Sorabji: “IX. Interludium B [Adagio]“ from Opus Clavicembalisticum (Eric Xi Xin Liang, V2)

Recorded on June 10, 2023 @ Roy Barnett Recital Hall. Learned and refined in 10 hours. This is a slightly edited re-recording to improve upon a previous recording at home in January 2023: , and a light edit of Since I legit want this to be the best recording I’ve ever done, I invested a bit of effort into doing some slight editing wizardry to smooth out some rough editing edges (to cut out page turns and 3 single-note errors I made) in the previous video I posted a week ago. Basically, I recorded this 4 times and I didn’t make those mistakes every time, so I just amputated a very brief bit of sound from the glitchless recordings. A bit tricky but not too difficult. I think this recording and this movement will be one of those pieces that I’ll just love for the rest of my life. Outside of Sorabji’s music, I’ve never heard anything that even comes close to this in terms of harmonic colouring and the intrinsic level of rhythmic and melodic complexity, which is immensely intellectually satisfying. It uniquely makes me feel emotions with such a great degree of depth that I wouldn’t have fathomed to be possible with other composers’ music. I believe the prime reason to be that Sorabji’s music in general is built and amalgamated upon a lot of simple tonal and triadic harmonies, whereas, for example, Scriabin’s music in its later stages is built upon many diminished and augmented harmonies. Sorabji’s music, despite sometimes feeling to have irresolution (in phrasing), is more wholly harmonically fulfilling than a lot of Contemporary music out there. As well, despite being relatively impersonal music with this movement evoking “a sky full of stars on a calm night, with memories fading in and out of consciousness“ as suggested by a previous commenter, in my interpretation of the music, the fact that I can make the music feel very personal (while sounding impersonal), I think, makes my playing stand out from all other recordings by somewhat of a margin. I believe it’s true for my recordings of “Count Tasca’s Garden“ and “Djâmî“ as well. If I were to never make any Sorabji recordings ever again, I’d be existentially satisfied that I made this one at least. One of the most challenging aspects about Sorabji’s music of this variety is, surprisingly, keeping a recognizable pulse: not necessarily evenly spaced but within reasonable time-frame of expectation. There are two reasons: firstly, the pulse is the key for the listener to be able to determine what polyrhythmic grouping is used; secondly, it is critical for generating tension and flow. Without a strong sense of pulse, this music would feel aimless and momentarily conceived, as it sometimes is in other people’s Sorabji recordings. That’s the most devastating issue and makes the music completely fall apart. [DISCLAIMER] If you’re unfamiliar with this style of music, it is suggested that you go through the description of this previous video for the necessary background: All movements from Opus Clavicembalisticum I’ve recorded: “VIIa. Preludio“ from Opus Archimagicum: “VIIc. Cadenza“ from Opus Archimagicum: All works by Sorabji I’ve recorded: At time of recording, Eric is a full-time software engineer working in Big Tech, graduated from the University of Waterloo, Computer Science major. @musicforever60_official on IG: #piano #music #sorabji