Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (born Leon Dudley Sorabji; 14 August 1892 – 15 October 1988) was an English composer, music critic, pianist and writer.

Largely self-taught as a composer and pianist, Sorabji distanced himself from the main currents of contemporary musical life early on in his career. He developed a highly idiosyncratic musical language with roots in composers as diverse as Busoni, Debussy and Szymanowski, and dismissed large portions of the established and contemporary repertoire.

A reluctant performer, Sorabji played a few of his works in public from 1920 to 1936, and subsequently "banned" performances of his music, maintaining this "ban" until 1976. Since very few of his compositions were published during those years, he remained in the public's sight mainly by writing essays and musical criticism, at the centre of which are the books Around Music and Mi contra fa: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician. In the early 1950s, this tendency towards seclusion had its parallel in his move from London to the village Corfe Castle, where he spent quietly most of the rest of his life.

Sorabji's music is characterised by frequent use of polyrhythmic fabrics, complex juxtaposition of tonal and atonal elements, and copious ornamentation. Many of his works explore polar opposites of musical architecture, presenting both baroque forms and athematic writing. His musical oeuvre ranges from aphoristic music to pieces spanning several hours and consists of over 100 compositions, mainly for piano solo or with an important piano part, but also includes works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, organ and other instruments. Sorabji has been described as a descendant of a tradition of composer-pianists such as Chopin, Liszt and Alkan. His catalogue of more than 50 piano works, totalling some 70 hours of music, constitutes one of the largest bodies of piano music composed in the 20th century.