Le Jardin Parfumé

Kaikhosru Sorabji (Composer), Yonty Solomon (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Yonty Solomon
• Composer: Kaikhosru Sorabji
• Audio CD (July 19, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Altarus Records Ltd.
• ASIN: B000003IY0
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,391 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Le jardin parfumé, poem for piano

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solomon's Le jardin parfume, April 15, 2006

By 

Alscribji "TibbsinDC" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Le Jardin Parfumé (Audio CD)

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji composed some of the most chromatically filigreed, ornamental, languid, lush, voluptous and imaginative works for piano. Le jardin parfume is a beautiful example along with Gulistan, Djami, and Count Tasca's Garden (2nd movement of 4th sonata). The music is difficult to categorize and does not lend itself to easy pigeon holing (as is SO often done in music, whether pop or classical). The adjectives that come to mind upon listening to Le jardin parfume would be starry, misty, meditative, whirly, cascading, and exotic. There are only two recorded versions of this piece, Solomon's and Michael Habermann's. One reviewer remarked below that the music at times could have been played faster to create tension. You find that kind of interpretation in Habermann. However, Solomon's more reposed performance brings out the true fantasy of the piece. Whereas Habermann's clocks in at 19'05, Solomon's clocks in at around 26'00, much slower. In my opinion, this allows the listener to better appreciate the soundscapes that Sorabji creates with this music; playing it too fast is akin to rushing through a botanical garden without taking the time for the impressions that a much slower stroll would make upon the senses. One wonders why Solomon has not recorded anymore of the Sorabji repertoire; he has such capable hands for this highly original and extraordinarily unique piano music.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite desert ..., July 20, 2004

By 

William Jens Jensen (North America) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Le Jardin Parfumé (Audio CD)

This CD has been a favorite for a few years. I seldom listen to it, because I want to savor its unexpected riches without growing accustomed to the surprises--much the way I enjoy an exquisite desert. The work is dreamlike yet always complex, like a well-tended garden or true love. I recommend any piano work by Sorabji, simply for the sheer beauty of what a piano can do. It is not a long CD, but quality occasionally wins out over quantity.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars relentless pursuit of pianisitic pleasures,ornaments,colours, April 29, 2000

By 

scarecrow "scarecrow" (Chicago, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Le Jardin Parfumé (Audio CD)

Yonty Solomon is a premiere Sorabji pianist. He brings a conviction but the other-wordly to this work, the sense of fantasie is extreme, yet paced and controlled and gentle,no explosions hereSolomon pursues the agenda that this music has higher regions to explore. This is an extended tone picture about 26 minutes, like a nocturne. There is hardly a sense of repose, Sorabji's continuous pianisitic narrative is achieved from non-affirmation, non-sequential procedures, instead he prefers long durational phrases ornamented cascades and scales of tones.Also the pianistic characters help define this language, the broken almost tremelo octaves,very high, are like mists. We always need to indentify these pianisitic features in Sorabji, it is a way to define his musical language where no clear analytic insight exists yet. Here, there is for the most part note against note-like ornamentations, and Solomon plays like a pianisitic seer, a mere conduit of this exotic,erotic agenda. Written, after the mystical text called the perfumed Garden by Sheikh Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn.