Vienna but from what others appear to have told him – It appears my dear . . . that Holbrooke yes Joe, holy Joe, has an enormous admiration for me according to what Michaud says – This strains my credence as much as can be! Crowley51 I missed in Cefalu and in Paris but one of the priestesses said he was coming to London so I have written to him expressing my desire and yours to meet him when he does come. The Symphony – the main score, is finished.52 There remain the Chorus and Organ parts to do, and Sonata 3.53 is more than half done and, I hope will overtop no 2 as much as 2 does 1. I have planned out my work for the next few years and shall be kept pretty busy. I got an article on “Sexual Inversion” in “Medical Times” last October under the auspices of a very distinguished and enlightened Scotch doctor – James Burnet of Edinburgh who edits it.54 Remind me to show it to you. It has been highly praised by other medical men as well which is also highly useful and edifying. What a climate after Palermo! Clumps of Maidenhair fern growing lustily and bigger than ever seen in hothouse here in open air there in February! And what crystalline clear and pure air: and those ineffable mosaics the Cappella Palatina55 I saw on a blazing sunny morning: it glowed like a gorgeous jewel. This is my 3rd visit to Italy and never have I marvelled at and admired that incomparable country more. But oh! Christ their Opera!!!! From north to South of Italy they are swimming in a vast frousy midden of Mascagni! Filthy & foul it is!! In Paris at the Champs Elysée I heard “Tristan” “sung” (!!) by a tenth rate Italian company and conducted by an equally 10th rate Italian conductor but played by the Pas de Loup Orchestra.56 I never yet heard the music more superbly played. It is safe to say that we never hear music in London as it should sound. There every line was a clear cut and clean and in the duet in the 2nd Act the weft of various threads of orchestral timbre was of a beauty and cleanness that made you gasp: it was orchestral playing that one had dreamt of but never imagined it was to be heard – well yes, one knew inwardly that it could be heard – but never in England. To use that much be-whored word it was a revelation. Write and tell me all sorts of things there’s a dear and what you are doing and when I may hope to see you. I hug you & send much love. Your Gote.

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 35: 130R-131V] 28 April 1922. My Phee: Michaud consents to act as agent for Orr’s57 songs on a 50% Basis of commission. I’ve got that in writing from him so you can fire ahead. I’m the only person

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929  135 who has 40% but I’m naturally a “privileged person” (!) being the first and he having such a batch of my work. Keep discreet on this matter. He says he wants £5000 more capital to extend the business – and as he’s an excellent straight creature – a vastly superior breed to the filthy old Kling58 or the equally poisonous old Volkert59 he deserves what help one can give him in the way of milking the moneyed ones. You had much better do all your future work with him as I’m doing and don’t be bled by Augener on whom I piss. It would be an idea to interest Gerald Cooper in the L[ondon]. and C[ontinental].60 as a possible purchaser of shares. Sound him on the subject. He, Michaud has weathered a very bad year and has faced the opposition of Augener who announced their intention of smashing him forthwith. He says it is his idea to get a body of musicians of quality round him like me and to make a circle of producers of good work. If we could get half a dozen or so people to take 500£ of shares each – – but . . . – how to get them to do it! – – – Your adoring Gote

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 36: fol. 132R-136R] 175, CLARENCE GATE GARDENS. REGENTS PARK, N.W.1. London. 19. June 22. My dear Phee: I have already told you once that Waldheim gives me no separate estimate for covers. It is always an inclusive estimate. I have no samples of cover paper by me now but the copy of the songs I send you will show you the sort of thing that looks very nice and suitable. You must remember that printers require to be instructed down to the smallest details of title page & cover printing: size of type: distribution – Spacing and so on. My covers are the result of my own very careful and detailed instructions and if you want anything as well done, you must do the same. The particular fount used I  got from Waldheim Eberle bill-head: it took my fancy & I told them to use it. The best thing is to plan out on a piece of paper the size of your cover the exact position & wording you want as I always do with numbered references to the size of type you want. Waldheim have not got anything like that stiff black paper of Breitkopf – that is why I could not have this from W. Robert Lorenz who is a dear creature and one that I like persuaded me to go to Allinson’s61 studio and there play the 1st and 2nd Sonata in his Allinson’s (who expressed the keenest desire to hear them) and another Harvey Grace’s62 and another man’s hearing.

136  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 Allinson says I  do not sufficiently consider the “limitations of the human ear” – my length, complexity and “lack of contrast” seem to upset him. Harvey Grace sighs for “diatonic discords” – like expecting a cat to have a penis of a paradoscure63 – otherwise quite sympathetic and reasonably intelligent. “The limitations of the human ear!” Why the bloody hell should I  consider them when conscious of no such limitations in my own ear? Because one of the principles of a certain form of musical design is a continual alternation of contrasting sections why should I, who exist in a realm entirely outside those principles be controlled by them? Judge me if you like but I claim, and demand to be judged by the relation of my own work to its implied standards whatever they may be. That they that are not those of 99 out of 100 composers ought to protect me from such singularly and irritatingly inept criticism. Again: “if you make your work of such monstrous difficulty no one can play it but the very finest pianists.” What if it is only for the “very finest pianists”? What if it is for no one at all but its creator? In the very last resort there is the pianola. Says A. “you don’t paint a picture to lock up in a cellar”. Where is the analogy?? All the Sonatas are in process of publication or will be. The picture will be there for those who can bear to look upon it. “You are limiting your appeal so much it seems to me” – Is it not conceivable that in its very nature and essence this music can, and must only appeal to an extremely restricted audience? Supposing it is not good or meet that the mass should be able to hear it. Oh! the idleness of all this chatter as to what the artist should or should not do, resolving itself in the end into what others not fit mentally & spiritually to lick his arse would like him to do. I shall go on as I have begun; regarding no ones taste & prejudices or wishes on earth but my own. I should scarcely consult the Art critics on the question of what sort of a. . . – wife I should take unto myself were I of the breed that takes wives unto themselves the which praise be to God that I am not – still less shall I allow them to influence me in the infinitely more important matter of creating my monsters! The 3rd Sonata is finished – a gehenna64 like work of some hour and a quarter’s duration a piano symphony which I hope to have the joy of playing to my Phee at a not too distant date. The Beast Salvarsan65 is the dullest of dull dogs. He talked like Ralph Waldo Trine66 & the Theosophical Society. It was most depressing. He wants however to hear me play and when I’m finished with my Solstitial Fast which started last night Sunday at 6 and ends next Sunday at 6 P.M. he is coming to hear some of my demons. He had on a red poplin silk waistcoat with gold buttons and his face is sunburnt up to the hat-line, above it’s lighter, making him look like a mask in a Chinese play. His face is that of a prosperous overfed fox-hunting tory squire – the unteachable in full pursuit of the unwearable.67 I take leave of you with much love. Your Gote.

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[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 37: fol. 138R-139V] Saturday [24 June 1922]

175, CLARENCE GATE GARDENS. REGENTS PARK, N.W.1.

Belovedest Prosdoscimus68:– By all means choose my paper if you like it. You don’t say what you think of the songs you Sod! And I wrote a swete dedication on them for you – Blast you! Yes exactly! Who to turn to as agents? As far as I’m concerned I’ll be my own. The sale of my works is not so overpowering in size that I can’t cope with it and it ought to be rather amusing. But I’m concerned about you and Orr. Try Goodwin & Tabb69 why don’t you? I have nothing whatever to do with Robber BLion Kling-Klux-Klang.70 I’m going away on July 24th or 25th for my holiday and right glad of it shall I be after nearly two years incessant writing Sonata II – Symphony – Sonata III. Yes, Salvarsan is a good name for him:71 for he’s as much a fraud as that much boomed “remedy”. I’ve been reading a perfectly appalling dynamiting of it by a nature therapist who says that Ehrlich72 himself has had to admit over 120 deaths from its use! Tomorrow – Sunday evening at the Canonical Hour of Vespers I break my 7 day fast. It’s been an ordeal but I’ve done it – which is more than old Syph-Salv could ever do. Now about the biographical snips.73 Born 1895 – Mother Spanish Father Parsî – in Essex. Educated privately with tutors. Commenced composing in 1915: but has discarded all works prior to 1918 including a large number of songs and 2 piano Concertos etc. First performance of 1st Sonata in 1920 Nov. at Mortimer Hall  – Composer as pianist – 1st performance of the 3 songs at Societe Musicale Independent in Paris by Mme. Marthe Martine in June 1921: composer accompanying.74 1st performance of Second Sonata (together with 1st) at a private recital in Vienna in January 13th 1922. You can add to the list of works ‘Black Mass’ for Chorus Large Orchestra and Organ – “in preparation”.75 I’m glad to hear about your song-cycle. Thank God [Gerald] Cooper isn’t going to sing in it. He’d ruin anything. What idiots these fellows are. Because they have good taste in music they think that qualifies them to pose as singers! Battistini’s76 marvellous performance has done a good many of them down I think. I heard Paul Reimers77 yesterday – one of the most exquisitely fine and cultured singing artists I have ever heard – far finer than Gerhardt78 – for his vocal style and technique are immensely superior to hers, which are very full of glaring faults – wobbling and breathing noisily like a grampus – a hideous defect, that one expects of Clarion Waterbutts79 but not of Gerhardt! I hope you’ll come before 25th July. Do try!

138  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 Your loving Gote-Piece ? why “Piece” What does it signify?

[Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 38: fol. 137R-V] THE BOSCOMBE PIER HOTEL, BOURNEMOUTH. Date 28th July. [1922] Tel. 981 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Belovedest: (1.) Have the copies marked “Copyright for all Countries by the Composer” (1922) The agent will see to the copyrighting for U.S.A. which is done by sending a copy or two (I’m not sure) to the Library of Congress at Washington when the thing in question is published here. Do the refills fit all right? If not tell me, and I’ll go and slang the whore who sold them to me with the assurance that though “Eversharps” they would fit a “Finepoint” (your pencil).80 From what I  know of the sale of Goossens  & Berner’s81 stuff (Willie [Walton] told me that Berners told him he had never had a penny) I certainly am not inclined to regard Chester82 as of any more excellence as a selling medium than anyone else but – I am open to conversion. You might tell me how long since it is since you gave Waldheim the definite order for Orr’s songs? I’m bombarding Waldheim with furious letters and before long I shall threaten to get the British Consul to move against them unless they hurry up. You’re a dear sweet creature and I love you Immeasurably & sempiternally your Gote I’m going to see Maud Allan83 tonight – chiefly for the purpose of hearing Mrs. van Dieren84 play who is touring with her.

[38a: Philip Heseltine to Cecil Gray (excerpt)] The Lord Nelson Poole Dorset. July 16th 1924

Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 139 [. . .] Not another word will I write for anybody about Sorabji – there really are limits – one must draw the line somewhere! – and as for the chamber music of Delius, the less said about it the better. Anyway, I can’t hurt the poor man’s feelings by writing about it.

[38b: Constant Lambert to Philip Heseltine (excerpt)85] Tuesday [9 November 1926]

15 Cheyne Gardens Chelsea S.W. 3

Dear Philip Thank you so much for sending my address book back. Mr [Philip] Darnton sounds marvellous. Talking of comic composers I spent rather a ga-ga evening with Sorabji last night. He made one good remark which should appeal to Moeran. Pointing to a bar in one of his numerous concerti which seemed to be simultaneously in 1/1, 3/2, 7/4, 11/8, & 13½/16 rythm I asked timidly ‘what time is that bar in’? He said ‘Oh that’s in no particular time, its just a swurge’! He has also written 64 variations & triple fugue on the theme ‘Dies Irae’ – the last 7 variations are labelled after the 7 deadly sins – he pointed out with undisguised glee the numerous trills in the lechery section!

[38c: Philip Heseltine to Kaikhosru Sorabji (dedication added to a woodcut portrait of Warlock by Hal Collins)] Au Grand Bouc Sabbatique Mes sentiments cordialement dévoués Pierre le Sorcier Noël 1927.

[38d: Philip Heseltine to Kaikhosru Sorabji (postcard with ‘Egyptian’ design)] To my superhircine Goat – Greetings and a cavalcade (if wishes were horses) for Christmas 1929 from his devoted Peter Warlock Brandon     Norfolk    Suffolk  23/12/29.

{

140  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929

Notes 1 Quintet [no 1] for piano and quartet of stringed instruments, 1919–1920 (KSS26), dedicated to Heseltine. 2 To 35 Warrington Crescent, Maida Vale, where Heseltine had been lodging. 3 Heseltine had left London and returned to the family home in Wales. The only reference to this is in a letter to Bernard van Dieren (24 January 1920): ‘grisly contingencies occurred, necessitating something of an upheaval in the at-no-time too particularly even tenor of my existence’. 4 Boris de Chroustchoff (1898–1979), one of Heseltine’s Oxford friends, variously referred to as an anthropologist and bibliophile. Chroustchoff claimed that for many years he was Heseltine’s closest friend, and for a time they shared flats in Chelsea and Maida Vale. 5 See quoted reference to ‘grisly contingencies’ in endnote 3: an occult experience is implied. 6 A reference to an article written by a friend of both Sorabji and Heseltine, Robert Nichols (1893–1944), an English writer, known as a war poet of the First World War and a playwright. ‘Of the Devil who would Learn Gregorian. A Story Handed Down and Retold by the Mouth of Robert Nichols’, The Sackbut, I(4) (August 1920), 177–183. 7 Somewhat later Heseltine wrote an entry for Sorabji in Eaglefield Hull’s A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (1924; see Appendix 3b). He also published an article in August 1923 expounding his concept of the ‘mind’s ear’ with specific reference to Sorabji in the Weekly Westminster Gazette (Appendix 3a). 8 A mythological humanoid being or unrighteous spirit in Hinduism. 9 Kama-loca is regarded as the third of the four goals of life, worldly status and salvation. Kama-loka is the realm this inhabits, particularly in the afterlife. 10 ‘Redolent Goat’. 11 ‘Ille Reporter’, The Sackbut 1(2) (June 1920), 53–56. For a short time, Heseltine edited this new musical periodical at the invitation of proprietor Winthrop Rogers, who in April 1920 founded it to replace his magazine The Organist and Choirmaster. Heseltine presided over nine issues, adopting a style often both combative and controversial. (For an evaluation and contextualisation of its critical stance in this period, see Collins 2014). In the editorial article in question, Heseltine revisits his perennial trope of lamenting the state of English music criticism. In an analysis with modern resonance, he bemoans the vicious circle of (perceived) lacklustre public interest, subsequent editorial indifference and consequent critical inadequacy. He calls generally for greater expertise and discernment amongst concert reviewers and greater encouragement of the new and unfamiliar. Heseltine then focusses particular attention on his specific bête noir, Ernest Newman, and adduces evidence for Newman’s lack of support for unpublished composers by printing letters from Sunday Times correspondents ‘A.C.’ and Sorabji (Documents 30c and d), and an endorsement of the latter penned by Busoni. 12 This letter also appears (slightly abridged) in Derus 1992, 253, along with Busoni’s letter of recommendation. 13 Newman published his own explanation: ‘The five years’ long illness of my late wife (I am sorry to have to go into these personal matters, but my critics compel me to do so), the consequent damage to my own health, and lastly the time lot in my removal from Birmingham to London all meant a grievous set-back to my work. I found myself compelled . . . to economise my time and strength rigorously. After having, for fifteen years or so, read the manuscripts of composers all and sundry all over the country, all of them unknown to me, it never occurred to me that I should be flying in the face of the moral law by stopping reading manuscripts until I had more time to do so’ (Newman 1920, 49). This led to a comment by a fellow critic problematising the more general nature

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14

15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

of critics receiving unsolicited material (“Schaunard” 1920, 851–852). Newman’s own article supports Eaglefield Hull’s suggestion that the British Music Society establish an ‘Advisory Board’ to consider (for a nominal fee) submissions from unpublished composers, promoting the most promising to publishers and performers (see Documents 31b and d). During his editorial tenure at The Sackbut, Heseltine also proposed a series of four concerts, of which only the initial two took place. The first, on 18 October 1920, featured the premiere of van Dieren’s Second String Quartet alongside a fantasia by Purcell and other early music. All four were announced in The Sackbut 1(6) (October 1920), 279 (the last two were to feature English premieres of string quartets by Bartók and Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire). This was the second concert promoted under the magazine’s auspices, 2 November 1920, at which Sorabji premiered Sonata no 1 in his first public performance. The concert, at London’s Mortimer Hall (a now-defunct venue located near Queen’s Hall, east of Regent Street, halfway between Oxford Circus and BBC Broadcasting House), also included Paul Ladmirault’s ‘Gaelic Rhapsody’ for piano duet and songs by Delius, Mahler, Liszt and Schubert. Gerald Cooper (1892–1947), wealthy English singer, musicologist and concert promoter (see Introduction). In August 1920, Heseltine spent ten days with Delius in France collecting material for a book he was writing on the composer, published in 1923 (London: John Lane). Perhaps the work styled ‘Concerto pour Piano et Grand Orchestre. Sept. 1918’ (KSS18) – actually Sorabji’s fourth piano concerto. See Derus 1992, 236; Rapoport 1992, 115. The completed manuscript of Sonata seconda for Piano (KSS28), dated 24 December 1920, is indeed 49 pages long; evidence, as noted by Derus (236), of Sorabji’s habit of determining manuscript page-lengths in advance. The sonata was published in 1923. ‘An amazing work, sweetheart’. The Sackbut 1(3) (July 1920): 116–123. ‘Of Singers’. The Sackbut 1(1) (May 1920): 19–22. Anthony Bernard (1891–1963), conductor and friend of Heseltine. Szymanowsky, Symphony no 3 ‘Song in the Night’ op. 27 (1914–1916). Harvey Grace’s review (as seen in Document 31h) does draw attention to some Debussian features (parallel chord streams, use of pedal point, harmonic blurring achieved via use of the sustaining pedal), while making more explicit the influence of Scriabin. See also Introduction and note 62. Sacheverell Reresby Sitwell, (1897–1988), English writer and art, architecture and music critic. Compare Cecil Gray’s reaction as reported in Document 32e. A reference to Arthur Edward Drummond Bliss (1891–1975), English composer and conductor. A reference to Holst’s The Planets, op. 32 (1914–1916). Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889–1960), English composer. Published in 1920, Lawrence includes a thinly disguised and unflattering depiction of Heseltine (‘Halliday’) who in 1922 began legal proceedings for defamation, eventually settling out of court. Robert Lorenz (1891–1945), amateur musician, writer on music and broadcaster. Later a member of the Heseltine circle and a friend of Sorabji from at least 1922. Fritz Hart (1874–1949), composer–conductor friend of Heseltine’s who emigrated to Australia, becoming director of the Melbourne Conservatorium in 1915. Over £800 in comparable 2018 terms. Cecil Gray correspondence, BL Add MS 57962 fol. 23R (Heseltine Papers Vol. V). Egon Joseph Wellesz (1885–1974), Austrian-born British composer, teacher and musicologist.

142  Letters and documents 1920–1922/1929 37 Emil Hertzka (1869–1932). Born in Budapest, in 1901 he joined the Vienna-based music publishing house Universal Edition and was an influential and pioneering music publisher responsible for printing and promoting some of the most important European musical works of the twentieth century. 38 I.e. Kammersaal, Musikverein, Bösendorferstraße 12, Vienna (A-1010). 39 Waldheim-Eberle, Viennese music publishing and printing firm founded in 1892. 40 Not Sorabji’s actual second piano concerto, but the work completed on 1 August 1920 and published under the title Concerto II (in fact the fifth) in 1923 (KSS27). 41 Presumably Sorabji’s first piano concerto (KSS6). 42 See n. 19 for reference to this (pre-)compositional practice. 43 ‘special issue’ 44 I.e., Arthur Bliss (see n. 28). 45 A pun on Psalm 85, v. 10: ‘Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other’. 46 There is no mass setting in A  by Joseph Haydn. This may well have been Michael Haydn’s Deutsches Hochamt (German Mass) in A major (K VI:3), MH 536. 47 At this time one of London’s most popular meeting-places for artists, musicians, and writers. 48 8 Sorabji appears to be coining the term ‘strumpeter’ (a re-gendering of ‘strumpet’; a loose woman) to describe the corpulent object of the prostitute’s professional interest. 49 Transcription of the bracketed text is speculative as the handwriting is not entirely clear at this point. 50 The last word might alternatively be read as ‘afar’. 51 Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), born Edward Alexander Crowley, British occultist and writer. 52 Symphony [no 1] for piano, large orchestra, chorus and organ, 1921–1922 (KSS30). 53 Sonata III for piano, completed 5 May 1922 (KSS29). 54 See Appendix 2. 55 The Palatine Chapel, the royal chapel of the Norman kings of Sicily, situated on the second floor at the centre of the Palazzo Reale in Palermo, southern Italy. 56 Founded in 1861 by Jules Pasdeloup with the name Concerts Populaires. 57 Charles Wilfred Orr (1893–1976), English composer and writer on music. 58 Otto Kling (1866 or 1867–1924), proprietor of J. & W. Chester (1915–1924). 59 Charles G. J. Volkert (1854–1929), German-born music publisher. He joined the firm of Schott in Germany in 1872, moving to England in 1873, where he became London manager of Schott & Co. 60 This music publisher was the first to release Sorabji’s pieces, issuing five works between 1921 and 1923. 61 See Part II n. 84. 62 Harvey Grace (1874–1944), English organist and music writer. Following his review of Sorabji’s first piano sonata (Document 31h), several years later he published the following (rather more impatient) comments on the second: ‘Of Kaikhosru Sorabji’s second Sonata (Curwen) this reviewer can only say what he has said before in dealing with the composer’s works. The music is unplayable for all but virtuosi; it is of such complexity that mental hearing of it is impossible save in brief passages; and a painful reading of it at the keyboard is useless, because music so dissonant cannot be judged when played at any but its right speed, when the various conflicting elements fall into their place instead of sticking out. At times Mr. Sorabji appears to ask of the instrument rather more than it can do with clarity, but here again one speaks with diffidence. Perhaps in such passages clarity is not required. After looking at these bewildering pages one can only say that the proper medium for such music is the player-piano. If Mr. Sorabji wishes to write for the ordinary pianoforte, he should express himself in such a way that the ordinary, keen player should be able to tackle the result with at least as much success as he is able to achieve in tackling the classical pianoforte repertory.

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63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85

At present Mr. Sorabji is holding us at arm’s length; if he has anything good to say, we want to come in and share it’ (Grace 1924, 520). Paradoxure: a Palm civet, an animal with a remarkably long, curving tail. Equatable with the fires of Hell in Rabbinic, Christian and Islamic scriptures. A reference to Aleister Crowley. Salvarsan, also known as arsphenamine and compound 606, is a drug that was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for syphilis. Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958), an American philosopher, mystic, teacher and author. An adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s phrase about fox-hunting: ‘The unspeakable in full pursuit of the inedible’. A Woman of No Importance (1893). One of Heseltine’s many pseudonyms – Prosdocimus de Beldemandis (d. 1428) was an Italian mathematician, music theorist and physician. Goodwin & Tabb Ltd, a firm of British music publishers active from 1914 to 1971. A reference to Otto Kling and a play on ‘Ku-Klux-Klan’. Aleister Crowley. See n. 65. Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), German physician and scientist whose laboratory discovered arsphenamine (Salvarsan). Probably for the biographical entry which Heseltine had been asked to write for A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (see n. 7). In 1909 a group of young composers led by Ravel and Koechlin had broken with the Société Nationale de Musique, which under the presidency of Vincent d’Indy had become a reactionary organisation, and formed a new group, the Société Musicale Indépendante, with Gabriel Fauré as president. Sorabji’s Trois poèmes were premiered on 2 June, 1921. This work is not extant. Mattia Battistini (1856–1928), Italian operatic baritone. Paul Reimers (1877–1942), British singer. Elena Gerhardt (1883–1961), German mezzo-soprano. I.e. Clara Butt. A mechanical or propelling pencil with a replaceable and mechanically extendable ‘lead’. Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, Lord Berners (1883–1950), British composer, novelist and painter. Chester Music, a music publishing firm established in the 1860s. It was Chester’s reputation in Europe early in the twentieth century that attracted it to its new owner, Otto Kling (proprietor from 1915–1924), and to the many continental composers whom Chester was amongst the first to publish. Now part of the Music Sales Group. Maud Allan (1873–1956), Canadian-born dancer, actress, pianist and writer. After studying the piano (including masterclasses with Busoni), she decided to revive the lost art of classic dance, pursuing an international career. Frida van Dieren, née Kindler (1879–1964), concert pianist and teacher; wife of Bernard van Dieren. Published in Lloyd 2014, 92.

Appendix 1 Some reflections on modern musical criticism [The Musical Times 54(848) (1 October 1913)] BY P. A. HESELTINE. ‘The good critic,’ wrote Anatole France, ‘is he who narrates the adventures of his mind among masterpieces’ – a significant phrase, which, if supplemented by a motto from Nietzsche, ‘No good, no bad, but my taste, for which I have neither shame; nor concealment’, forms the foundation of a complete philosophy of musical criticism. Such a system, be it said at once, would probably be discredited by the majority of present-day musicians, though many work upon it already: unadmittedly, it is true, for the most part, and perhaps unwittingly. However, the sooner this principle is openly admitted and practised, the better for music criticism and the public that is supposed to profit by it; for, frankly, the ever-recurring spectacle of critics who, being totally unable to keep pace with the musical thought of their day, seek to conceal their obtuseness by a lofty cynicism and feeble attempts at humour, is becoming monotonous, to say the least of it. The only humour of the situation lies in their own attitude; for what, after all, is the musical aesthetic if it is not that intuitive feeling for music implanted in the individual, the feeling of the merits or defects of a work even if heart and reason be at variance on the subject? This instinctive feeling for a work is, in reality, the mirror of its creation, and almost amounts to a creation in itself, for it is the reflex action of a creative will that has achieved its expression, upon a sympathetic temperament whose desire to translate its dreams into the realities of art lacks a voice of its own, finding the vague thoughts would utter reflected, or rather, transfigured and transcended by the voices of others of a kindred nature that have become articulate. In the same way, a work that is antipathetic feeling to the mood or temperament of a particular hearer, evokes the thought that even its express reality is inferior to the shadowy, unborn dreams that haunt his mind. As was hinted above, this power of feeling a work has its roots entirely in the idiosyncrasies of temperament and their resultant moods and tastes. The time has long passed when freedom of thought in music was suppressed by a kind of superstitious adherence to certain arbitrary rules and regulation in spite of the belated bleatings  – now becoming pathetically weak-voiced and unsupported – of the musically dead who deplore the licentiousness modern music, and sigh for the good old days when Haydn reigned supreme, or even make bold to

Appendix 1  145 deny name of music to the works of those 20th century composers whose musical genealogies they happen to be unable to trace back to Jubal. They should, perhaps, be reminded that there are, no doubt, persons who would see no necessary connection between the grown plant and its bulb  – there certainly is not much resemblance between the two when viewed side by side – but such people would scarcely be mistaken for horticulturists, though they might take the greatest delight in the aesthetic beauty of flowers. Even those who condescend to permit their contemporaries to express themselves through a musical medium at all, are prone to forget that all the precious rules and regulations which are so dear to them, were only compiled by musical grammar from the study of musical works already in existence. Moreover, considering the date of the matter, if not of its presentation, the average text-book of harmony or counterpoint is about as useful to the aspiring composer of the present day as an English grammar based on Chaucer and his predecessors would be to the modern author. Besides, a knowledge of grammar, even of the right kind, does not make an author, and as regards this so-called musical grammar, it appears to be an open question whether the acquisition of it is not actually a hindrance to natural musical expression, if we may accept the opinions of those who have attained the end to which it is professedly a (or does it call itself the) means.i We do not imply contempt for Chaucer by admiring Shelley, and there seems to be no obvious reason why the followers of Mr John Masefield should deny the name of poetry to the works of Milton. The space of time by which these writers are separated precludes comparison. Yet Mr Corder, in his letter to the Musical Times of March, 1913, would have us believe that ‘if Scriabine’s “Prometheus” is music, then it is idle to pretend that the other works (Beethoven’s Violin concerto and a Symphony by Haydn) are also music.’ In other words, if ‘The vision of Piers Plowman’ is poetry, then it is idle to pretend that works by Browning or Swinburne are also poetry; or, if Robert Burns wrote poetry, then William Barnes did not; or to extend the analogy a step further, if the ‘Odyssey’ is an epic poem, then it is idle to classify ‘Paradise Lost’ under the same heading. Mr Corder would fain proceed to show that the introduction of psychology or expression of personality into music was a recent innovation, and tended to the decadence of the art. If he is really prepared to maintain that the music of Haydn or Beethoven contains no expression of its composer’s personality, well there is simply no more to be said. He that hath ears to hear – simply will hear; that is all. As for the taste that accepts Haydn and Beethoven and rejects Scriabine, or vice versa, we cannot blame it, any more than we can blame any other taste under the sun, per se, for we must realise that the necessary antecedent to the possibility of such a condemnation would be a fixed standard of objective beauty, which, as a matter of plain fact, simply does not exist. ‘No one yet knoweth what is good and bad,’ said Zarathustra. Observe the word knoweth. The truth of Nietzsche’s observation lies just in the very fact that everyone knows in his inmost heart what is good and bad, or rather, to use a Socratean distinction, thinks he knows, knowing in reality nothing whatever.

146  Appendix 1 The theory of a finite and absolute standard of beauty is the supreme obstacle to the progress of musical evolution. Every standard of beauty must necessarily lie in the taste of the individual; or, as Thomas Hardy has it, ‘Beauty, to all who have felt, lies not in the thing, but in what the thing symbolises.’ It would be as absurd to call anyone unmusical because the music of Schönberg or Scriabine meant more to him than that of Haydn or Beethoven, as it would be to call Mr. Corder unmusical for the taste he has professed in his letter to the Musical Times. So far from there being any necessary antagonism between the two predilections, one can picture the devotee of Schönberg or Scriabine cheerfully confronting Mr Corder with the optimistic assurance that ‘I am right, and you are right, and all is right as right can be.’ Flippant as it may appear, this remark voices a very profound truth in aesthetics. Substitute any other four composers for the names mentioned above for the sake of examples, and you still have four men, possibly of widely differing temperaments, yet human beings for all that, expressing themselves as best they can with the means at their disposal, in terms of music. Let Schönberg be their spokesman, for his words apply equally well to all. ‘The artist does, not what others consider beautiful, but what for himself is a necessity.’ The facts that music is by far the youngest of the arts, and that the gradual, and perhaps still incomplete development of technical resources of all kinds has undoubtedly influenced the music of all ages to a very large extent, may be laid aside in a purely aesthetic consideration and comparison of musical works of different epochs. Human nature remains the same throughout the ages – fundamentally, that is, for the progress of civilization and the surface changes it effects will never cease – and it is, after all, the human note in every kind of music that makes the strongest appeal to human hearts. To quote Schönberg once again: ‘Instruction, if it is to be of real value to the artist, must be of such a kind as helps him to hear himself. Mere technical knowledge will avail him nothing.’ This is the key-note of all originality in music – that is, the true, natural originality that distinguishes the individual from the mass, and which alone makes progress in musical expression possible. There are some, of course, who immediately associate deliberate eccentricity with any manifestation or attempt at originality in music; the distinction between mere eccentricity and true originality lies solely in the sincerity of purpose with which the music is written. Strictly speaking, there is more to be said for this imputation of eccentricity to really original music than would appear at first sight, though in this sense the term would carry no stigma. For what, after all, is eccentricity but an attitude of nonconformity with certain established traditions and customs, the courage to stand out above the herd and its conventionalities? The strongest man,’ wrote Ibsen, ‘is he who stands alone.’ But he is always an eccentric to the crowd, if not a madman. If it were not for this attitude, there should be no art whatever or if there were, we should be deluged with innumerable works – for everyone in the world would turn creator of them – all as totally indistinguishable from each other as the nails or screws turned out by any two men in the ordinary mechanical workshop. Music, as a live and creative art, cannot stand still and stagnate; whether one considers it to be progressing in an ascending or descending line is, of course,

Appendix 1  147 a matter of opinion, but as soon as the course of its progress is arrested, it will assuredly perish as a living art. So long as human nature remains what it is, it will be ever striving, however ineffectually, to pierce the veil of transcendental things, and express; at least a ‘Dim vision of the rainbow-aureoled face Of her whom men name Beauty,’ the elusive ideal which soars but the higher into infinity as each more clear-sighted and lovely dream of it is wrought into substance by the mind of man. Each man’s only true standard of art is his glimmering, perception of this vision. The game of ‘Artists and Critics’ seems to have consisted for a very long time solely in the diverting though somewhat ineffectual pastime of submitting new values to the judgment of the old which they have supplanted. The motor-car is the logical outcome of the coach-and-four in the sense that it is equally the expression of man’s desire for rapid transit. There are, doubtless, centenarians, whose taste does not permit of their riding in motor-cars; there is absolutely no reason why they should do so against their inclination but it is quite absurd for them to inveigh against the modern motorist for not sharing their taste in conveyances. But here is the old, old threadbare story once again repeating itself, the old, old fear of, or contempt for progress. The majority of music-lovers are taught to swallow in their infancy certain tenets of faith which have given birth to the grisly chimera of the fixed standard, that most terrible of all the obstacles that beset the path of the creative artist who has the courage of his tastes, and dares to cast aside all the shackles of tradition. Thus, too, comes about the appalling dearth of originality in criticism. If some music-lovers sincerely prefer Schönberg or Scriabine, or any other composers of their own age, to Haydn and Beethoven – (an ugly thought, this, for the academics, but nevertheless a very real fact that they must face sooner or later) – why should they not openly say so, especially if they are critics by profession? The natural development of musical taste is, without a doubt, vastly impeded by traditional opinions of critics of the past which survive to-day in those of weakling dilettantes who have no opinions of their own, and are hidebound by the conventional attitude towards certain composers, standing in awe before the purely arbitrary pedestals upon which the said composers have been placed. Before a tribunal composed of such people as these – and their number is fearsomely great – every new work is, so to say, guilty until it is proved innocent – of originality, that is! Thus comes it about that 20th century works of tremendous significance, like the large choral works of Frederick Delius, to cite but one name among many, are treated with complacent neglect, in spite of the immense enthusiasm evoked by them whenever any of the rare performances of them take place, whereas the discovery of a work like the ‘Jena Symphony,’ which, judged purely on its own merits, would never have been disturbed from its slumber into oblivion, creates a feverish excitement in the musical world because somebody conjectures that it may be a student-work of Beethoven’s.

148  Appendix 1 There are thousands of earnest music-lovers who are constantly perplexed by the question, Where experts disagree, who shall decide? What need is there of a decision? The man who cannot think for himself cannot appreciate for himself; and nobody can appreciate for him. As M Calvocoressi wisely points out in the Musical Times of March, 1913, it is impossible to become familiar with, let alone to appreciate, all the music that is extant in the world, and it is a regrettable fact that attention to the kind of antediluvian criticism referred to above has created a tendency among ordinary music-loversii to be ashamed of their true tastes, and thus to attempt too much in trying to appreciate styles of music which make no natural appeal to them, while at the same time their real feeling will not allow them to neglect the study of the particular kind of music that is akin in spirit to their peculiar temperaments. The chief danger of modern critics, both amateur and professional, seems to lie in this futile attempt at over-comprehensiveness. Mr Ernest Newman recently made some shrewd remarks respecting a compulsory time-limit for critics.iii If a man of genius like Berlioz, himself a revolutionary, had perforce to confess in his latter years that he could make nothing of the Prelude to ‘Tristan’, which seems to us nowadays as clear and simple as most of Berlioz’s own work, it is scarcely probable that the ordinary music-lover of the present day will be able fully to comprehend and appreciate all the countless styles of music that he will encounter. Let him feast at the banquet of the Muses as he will, and let no one attempt to coerce his taste for is not the fact of his having taste the sole qualification for his admission to the said banquet? But let him remember that enough is as good as a feast, and beware of musical dyspepsy. [652–654]

Notes i See remarks by Mr Balfour Gardiner, in the Musical Times, August, 1912. ii It is scarcely necessary to add, parenthetically, that by ‘music-lovers’, are designated only those to whom music is something more than an agreeable aid to digestion. iii See Birmingham Daily Post, criticism of Paderewski’s recital in Birmingham, October, 1912.

Appendix 2 Sexual inversion [The Medical Times (October 1921)]

The clause, making “gross indecency” between female persons punishable pari passu with the same for men, recently added to the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, raises in an acute form the question of Sexual Inversion in its legal aspects. It is difficult to imagine anything more ignorant, more barbarously retrograde than this clause. Although one does not expect manufacturers of laws to have much knowledge of the results of modern scientific and psychological research into the subject of sex, yet such ignorance as this should not go without strong protest from all interested in the progress of enlightenment and humanity. The time is more than overdue for a wholesale reconsideration of the question referred to above. None but the very ignorant can now, after the labours of Havelock Ellis, Black, Hirschfeld and others, regard the invert merely as a moral monster, a “degenerate” or a perverted vicious sensualist. It is recognised that the inverted instinct, comprising the emotional and psychological as well as the specifically sexual aspects of the matter, is congenital, and as Carpenter so well puts it in his excellent monograph, “The Intermediate Sex,” “Twined in the very roots of the individual life.” If one sets aside the question of morality, which with most people is merely a way of compounding “for sins they are inclined to By damning those they have no mind to” the unreasoning cruelty and absurdity of punishing a man or a woman for feelings which he or she can no more help nor is no more responsible than for the colour of eyes and hair, is manifest. No invert was ever or could ever be cured by imprisonment any more than a boiler could be cured of excessive steam pressure by getting some one to sit on the safety valve. Modern psychology has shown what physical and mental havoc repression can work in a human being. In addition, Society demands of the invert, under pain of severest legal and social penalties, as [sic] asceticism it asks of no normal individual. It is therefore not to be wondered that from time to time the phenomenon bursts out in some violent and unsavoury escapade revealing the existence of homosexual prostitution and its corollary blackmail. It is commonly said that the cancelling of the penal clause would deprive the blackmailer of his most powerful

150  Appendix 2 lever of extortion, for it is notorious that 75 per cent of all blackmail is levied on the strength of these clauses. And yet after all that has been written and discovered by men of science and psychologists, instead of some amelioration of the law in consonance with these discoveries, we get on [sic] extension of injustice! If it shows nothing else, it demonstrates how absolutely unfitted for their work are the men who have charge of Bills of this character, and it should draw the protest of every enlightened medical man in the country. Even as a deterrent and check – its ostensible purpose – the law fails ridiculously. In the very nature of things, it can only become cognisant of a very small percentage of cases, and it is not too much to say that if every case more or less known were rigorously prosecuted the Courts would have time for nothing else, every jail would be full, and the rank, position and reputation of a very large number of the accused would give the public the greatest shock and awakening they have ever had, besides showing how inversion permeates society from top to bottom. Pending the bringing of the law into line with the results of modern science and research, it should be demanded that all such cases as come into the purview of the courts should be tried by experienced medical men and medical psychologists only. Germany and Austria have a very excellent court procedure in such cases. Medical evidence is always called, and, if the court is satisfied that the accused has acted from innate impulse and not from acquired viciousness, he is invariably acquitted. Here, it is a foregone conclusion that the accused is just a vicious pervert and one does not feel very sanguine that the evidence even of a Havelock Ellis would have much effect on the would-be “bel-esprits” of the Bench, and as for the jury, it is wildly improbable that one of any twelve average jurymen has ever heard of Havelock Ellis; he would probably only be shocked if he had. It is perhaps unfortunate to have to hold up Germany as an example, but the Germans with their customary painstaking thoroughness have dug deep into this subject as they do into all. The scientific literature there far exceeds that of anywhere else, and Dr. Hirschfeld, one of the greatest living authorities, has even founded a society, “Wissenschaflich Humanitaren Komitee,” for the study of it. The Committee publishes a journal of proceedings, gives lectures and issues pamphlets of an instructive nature and has for years been doing a most valuable work in dispelling the fog of popular ignorance and misconception. A pamphlet entitled “The Social Problem of Sexual Inversion” has been translated and issued by the “British Society for the Study of Sex-Psychology.” This is a very good introductory brochure for those who are strange to the subject. The supreme moral objections to inversion in the eyes of most people are that it is “against nature” and that it “defeats the logical end of sex relations,” i.e., “the production of off-spring.” To say that inversion is “against nature” is one of those vague muddle-headed pieces of sentimentality so beloved of the unthinking. The invert receives the gifts of his feelings and desires from nature, i.e., they are something over which he has no control and which are in him from birth. How then “against nature”? The second objection is singularly hypocritical and ridiculous from a society that practises birth-control and prostitution. Moreover, it is very questionable indeed whether production of offspring is the sole end of

Appendix 2 151 normal intercourse. A final word may be said on the cumbersome and unsatisfactory nature of the laws dealing with sexual offences. A short one-paragraph statute could accomplish all and more than the present, while omitting all of their objectionable features. It might run somewhat as follows: – “Any adult person who commits a sexual act with any other person, without the consent of that person, by force, fraud or intimidation, or with any person under the age of 17 years, shall be guilty of an offence.” K.S. (148–149)

Appendix 3a Music [Weekly Westminster Gazette 2(81) (18 August 1923)]

When the book on the mind’s ear comes to be written a great deal of interest will centre round the testimony of living composers about their methods of work and sources of inspiration – provided they can be induced to reveal them. The familiar idea of the composer throwing off masterpieces in a fine frenzy will doubtless die hard, however strong the evidence may be against it; but it is not unlikely that many musicians would hesitate to acknowledge their dependence upon the pianoforte as an aid to composition as frankly as Dr  Vaughan Williams in the article referred to last week. This reticence is really quite unnecessary, for, after all, it is the finished work that matters, and if the work itself is good, no one is going to think the worse of it by being told that its apparent spontaneity is the outcome of many weeks of laborious writing and rewriting, or to cavil at the fact that such and such a passage was suggested by a chance progression in the course of an improvisation – or even by some non-musical stimulus, such as the humming of a telegraph wire or the roar of a train. We know that Wagner needed an environment of fantastic luxury to work in; we know also that he used the piano to a large extent when composing, and it is certain that his harmonic sense was greatly stimulated thereby. And yet  – rarely, it is true  – one does come across something like the fine frenzy  – inspiration, in the literal sense of the word, as in the case of Arnold Schönberg, who claims that his later works are not so much made by as dictated to him. An equally interesting case is that of Kaikhosru Sorabji, several of whose works have lately been issued by the London and Continental Music Publishing Co. His music is written down, without any preliminary sketches, bar by bar into the fair copy; there is no improvisation or any use of the piano at any stage of the composition, nor is there any rewriting or alteration when a work is completed. This is the more remarkable by reason of the fact that the texture of the music is of the utmost complexity, both of harmony and rhythm. The effect of a first hearing or reading is bewildering in the extreme; but with familiarity there comes the conviction that we are dealing with a composer who is nothing short of a phenomenon in musical history. To say this is not to hail Sorabji as a full-fledged genius. But whether his music be thought good or bad it is certainly phenomenal that, in an age of change and disruption when distinctive style is rare and the greater part of the musical output is characterised by tentative experimentalism on the one

Appendix 3a  153 hand and wholesale plagiarism on the other, a young man who has served no long apprenticeship in musical composition should suddenly present the world with a series of works exhibiting a mature and individual technique and a fully developed and entirely personal style of musical expression. In almost every work the piano plays an important part – and Sorabji’s manner of writing for the piano is as unique as the matter which he writes. Technically, his piano-writing is of immense difficulty; he has in fact created a new style of “pianistic” writing – I use the word deliberately lest it be thought that the difficulty of his piano writing is due to any lack of consideration for the peculiar qualities of the instrument. But his technique has developed quite logically from that of the great masters Chopin and Liszt, to whom he confesses himself greatly indebted. For one still in his ’twenties Sorabji’s output is prodigious, including three concertos for piano and orchestra and a gigantic symphony, of proportions that make Mahler seem a mere Lilliputian. The most characteristic of the published works are the Quintet for piano and strings, and the Sonata for piano alone, but anyone whose piano technique is below virtuoso standard should approach Sorabji by way of the two short pieces (“In the Hothouse” and “Toccata”) and the fascinating “Fantaisie Espagnole”. There is a quality in Sorabji’s music that at times holds one spellbound. One feels that this is no mere music-making; something is all the while coming through the music, some force is being evoked that sweeps us on to a familiar plane, where we seem to stand upon the threshold of a strange initiation. One seems to hear in the music what Matron called “the aspiration of a spirit . . . the passion of immortals, that dread and desire of their final habitations”, and those “struggles of passion when the soul trembles on the verge of the unhallowed.” Like a magnificent and complex improvisation, this music has the dynamic energy of impassioned speech. And after hearing it, one feels that it is the work as whole, not merely a few purple passages, that have made the impression. P.H. (148–149)

Appendix 3b Sorabji, Kaikhosru [A Dictionary of Modern Music & Musicians]

Compr. b. in Essex, 14 Aug. 1895. Father Parsi, mother Spanish. Has lived in London all his life. Practically self-taught as regards music. Began composing in 1915, but has discarded all works prior to 1918. Since that date he has written 3 pf. sonatas, 2 concertos for pf. and orch., a symphony for chorus, pf. and orch., a 5tet for pf. and str. and some songs and shorter pf. pieces, all of which are, or will shortly be, available in print. He played his 1st pf. sonata at a “Sackbut” concert in London, Nov. 1920, and gave a recital in Vienna, Jan. 1922, the programme comprising his 1st and 2nd pf. sonatas. He also acc. Mme Marthe Martine in a group of his songs at a concert of the Société Musicale Indépendant in Paris, June 1921. Otherwise no public perfs. of his works have yet been given, though Cortot has expressed a desire to take up one of the concertos, and the 1st pf. sonata aroused the interest of Busoni who wrote of the compr. as “un talent naissant d’une espèce encore nouvelle qui donne à penser et à espérer.” S.’s work is not for the amateur. The technical difficulties of his extremely individual style of pf. writing are insurmountable by any but first-rate pianists. His compns. are of great length and complexity, and when an orch. is employed it is usually of Gargantuan proportions. It is of interest to note that they are written straight down in fair copy – in the case of the orch. works, in full score. No sketches are made, nor is even the figuration of the piano music determined at the keyboard. One is reminded of Blake’s methods in composing the Prophetic Books; but these, we are told, were dictated by angels. If we are to say the same of S.’s music we must use the word in its literal sense of “messenger” without its usual connotation of celestial origin and moral intent. Symphony, pf., orch., chorus and organ (ms); Prelude, interlude and fugue, pf. (ms); 3rd pf. sonata (ms); 1st and 2nd pf. sonatas (London & Continental Co.); 3 pastiches (on Chopin Valse: on Habanera in Carmen; on Hindoo Song in Sadko) (id.); Fantaisie Espagnole, pf. (id.); pf. concerto (id.); 5tet, pf. and str. (id); songs to poems of Baudelaire and Verlaine. P. H. (Hull 1924, 469)

Appendix 4 Music [The New Age 48 (15 January 1931)]

Severe indisposition, coinciding, as Macaulay would say, by an ingenious device with an utter lack of any musical event of the slightest interest or importance, must explain and apologise for my silence for so many weeks. It is painful that, on resuming my activities, I should have to start off with a sort of elegiac tribute to a great, and honoured and deeply admired friend, Philip Heseltine, or otherwise Peter Warlock, with whose loss through a wretched accident, for no sane person acquainted with all the facts, as distinct from journalistic inventions, can regard it otherwise, at an age in his early prime of life, is gone from us one of the finest musical minds of our time, a critic and writer further of unparalled brilliance, insight, and subtlety. What I owe personally to is early encouragement, sympathy, and championship I can never adequately express, except to say that here and now is my bounden moral duty to express that obligation as best I can. A song writer of exquisite delicacy, jewel-like craftsmanship, and flawless rightness of instinct, he has been equalled by few and surpassed by far fewer, and those happy recipients of quaint postcards inscribed in a freakish manner so typical of him in microscopic, dainty, and delicate handwriting, typical of the perfect orderliness and complete lack of loose ends about any part of his personality, have a poignant reason for cherishing these memorials of him now. It is unpleasant and incongruous to have to introduce a jarring note into this tribute, no matter that it be small and inadequate, by registering a most emphatic and indignant protest against the entirely gratuitous, offensive and grotesque remarks which a certain composer1 – a self-alleged “friend” of Philip Heseltine’s – saw fit to give evidence at the inquest. This gentleman, whose “friendship” with the late Mr. Heseltine, those who really knew and were intimate with the latter over a long period of years have the best of reasons for supposing little more than acquaintance, had the impertinent fatuity to suggest that a man of Philip Heseltine’s mental and moral calibre was depressed by lack of public recognition, a suggestion as fantastic as it was untrue. Philip Heseltine had, and knew he had, the recognition and appreciation of those only whose recognition and appreciation matter to an artist, while his name was a household word with a familiar public, a public, further, whose approval or the reverse it is a damanable insult and slander to his memory to imagine he would have ever condescended to give a moment’s thought to. What service this gentleman imagined himself to be doing either to truth or

156  Appendix 4 to the artist’s memory it is not easy to see, for statements so fantastic and inapt could not give a moment’s credence with those who, like myself, had known Mr. Heseltine for the best part of twenty years; but it is important for such pestilent nonsense to be contradicted lest Heseltine’s memory is wronged by those who did not know him believing it. KAIKHOSRU SORABJI. (128–129)

Note 1 A reference to John Ireland, who gave evidence at the coroner’s inquest suggesting he thought Heseltine was troubled by a perceived lack of public recognition of his music (a notion refuted by Cecil Gray in his 1934 biography).

Bibliography

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Bibliography 159 Parrott, Ian. 1994. The Crying Curlew: Peter Warlock, Family and Influences. Llandysul: Gomer Press. Rapoport, Paul. 1976. “Sorabji and the Computer.” Tempo 117 (June): 23–26. ———. 1978. Opus Est: Six Composers from Northern Europe. 1985. Repr. London: Kahn & Averill. ———, ed. 1992. Sorabji: A Critical Celebration. Aldershot: Scholar Press. Riley, Matthew, ed. 2010. British Music and Modernism, 1895–1960. Farnham and Burlington: Ashgate. Roberge, Marc-André. 1992. “Un tessuto d’execuzioni: A  Register of Performances of Sorabji’s Works.” In Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, edited by Paul Rapoport, 425–451. Aldershot: Scholar Press. ———, ed. 2008. Sorabji, Kaikhosru: Music to The Rider By Night KSS22. [score] Hereford: The Sorabji Archive. ———. 2017. “Opus Sorabjianum.” Version 1.16, 22 December. www.mus.ulaval.ca/roberge/srs/07-prese.htm. Rubbra, Edmund. 1932. “Sorabji’s Enigma.” Monthly Musical Record lxii: 148. Schaunard. 1920. “Stray Musings.” Musical Opinion (August): 851–852. Scott, Hugh Arthur. 1916. “The Melodic Poverty of Modern Music.” The Musical Times 57 (880) (1 June): 276–279. Sewell, Brian. 2011. Outsider: Almost Always: Never Quite. London: Quartet. Smith, Barry. 1994. Peter Warlock: The Life of Philip Heseltine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———, ed. 2000. Frederick Delius  & Peter Warlock: A  Friendship Revealed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———, ed. 2005. The Collected Letters of Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine). Woodbridge: The Boydell Press. S.O.G. 1912. “What Is Cacophany?” The Musical Standard, 28 September. Sontag, Susan. 1967. “Notes On ‘Camp’.” In Against Interpretation and Other Essays, 275–292. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Sorabji, Kaikhosru. 1915. “Letter to the Editor.” The New Age, 15 April. ———. 1916a. “To the Editor of the Musical Times.” The Musical Times 57 (881) (1 July): 332. ———. 1916b. “To the Editor of the Musical Times.” The Musical Times 57 (883) (1 ­September): 209–210. ———. 1917. “To the Editor.” The Musical Standard, 30 June. ———. 1920a. “Of Singers.” The Sackbut I (1) (May 1920): 19–22. ———. 1920b. “To the Sunday Times.” In ‘Ille Reporter’ by Philip Heseltine. The Sackbut I (2) (June 1920): 55–56. ———. 1920c. “Modern Piano Technique.” The Sackbut I (3) (July): 116–123. ———. 1921. “Sexual Inversion.” The Medical Times (October): 148–149. ———. 1923. Concerto II [score]. London: F. & B. Goodwin. ———. 1927. Le Jardin Parfumé [score]. London: J. Curwen & Sons. ———. 1931. “Music.” The New Age, 15 January. ———. 1932a. “The Modern Piano Concerto.” In Around Music, 66–77. London: The Unicorn Press. ———. 1932b. “Music and Sex.” In Around Music, 227–231. London: The Unicorn Press. Stevenson, Ronald. 1993. “Sorabji – Part II.” Review of Sorabji: A Critical Celebration, edited by Paul Rapoport. Tempo 187 (December): 28–30. Stradling, Robert, and Meirion Hughes. 1993. The English Musical Renaissance 1860– 1940, Construction and Deconstruction. London and New York: Routledge.

160  Bibliography ———. 2001. The English Musical Renaissance 1860–1940: Constructing a National Music. 2nd ed. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Warlock, Peter. 1924. The Curlew [score]. London: Stainer & Bell. Williams, Christopher a Becket. 1924. “The Music of Kaikhosru Sorabji.” The Sackbut IV (11) (June): 315–319. Wright, David. 2006. “Post Factum.” Review of The Collected Letters of Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine), edited by Barry Smith. Musical Times 147 (Summer): 103–107.

Index

Note: page  numbers in  bold  indicate  a  table, musical example or illustration  in  the  corresponding location. Abrahams, Simon 3, 15 Ackté, Aino 93, 114n38 Aeolian Company 18, 122 Aeolian Hall 12, 104, 105, 116n104 Afer, Publius Terentius, (Terence) 115n67 Akimenko, Theodore 62, 82n97 Alagiah, George 8 Alexander, Arthur 62, 82n100 Allan, Maud 138, 143n83 Allinson, Adrian 102, 116n84, 135 – 136 Amato, Donna 3 Amsterdam, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 78n3 Andreyev (Andréev), Leonid Nikolaievich 109, 117n114 Aprahamian, Felix 26n26 Arouet, François-Marie see Voltaire Aubert, Louis François Marie 38, 79n7, 88, 90, 94, 114n54 Augener 49, 80n43, 88, 101, 104, 115n81, 135 Bach, Johann Sebastian 37, 107; Toccata in F for organ, BWV 540 (arr. Henry Wood) 103, 116n92 Bad Nauheim 78, 85 Bakst, Léon 58, 62, 81n79 Balakirev, Mily 76, 78; Tamara (Thamara), Symphonic poem for orchestra 88 Banfield, Stephen 20 Bantock, Sir Granville Ransome 38; Atalanta in Calydon (1912) 57, 76, 81n70; Omar Khayyám (1906) 57, 73, 76, 81n71 Barnes, William 145

Bartók, Béla Viktor János 19, 27n49, 38, 46, 82n116, 123, 126; 3 Burlesques, op. 8c 49; 14 Bagatelles, op. 6 49, 52, 80n42; Deux Elegies, op. 8b 27n46, 42, 49, 52, 65; Esquisses pour piano, op. 9 42, 48, 52; Rhapsody for piano, op. 1 42; Trois Danses Roumaines, op. 8a 48 Bates, Thorpe 64, 82n110, 96 Bath, Hubert 63, 82n104 Battistini, Mattia 137, 143n76 Bauer, Harold Victor 103, 111, 116n91 Baughan, E.A 51, 81n62 Baughan, J.H.G 51, 80n60 Bayreuth 44, 79n28, 93 Bechstein Hall (Wigmore Hall) 12, 82n113 Becker, Dr. 131, 133 Beecham, Sir Thomas 38, 57, 79n13, 83n139, 88, 92, 99, 113n19 Beethoven, Ludwig van 37, 59, 107, 145, 146; Missa Solemnis in D major, op. 123 79n15; Jena Symphony 147 Belgium 86, 97 Berg, Alban Maria Johannes 48, 131; Sonata, op. 1 49 Berlin 93; Königliche Conservatoire 89 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Berliner Philharmoniker) 53 Berlioz, Louis-Hector 71, 148 Bernard, Anthony 3, 141n23 Berners, Lord (Gerald Hugh TyrwhittWilson) 22, 138, 143n81 Bhagavad Gita 80n52, 112 Bhilkkohu, Subhâdra, Buddhist Catechism 48 Billingsgate 81n68 Blast 12, 87, 94, 113n15

162  Index Bliss, Sir Arthur Edward Drummond, (‘Piss’) 11, 12, 132, 141n28 Blom, Eric Walter 96, 116n105 Boccaccio, Giovanni 115n71 Bombay 2, 80n38 Borodin, Alexander, Symphony no 2 in B minor 76, 88 Borwick, Leonard 69, 83n127 Boscombe Pier Hotel, Bournemouth 122, 138 Bouhy, Jacques Joseph-André 93, 114n39 Bowyer, Kevin 3 Brahms, Johannes 71; Sorabji’s admiration of 39 Braque, Georges 72, 83n134 Breitkopf & Härtel 14, 49, 79n24, 86, 87, 88, 135 Brian, Havergal 4 Bridge, Frank 22, 71 Britannicus (Jean Racine) 45, 79n30 British Library 6, 117n123 British Museum 12, 113n6 British Music Society, establishment of an ‘Advisory Board’ 140 – 141n13 British Music Festival 92 Britten, Benjamin 5, 78n1 Brooke, Rupert Chawner 111 Brutus, Marcus Junius 41, 79n19 Buckley Jones, Edith 19 Buddhism 25n20, 94, 112n1, 112n2; Sorabji on 48 Buhlig, Richard Moritz 57, 81n75 Burns, Robert 145 Burns and Oates 59, 82n86 Busoni, Ferruccio Dante Michelangiolo Benvenuto 3, 8, 14, 19, 20, 57, 102, 121, 125, 140n11, 154; Nocturne Symphonique for orchestra, op. 43 77; Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music 15; Sonatina Seconda for piano (BV 259) 49 Butt, Dame Clara, (‘Clarion Waterbutts’) 114n36 Café Royal 77, 132, 142n47 Calomel 96, 114n56 Calvé, Emma 93, 114n31 Calvocoressi, Michel-Dimitri 19, 40, 42, 48, 49, 51, 57, 59, 62, 69, 71, 78, 79n4, 89, 90, 148 Cambridge University 55 camp 12; in relation to Sorabji 16 – 17 Cappella Palatina 13, 134 Carnegie Trust 118n125

Casement Report 97, 114n59 Cefalù 134 Cézanne, Paul 72 Chappell, William 82n106 Chérépnin (Tcherepnin), Nicholas 87 Chester Music 143n82 China 48 Chopin, Frédéric François 15, 37, 39, 71, 74, 103, 107, 153; Concerto for piano no 1 in E minor, op. 11 99 Christianity 94; Church of England, Sorabji on the 67; hypocrisy of, Sorabji on 84 – 85; Sorabji’s antagonism towards 25n25 47 – 48; Roman Catholic Church, Sorabji’s contempt for 47 Chroustchoff (Chrustchoff), Boris de 98, 119, 140n4, Church of England see Christianity Ciurlionis (Chourlianis), Mikalojus Konstantinas 62, 82n101 ‘Clarion Waterbutts’ see Butt, Dame Clara, (‘Clarion Waterbutts’) Clarence Gate Gardens, Glentworth St, London 12, 83n142, 114 n46, 30 Clark, Edward 5 Clutsam, George Howard 89, 95, 104, 113n22 Clutsam Cradle Keyboard 110, 117n119 Coates, Albert 62 Coburn, Alvin Langdon 116n89 Colles, Henry Cope (‘Colleywobbles’) 110, 117n112, 35 Collins, Sarah 6, 18 – 19 Colonne Orchestra 68 Cooper, Gerald 10, 13, 131, 135, 137, 141n16 Copley, Ian 6 Corder, Frederick 18, 38, 40, 41, 66, 71, 79n10, 145, 146 Cortot, Alfred 3, 154 Croustschoff (Chrustchoff), Boris de 98, 119, 140n4 Crowley, Aleister (‘Syph-Salv’, ‘Salvarsan’) 10, 13, 134, 137, 142n51, 143n65, 143n71 Cubists, Cubism 57, 58, 72, 77 Cummings, William Hayman 50, 80n54 da Vinci, Leonardo, Mona Lisa 67 Daily Mail 13, 95, 96 Daily News 51 Daily Telegraph 58, 65, 66 Dale, Benjamin James, Sonata in D minor for piano, op. 1 61, 63, 82n91

Index  163 De La Bruyère, Jean 115n65 de Maupassant, Henri René Albert Guy, La maison Tallier 115n73 Debussy, Achille-Claude 3, 13, 38, 59, 65, 71, 79n11, 91, 94, 95, 103, 128; Fêtes galantes Set 1, L80 53; Fêtes galantes Set 2, L104 53; ‘Gigues’ (from Images pour orchestra L122), 76; La mer, L109 76, 78; Martyre de Saint Sébastian L124 73; Pelléas et Melisande L88 51; Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune L86 53, 63, 69; Proses Lyriques (4 songs) L84 116n85; Rondes de printemps’ (from Images pour orchestra) L122 76; Sonate pour violoncelle et piano L135 99 Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio) 100, 115n71 Del Riego, Teresa Clotilde (Teresa Leadbitter) 63, 82n108 Delius, Frederick Theodore Albert 10, 19, 41, 42, 49, 53, 57, 62, 65, 71, 77, 78, 89, 92, 94, 98 – 99, 100, 103, 111, 112, 123, 139, 141n17, 147; Appalachia: Variations on a Slave Song 76, 95; Concerto for piano 39, 77, 81n64; Dance Rhapsody no 2 56, 63; Mass of Life (Eine Messe des Lebens) 39, 64, 76, 79n13, 85; Sea Drift 64, 96; Songs of Sunset 76; Sorabji’s arrangement of In a Summer Garden 85, 112n3; In a Summer Garden 13, 68; Village Romeo and Juliet 76, 83n139 Derain, André 72, 83n132 Derus, Kenneth 2, 6, 7, 21 Destinn, Emmy 114n37 D’Hardelot, Guy (pseudonym of Helen Rhodes) 63, 82n107 Dictionaire Philosophique Eucharistie 49 Dieren, Bernard van 19 – 20, 22, 125, 128, 140n3 Dieren, Frida van (née Kindler) 19 – 20, 138, 143n84 Dolmetsch, Arnold 5 Doré (art gallery) 12, 58, 72 Dorset 3, 138 Dowbiggin, Arnold 11, 24n4 Drury Lane 12, 67, 94, 101, 115n81 Dukas, Paul Abraham, Ariane et Barbebleu 38, 73, 79n8 Dulcitone 97, 101 Edinburgh 134 Edition Peters 122

Ehrlich, Paul Ralph 143n72 Eliot, Thomas Stearne 12 Elkin (music publisher) 82n103 Ellis, Havelock 11, 26n33, 68, 149, 150 English Musical Renaissance (EMR) 5, 21, 22, 23, 118n125 Epstein, Sir Jacob 111, 118n128 esotericism 8, 48 see also occult, occultism Esoteric Buddhism (A.P. Sinnett) 48 Essence of Buddhism (P. Lakshmi Narasu) 48 Evans, Charles Warwick 99, 115n68 Evans, Edwin 38, 57, 79n5, 89, 102, 109, 116n83, 125 Evans, Frederick H. 111, 118n126 Fagge, Arthur 50, 80n50 Fauré, Gabriel Urbain 73, 143n74 Fauves, Fauvistes 51, 57, 72, 80n56 Fergusson, John Duncan 83n131 Fiji 67 First World War 8, 140n6; Sorabji on 84, 97 Flaubert, Gustave, La Tentation de Saint Antoine 99, 115n76 form-content dichotomy 17 Forster, E.M. 26n30 Foulds, John 5, 22 France, Anatole 144 Futurists 57, 58, 72, 74, 77; Sorabji on 66 Galilei, Galileo 47 Gardiner, Henry Balfour 52, 60, 76, 78, 82n111 Gathas, the 113n5 Gauguin, Eugène Henri Paul 72 Gaveau of Paris 97, 114n60 Gerhardt, Elena 114n43, 137, 143n78 German culture, Sorabji on 84, 85, 86 Gesualdo, Don Carlo 123 Ghuman, Nalini (Anna Nalini Gwynne) 4, 5, 8, 9, 14 – 15, 16, 21, 25n22 Gibbs, Cecil Armstrong 129, 141n30 Gita see Bhagavad Gita Glazunov, Alexander Konstantinovich: Concerto for piano, no 1 in F minor, op. 92 63, 78; Fantaisie Finnoise in C for orchestra, op. 88 71; Introduction and Dance of Salomé, op. 90 71, 73; Sonata no 2 for piano, op. 75 71 Gleeson-White, Cicely 93, 114n34 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 47 Goodwin and Tabb 143n69

164  Index Goossens, Eugene Aynsley 22, 98, 102 – 103, 104, 111, 115n63, 116n83 ‘Gote-Piece’ (Sorabji) 138; see also Sorabji, Kaikhosru Grace, Harvey 17, 18, 42 – 43n62, 126 – 127, 136 Grafton Gallery 12, 58, 72 Grante, Carlo 3 Gray, Cecil 3, 11, 16, 18, 19, 120, 123, 130, 138, 156n1 Great Russell Mansions 12, 85, 113n6 Greville, Ursula 19 Grieg, Edvard Hagerup 39, 71 Habermann, Michael 3, 15 Hamelin, Marc-Andre 3 Hamlin Concert Grand 110 Hardy, Lisa 15 Hardy, Thomas 146 Harrow School 54 Hart, Fritz 18, 133 Haydn, Joseph 37, 142n46, 144, 145, 146, 147; Mass in A major (possibly Michael Haydn’s German Mass in A major, (K VI:3, MH 536) 132 Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von, On the Sensation of Tone 14, 69, 83n129, 90 Henry, Leigh 12, 58, 66, 67, 68, 71, 74, 81n81, 132 Herbin, Auguste 58 Hertzka, Emil 1, 13, 123, 130, 133, 142n37 Heseltine, Nigel 6 Heseltine, Philip Arnold 2, 3, 4, 5 – 6, 7, 8, 12, 15, 17 – 21, 25n16 n23, 26n31; potential homosexual leanings 10, 11, 26n28; on Bartók 52; as composer see under Warlock, Peter; dedication of Sorabji’s Piano Concerto no 1 to 105; ‘Ille Reporter’ article 121, 123 – 124, 140n11; role in instigating Sorabji’s compositional career 13, 14, 105; invitation to Delius to hear Sorabji 120; on the ‘mind’s ear’ 144; as music critic 18, 19; on musical criticism 144, 145, 146, 147, 148; on originality 147; on Sorabji’s music 152, 153; on Sorabji’s musical interests 45, 46; on standards of beauty 146 Heseltine Papers 6, 23, 141n35 Heyner, Herbert 114n48 Hobday, Ethel (née Sharp) 115n68 Holbrooke, Joseph Charles 114n49, 125, 134; Apollo and the Seaman, op. 51 77; Gwynn ap Nudd, Concerto no 1, op.52 77

Holmboe, Vagn Gylding 4 Holst, Gustav Theodore 5, 22, 64, 120, 126, 129; Hymns from the Rig Veda op. 24 14 Hotel Krantz, Vienna 131 Howells, Herbert Norman, (‘Bowels’) 129 Hull, Arthur Eaglefield 50, 58, 66, 80n55, 88, 90, 154 identity of Sorabji: religious 7, 8; sexual 10, 11, 12; racial 8, 9 Independent Labour Party 97 India 8, 25n23, 78, 84, 97; British rule of, Sorabji on 85, 86; influence on Sorabji’s musical compositions 14 – 15; people of, inherent ability to sense music 110 Ireland, Heseltine’s time in 20, 98 Ireland, John 3, 26n26, 156n1 Italy 134 Jarmen-Ivens, Freya 16 Jena Symphony see Beethoven, Ludwig van 147 Jones, Edith Buckley see Buckley Jones, Edith Juon, Paul 62 Kalisch, Alfred 58, 80n53 Kalmus, Alfred (‘Kalmuck Litmus’) 1, 13, 131, 133 Karg-Elert, Sigfrid 82n93; Sonata for piano, no 1 in F sharp minor, op.50 61, 62 Kelly, Frederick Septimus 80n45, 116n93 Kennedy Scott, Charles James 14n47, 82n108, 96 Kindler, Frida see Dieren, Frida van Kikuyu controversy 68, 83n122 Klein, Herman 114n42 Kling, Otto (‘Kling-Klux-Klang’) 142n58, 143n82 ‘Kling-Klux-Klang’ see Kling, Otto Klingsor, Tristan 114n45 Kodály, Zoltán 48, 65; Hungarian folk song arrangements 15; Sonata for violoncello in B minor, op. 8 38, 46, 49, 52, 71; piano pieces op. 3 42, 49; Valsette 70 Koechlin, Charles (Charles-Louis-Eugène) 78, 83n144, 88, 104, 143n74; La Sommeil de Canope from ‘Six mélodies for voice and piano’, op. 31 no 1 116n100 Königliche Conservatoire, Berlin 89 Krein, Grigory Abramovich 99, 115n69 Kreisler, Friedrich (‘Fritz’) 111, 118n130

Index  165 La maison Tallier (Guy de Maupassant) 100, 115n73 La Terre (Émile Zola) 100, 115n74 Lambert, Constant 17, 139 Law of Karma 1, 54, 56, 91 Lawrence, David Herbert 98, 115n70, 116n95, 116n97; Rainbow, The 12, 100, 104; Women in Love 12, 129 Leadbitter, Teresa see Del Riego, Teresa Clotilde Leeds City Art Gallery 58 Legge, Robin Humphrey 68, 83n126, 103 Lenormand, René 81n83, 89; Étude sur l’harmonie modern (A Study of Modern Harmony) 69 Leo X 49 Leonard, Sarah 3 Lhote, André 58, 81n78 Liapunov, Sergei Mikhailovich: Concerto no 2 for piano in E major, op. 38 76; Rhapsody for piano and orchestra on Ukrainian themes, op. 28 76 Library of Congress, Washington 138 Liebich, Johannes Franz 57, 65, 71, 75, 82n116 Liszt, Franz 16, 141n15, 153; Hungarian Rhapsodies 15, 65 Loisy, Alfred Firmin 47, 80n36 London: Billingsgate 81n68; Café Royal 77, 132; Clarence Gate Gardens, Glentworth St, 12, 83n142, 114 n46, 30; Doré (art gallery) 81n77; Drury Lane 12, 67, 94, 101, 115n81; Grafton Gallery 12, 58, 72; Great Russell Mansions 12, 85, 113n6; Maida Vale 87, 113n14, 140n2, 140n4; St. John’s Wood 57, 98 London and Continental Music Co. 126, 129, 152 London Glee Club 50 London Symphony Orchestra 68, 70, 126 London University 55 Lorenz, Robert 123, 129, 135, 141n32 Lunn, Kirkby 93, 114n32 Lyne, Felice 88, 113n18 Lyons Corner House 132 Macbeth (William Shakespeare) 45, 82n92 Macbeth, Florence 88, 113n18 MacDiarmid, Hugh 3 Macdowell (MacDowell), Edward: Sonata no 1 ‘Tragica’ in G minor, op. 45 61; Sonata no 2 ‘Eroica’ in D minor, op. 50 61 Macpherson, Charles Stewart 66, 82n117

Mahler, Gustav 66, 76, 78n3, 132, 153; Das Lied von der Erde 55, 132; Symphony no 8 in E flat major (‘Symphony of a Thousand’) 55, 76 Maida Vale 87, 113n14, 140n2, 140n4 Manet, Édouard 72 Manning, Jane 3 Manvantara 54, 81n69 Martin, Easthope 91, 113n29 Martine, Marthe 137, 154 Mascagni, Pietro Antonio Stefano 134 Masefield, John 145 Mason & Hamlin Piano Company 117n118 Matisse, Henri-Émile-Benoît 58; Portrait de Marguerita 72; Joaquina 72 Maupassant see de Maupassant, Henri René Albert Guy McNaught, William 51, 74, 80n59, 110 Medical Times, ‘Sexual Inversion’ 11, 17, 134, 149, 150, 151 Medtner, Nikolai, Sonata for piano, no 2 in E minor, op.25 26n41, 61, 82n94 Mengelberg, Joseph Willem 38, 57, 63, 78n3 Mind’ s ear, Heseltine’s concept of 133, 144 Mitchell, John 6, 20, 23 ‘Modern Piano Technique’, The Sackbut 122 Moiseiwitsch, Benno 14, 64, 82n113, 103 Mona Lisa 67 Montagu-Nathan, M. 79n21 Monthly Musical Record 58, 66, 75 Moret, Jean-Joseph 96, 114n52 Mortimer Hall 12, 125, 137, 141n15 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 37, 40, 95, 107; Requiem, K.626 78 Murdoch, William 103, 111, 116n91 music: aesthetics of 146; feeling for 144; Sorabji and Heseltine’s connection through 18, 19 Music Student 48 musical camp, potential for interpreting Sorabji’s music, 16, 17 musical criticism: ‘A.C.’ to the Sunday Times 120; Heseltine on 144 – 148; Heseltine’s ‘Ille Reporter’ article 121, 123, 124, 140n11; language of modern music, Sorabji on 89; place of melody in modern music 107, 108; Sorabji on 60, 61 musical modernism 5; see also ultra-modernist music Musical Standard 9, 45, 51, 53, 74, 94, 111

166  Index Musical Times 10, 12, 13, 37, 38, 39, 45, 51, 58, 63, 104, 107, 113n22, 116n101, 117n109, 126, 144, 145, 146, 148; ‘The Melodic Poverty of Modern Music’ 108, 109 Musikverein, Vienna 13, 131, 133 – 4 Mussorgski (Mussorgsky), Modest Petrovich 88; Gopak for piano (transcribed from Sorochintsi Fair) 53; Tableaux d’une Exposition (Pictures at an Exhibition) 88 Nana (Émile Zola) 100, 115n72 Nasru (Narasu), Professor Lakshmi 48 Neuberg, Victor 10 Nevada, Mignon 88 Nevin, Ethelbert 82n115 New Age 11, 12, 96, 111, 113n19, 114n51, 155 New Hat 88 Newman, Ernest 19, 51, 57, 60, 80n57, 110, 121, 124, 125, 126, 140 – 141n13, 140n11, 148 Newmarch, Rosa Harriet 42, 50, 61, 64, 79n23, 80n49 Nichols, Robert 140n6 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 8, 59, 86, 144; Also Sprach Zarathustra 79n13, 85, 145 North Africa 10 Novello & Co. 113n28 occult, occultism 8, 11, 13, 20, 25an16, 53, 58, 111, 112, 118n131, 140n5, 142n51 O’Hanlan, Niamh 6 Orchestrelle Company 116n104 Orféistes 57 Oriana Madrigal Society 64 Orient, Orientalism 4, 8, 9, 24, 25, 57, 65, 72, 73, 78 Ornstein, Leo, (Lev Ornshteyn) 59, 68, 81n84; Sonata for violin and piano, SO 614 104 Orr, Charles Wilfred Leslie (C. W. Orr) 137, 142n57 Owen, Sean Vaughn 8, 9 Oxford 39, 40, 45, 52, 55, 56, 60, 77, 79n32 Pachmann, Vladimir 99, 103, 115n64 Paderewski, Ignacy Jan 64 Palermo 132, 133, 134; Cappella Palatina 13, 142n55 Paris 13, 51, 68, 93, 134, 137; Société Musicale Indépendant 137, 154

Parsi community, Parsees 2, 7 – 8, 11, 25n22, 48, 56, 59, 80n38, 111, 137 Pas de Loup Orchestra 134 Pastilles Mariani 96, 114n55 Pelléas et Mélisande (Debussy) 38, 51, 71 Peter Warlock Society 6 Peter Warlock Society Newsletter 6 Peters edition (music publisher) see Edition Peters Petersson, Allan 4 ‘Philip of Macedon’, nickname for Philip Heseltine 106, 117n107 piano writing style of Sorabji 13 – 16, 153 Picasso, Pablo Ruizy: Fête d’Femme 58; Fête d’homme 58; Portrait of DanielHenry Kahnweiler 83n133 Pickering, William 115n66 Place St. Jacques 40, 78 poietic fallacy 7 Pope, Alexander, Dunciad 51 Post-Impressionists 12, 57, 58, 72 Powell, John, Sonata Teutonica 14, 64, 82n113 Powell, Jonathan 64, 82n113 Promenade Concerts 63 Prosdocimus de Beldamandis 121, 143n68 Prout, Ebenezer 81n73 psychology: Medical Times, The, ‘Sexual Inversion’ 149, 150, 151; of music, Heseltine on 145; Sorabji on 66, 67 Queen’s Hall 12, 56, 68, 79n27, 109 Rabelais, François 100, 115n75 Rachmaninov, Sergei: The Bells, op. 35 77; Concerto for piano no 2 op. 18, 53, 54; Concerto for piano no 3 op. 30,53; Isle of the Dead, op. 29 77; Piano sonata, op. 28 53 racial identity of Sorabji 9 Racine, Jean-Baptiste 79n30; Britannicus 45, 79n30 Rapoport, Paul 6, 9, 18; Opus Est: Six composers from Northern Europe 4 Ravel, Maurice 52, 54, 58, 65, 78, 91, 92, 100, 103, 107, 110, 112, 143n74; Daphnis et Chloé, op. 57 101, 115n81; emotional quality of his music, Sorabji on 110; Histoires Naturelles, op. 50 49; La Vallée des Cloches from Miroirs for piano, op. 43 49; L’heure Espagnole, op. 52 73; ‘Oiseaux tristes’ from Miroirs for piano, op. 43 49, 62 – 63; ‘Ondine’ from Gaspard de la Nuit for piano, op. 55 49; Rapsodie Espagnole 53; Shéhérazade,

Index  167 op. 41, 114n45; Sonatine for piano, op. 40 49; Sorabji on 92 – 93; Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé, op. 64 69; Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, op. 61 49 Reading Room, British Library 119 Rebikov, Vladimir Ivanovich, Der Abgrund (Bezdna), op. 40 109, 117n113 Reger, Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian (‘Max’) 38, 62, 132 Rehearsal Theatre, The 109 Reimers, Paul 143n77 religious beliefs/philosophies: Buddhism see separate entry; Christianity see separate entry; Hinduism 65 see also Manvantara; Zoroastrianism see separate entry Rhodes, Helen (Guy D’Hardelot, pseudonym of Helen Rhodes) 82n107 Rice, Anne Estelle 72, 83n131 Riley, Matthew 22 Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai: Antar, Symphonic Suite, 76; Concerto for piano in C sharp minor, op. 30 78 Roberge, Marc-André 3, 11, 13 Rochdale 100 Rogers, Winthrop 19, 122, 123, 124, 125, 140n11 Roman Catholic Church see Christianity Roussel, Albert Charles Paul Marie 8, 73, 83n135, 88; Évocations, op.15 76, 78 Royal Academy of Music 22 Royal College of Music 21, 82n100, 114n41 Rugby School 54 Russia 62, 85 Rutter, Frank Vane Phipson 81n80; Revolution in Art 12, 58 Sabaneiev (Sabaneyev), Leonid 87, 88 Sackbut, The 1, 6, 18, 19, 98, 123 – 125, 133, 140n11, 141n14; Heseltine’s ‘Ille Reporter’ article 121, 123 – 124, 140n11; ‘Modern Piano Technique’ 122; Second Sackbut Concert 12, 141n15 Said, Edward 4, 8 Saint-Saëns, Camille 71, 72 ‘Salvarsan’ see Crowley, Aleister Sammons, Albert Edward 118n129 Satie, Erik Alfred Leslie 38; Embryons desséchés 49; 3 véritables préludes flasques (pour un chien) 49 Scalchi, Sofia 114n40 Schmitt, Florent 38, 40, 78, 79n6; La Tragédie de Salomé, op. 50 73; Piano Quintet, op. 51 73

Schoenberg (Schönberg), Arnold Franz Walter 13, 14, 15, 19, 51, 53, 62, 66, 79n31, 81n74, 125; Klavierstücke, op. 11 41, 79n20; op. 19 53; Friede auf Erden, op. 13 50; Fünf Orchesterstücke, op.16 52, 53, 66; Gurrelieder 55, 76; harmony 58, 59; Harmonielehre 96; Kammersymphonie, no 1 in E major, op. 9 76; Pierrot Lunaire 125, 141n14; String Quartet no 2 op. 10 77, 83n143; Sorabji’s appreciation of 41, 42 Schubert, Franz Peter 37, 107, 121 Schumann, Robert Alexander 37, 39, 71, 107, 121 Scott, Charles James Kennedy Osborne 114n47 Scott, Cyril Meir 5, 8, 13, 14, 38, 62, 65, 70, 71, 73, 75, 78, 103, 111; ‘A Picnic’ no 2 of Two Chinese Songs, op.46 63; Sorabji on 75; Sorabji’s comparison of his music with Scriabin and Ravel 111; Suite for piano, op. 71 111; ‘Voices of Vision’, no 1 of Two Poems for voice and piano, op. 24 62, 63 Scott, Hugh Arthur, (‘Great Scott’) 107 – 109, 110, 117n109, 35 Scriabin, Alexander Nikolayevich 87; Deux Nocturnes, op. 5 86; Deux Poèmes, op. 69 42, 43; Deux Préludes, op. 67 43, 86; Douze Études, op. 8 86; emotional quality of his music, Sorabji on 110; mysticism of, Sorabji on 50; harmony 43, 69, 95; Piano Sonata no 5, op. 53 42, 103; Piano Sonata no 6, op. 62 7, 42; Piano Sonata no 7, op. 64 White Mass 42, 69, 75; Piano Sonata no 9, op. 68 Black Mass 43, 75; Poème and Étude, op. 6 nos 1 and 2 86; PoèmeNocturne, op. 61 42; Sorabji on 75; Symphony no 3 Le Divin Poème, op. 43 76; Symphony no 4 Le Poème de l’Extase op.54 42, 76; Symphony no. 5 Prometheus: The Poem of Fire op. 60 15, 42, 43, 50, 57, 64, 65, 66, 69, 74 – 75, 86; Trois Études, op. 65 42 – 43, 75 Second World War 3 Sedie, Enrico Augusto Delle 114n35 Seurat, Georges-Pierre 72 Sewell, Brian 6 sexual identity of Sorabji 9, 10, 11, 12 ‘Sexual Inversion’, Medical Times 11, 17, 134, 149, 150 – 151 Shakespeare, William, Macbeth 45, 82n92 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 54, 81n72, 145

168  Index Sibelius, Jean 63; Symphony no 4 in A minor, op 63 76, 78 Sibley, Churchill 83n128 Sicily 11, 13, 25n24 Signac, Paul Victor Jules 83n130 Signature, The 116n97 signings off in Sorabji’s letters to Heseltine 7 Sitwell, Sir Sacheverell Reresby 12, 141n26 Smith, Barry 5 Smith, Olivia 10, 39, 40, 56, 77 ‘Social Problem of Sexual Inversion, The’ (pamphlet) 150 Société Musicale Indépendant 137, 154 Sorabji, Kaikhosru: on articulation 94; on becoming a critic 54 – 55; on being published in England 100; Brahms, admiration of 39; on British composers 111 – 112; on Buddhism 48; composition, Heseltine’s role in instigating impetus for 13, 14, 105; Variatios and Fugue on Dies Irae (Variazioni e fuga triplice sopra Dies Irae per pianoforte) KSS41 17, 139; compositions: Black Mass for Chorus, large orchestra and organ 137, 143n75 Chaleur KSS15 20, 27n50; Chrysilla KSS2 115n62; Cinque sonnetti di Michelagniolo Buonarroti KSS36 20, 26n33; Concerto pour Piano et Grand Orchestre (No 1) KSS6 13, 14, 15, 16, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 105, 106, 115n61 n75, 116n103, 117n106, 131, 142n41, 32; Concerto 2 (for piano, 1917) KSS14 106, 111, 112, 117n111 n120 n122 n123 34; Concerto II (Piano Concerto No 5) KSS27 15, 16, 131, 142n40, 33; Concerto pour Piano et Orchestra da camera (Piano Concerto No 3, 1918) KSS16 79n12; Concerto per pianoforte e piccola orchestra ‘Simorg-Anka’ (Piano Concerto No 7) KSS38 26n33; Le Jardin Parfumé KSS35 15, 17, 31; Music to The Rider by Night KSS22 13, 26n37; Opus Clavicembalisticum KSS50 2; piano sonatas 14, 16, 17, 136; The Poplars KSS1 13, 14, 115n62; Roses du soir KSS3 115n62; Sonata (for piano, unnumbered, 1917) KSS9 111, 117n120 n121; Sonata no 1 for piano KSS20 14, 16, 17, 18, 117n121, 120, 123, 125, 126 – 7, 128, 129, 131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 141n15; Sonata II (for

piano) KSS28 17, 122, 130, 131, 133, 135, 136, 137, 141n19; Sonata III (for piano) KSS29 134, 136, 137, 142n53; Symphony for piano, large orchestra, chorus and organ KSS30 134, 137, 142n52; Trois poèmes KSS21 13, 26n36 n39, 143n74; Vocalise pour soprano fioriturata KSS5 102, 115n80; on charlatanry 70, 71; on Christianity 47 – 48; coming-out journey 10 – 12; compositional awakening and stylistic construction 13 – 15; critical response to his music 3 – 4; on the Cubists 72; dedication of his Piano Concerto no 1 to Heseltine 105; in A Dictionary of Modern Music & Musicians 154; dissemination of his music 3 – 4, 17 – 18; on Eastern atmosphere 73, 78; on European appropriation of Eastern philosophy 64, 65; on English singers 93, 94; on ‘fireworshipping’ 59 – 60; on Futurists 66, 72, 74; on German culture 84, 85, 86; harmonic structures 14; on his arrangement of Delius’ In a Summer Garden 85; on his own work 112; on the hypocrisy of Christianity 84 – 85; on the Impressionists 72; on the language of modern music 89; letter to the Sunday Times 121 – 122; letters to Heseltine 6 – 7; Medical Times, The, ‘Sexual Inversion’ 149 – 151; on ‘The Melodic Poverty of Modern Music’ 108 – 109; on melody 107, 108; on modern Hungarian music 65; modern music, appeal of 37, 38, 40, 57, 58; ‘Modern Piano Technique’ 122; as musical critic 18, 19; (non-)English identity of 2 – 3, 8 – 9, 57, 72, 73; on only children 46, 47; on Cyril Scott 75; passion for Scriabin 42 – 44; performances of his music 3, 4; piano writing style 13 – 16, 153; on psychology 66, 67; on Public Schools 54; publication of his music 17 – 18, 128, 129 – 30, 134 – 135; on Rachmaninov 53; on Ravel 49, 92, 93; religious beliefs 8, 48; rhythmic fascination 15 – 16; on Russian composers 61, 62; on Schönberg 41 – 42; on Schönberg’s harmonies 58 – 59; on Scriabin 75; on Scriabin’s ability to express emotion 110; on Scriabin’s harmonies 43, 95; on Scriabin’s mysticism 50; signings off in letters to Heseltine 7; on sympathetic vibration 44; and ‘temperament’ 7, 39, 44, 62;

Index  169 tribute to Philip Heseltine 155 – 156; in relation to musical camp 16, 17; on Wagner’s Parsifal 44 – 45 Sorabji, Madeleine Mathilde née Worthy, ‘Madre mia’, ‘Ma’ (Sorabji’s mother) 8 – 9, 19, 46, 53, 73, 78, 83n142, 93, 99, 100, 113n6, 114n46, 116n102, 137 Sorabji, Shapurji (Sorabji’s father) 78, 80n38, 85 South Pole 67 St John’s Wood 57, 98 St Peter’s Basilica, Rome 44 St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna 13 standards of beauty 146 Stanford, Sir Charles Villers 22, 71, 104 Starr, Meredith 112, 118n31 Steinway 109, 112 Stelletzky, Dmitry Semionovich 82n102 Stevenson, Ronald 20 Strangways, Arthur Henry Fox 97, 114n58 Strauss, Richard 14, 27n47, 60, 65; Ariadne auf Naxos, op. 60, aria: ‘Großmächtige Prinzessin’ 60; Der Rosenkavalier, op 59 62, 70; Deutsche Motett, op. 62 76; Ein Heldenleben, op. 40 27n47, 128; Elektra, op.58 38, 62; Salomé, op. 54 62, 71 Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorovich 14, 38, 40, 57, 100, 103, 126 Suhrawardy, Hassan Shahid 26n31, 97, 98, 104, 114n57 Sunday Times, The 121, 124, 125 sympathetic vibration, Sorabji on 44 ‘Syph-Salv’ see Crowley, Aleister

Tyrwhitt-Wilson, Gerald Hugh, 14th Baron Berners see Berners, Lord Tyutchev, Fyodor Ivanovich 82n95

Tathagâta 85, 112n2 Taylor, Colin 10, 52, 55, 100 Tchaikovsky (Cheykovsky), Pyotr Ilyich, Casse Noisette, op. 71 73 Tcherepnin (Chérépnin), Alexander Nikolayevich 82n96 ‘temperament’ 7, 39, 44, 90; European 62 Teyte, [Dame] Maggie (Margaret) 93, 114n33 Theatre Royal Drury Lane 12 Theosophical Society 48, 136 Thomson, James, City of Dreadful Night 55, 81n72 Tibet 48 Treitschke, Heinrich Gotthard von 86, 113n9 Trew, Charles Abraham 79n12 Trine, Ralph Waldo 136, 143n66 Turner, Walter James 103, 116n91 Tyrrell, George 80n35

Wagner, Francesca Gaetana Cosima 44 Wagner, Wilhelm Richard: Parsifal, (WWW 111) 4, 44, 45, 79n28, 79n29; Tristan and Isolde (WWW 90) 93 Waldheim-Eberle 129, 131, 135, 138, 142n39 Wallace, Edgar 12 Walton, Sir William Turner (‘Willie’) 12, 128, 129, 138 Warlock, Peter 5, 6, 14, 21, 139, 155; ‘The Cloths of Heaven’ 20, 116n98; The Curlew 1, 5, 20; Capriol 5; An Old Song 20; Saudades 20; see also Heseltine, Philip Arnold Weber, Maximilian Karl Emil, Cubist Poems 12, 103 Wellesz, Egon Joseph 131, 133 Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos 92, 113n30

ultra-modernist music 68, 69, 71; and art 58; and Futurists 66; Sorabji’s appreciation of 3, 37, 38, 40, 57, 58 Universal Edition 1, 122, 130, 142n37 Universal Edition 1, 122, 130, 142n37; Waldheim-Eberle 129, 131, 135, 138, 142n39 Valen, Fartein 4 Van Dieren, Bernard Hélène Joseph 19 – 20, 22, 117 – 118n124, 125, 128, 140n3 Van Dieren, Frida 19 – 20, 138, 143n84 Van Gogh, Vincent Willem 72 Vedanta 80n52 Vedic hymns 85 Verdi, Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco, Un ballo in maschera 132 Vermeulen, Matthjis 4 Vienna 1, 123, 128, 133, 134, 137, 154; Hotel Krantz 11, 132; St Stephen’s Cathedral 13; Sorabji’s dislike of 131 – 132; Sorabji’s invitation concert at the Musikverein 13, 131, 133 – 4 Vienna Philharmonic 53 Villermin, Louis 66, 83n118 Vinogradoff, [Sir] Paul Gavrilovitch 86, 113n7 Volkert, G.J. 135, 142n59 Voltaire 40, 45, 48, 49, 54, 68, 79n16, 79n17, 79n18 Voules, Lillian May 19, 122, 123, 125

170  Index Westminster School 54 Whitaker, George 100, 104, 115n78 Whitby 85, 86 White, Louisa 59 Wigmore Hall 12, 20, 82n113, 117n124; see also Bechstein Hall Wilde, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills 13, 143n67 Williams, Ralph Vaughan 20, 22, 70, 152; Symphony no 2, ‘London’ 68, 70, 126 Winchester College 54 Winthrop Rogers (publishers) 140n11 Wolf-Ferrari, Ermanno, The Jewels of the Madonna (I Gioielli della Madonna) 79n22

Wood, Haydn 63, 82n105 Wood, Sir Henry Joseph 19, 38, 56, 57, 63, 79n29, 103 Worthy, Madeleine Mathilde 19 see also Sorabji, Madeleine Mathilde Wright, David 21 Wright, Sidney John 98 Yeats, William Butler 13, 20, 104 Zágon, Géza Vilmos 48, 49, 80n41 Zola, Émile Édouard Charles Antoine 115n72; Nana 100, 115n72 Zoroaster (Zarathustra), Zoroastrianism (Zarathustrianism) 7 – 8, 59, 113n5