Customer Reviews

Le Jardin Parfumé

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

At twenty-six minutes, this is just about the shortest-playing CD I own, but it's worth it. I had never heard of the English-born, Punjabi-descent modernist composer Kaikhoshru Sorabji until, one day, I came across his name surfing Amazon.com's website. I purchased pianist Fredrik Ullen's performance of the first twenty-five of Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies for Piano and loved it. So why not? Another Sorabji? Sure.

Le Jardin Parfume' is an extended tone picture. It`s not programmatical in nature -there are no imitated sounds of nature, for instance-- but musical -I hesitate to say `melodic' because the piece hints at melody more than develops any coherent melodical motifs. Rather, Jardin is all slow swirling chords, scales, with trills and fragments of melody scattered across the top of it. The melodic scatterings on top of the chordal base vaguely and seditiously undercut the tonal feeling of the base so that the piece feels as if it's almost tonally anchored but it's drifting off of its chordal base to .... Somewhere, I've run out of ways to describe it. The truth seems to be that Sorabji isn't like any other composer, so his pieces aren't like anyone else's either. This is not to say that there are no affinities, but they are affinities of the listener, not the composer. If the listener appreciates Debussy or some of Messiaen's more meditative pieces, he will probably appreciate this recording. I know I did. This is superior music, just a bit outside the canon.

This CD is one of the jewels in my piano music collection. I guess if I had to compare it to something I'd have to say it is vaguely similar to Debussy's more dreamish works for piano, with a milligram of jazz added. Sorabji's music style sounds very improvisational, yet it makes coherent sense overall. In my opinion this is the best piece that Sorabji ever wrote, don't expect something epic like Beethoven's fifth symphony though. Here is just the song of the simple, meditative wanderings from a glass half-full of red wine, sitting on top of a moonlit steinway, Le Jardin Parfume is a deep midnight contemplation.

Short playing time, but then I guess Sorabji's music is best appreciated if listened to with concentration, and one piece at a time. (What would an appropriate coupling for Le jardin parfume really be?) Le Jardin Parfume was composed in 1923 and remains one of this fascinatingly obscure figure's more well-known works; it is also possibly the best introduction to his style and intoxicating sound world. Stylistically, there are strong traces of later Scriabin (despite the fact that Sorabji denied the musical connection); it is extremely lush and sensual, indeed like a rain forest at night, full of ornaments and fascinating details. It is long and eventful, but never comes across as rambling. I am less sure it is a timeless masterpiece, but it is surely stirring and a musical experience you are strongly encouraged to try.

It has been recorded elsewhere (at least by Habermann), but I am in no position to compare interpretations, apart from the fact that Yonty Solomon chooses somewhat slower tempi overall. There is no doubt that Solomon is completely within the style, however, and his ability to realize the opulent textures as well as the longer structural lines of the music is impressive. The sound is rather good, although I could imagine an even more sympathetic piano tone. Nevertheless this is an excellent introduction to the composer and as such recommended with some enthusiasm.

This is a beautiful work, reminding at times of Scirabin and Messiaen in a meditative mood - although Sorabji would vehemently disagree. Solomon plays like the great artist he is. Be warned that the joy lasts only 26 minutes. Why no filler pieces? He certainly wrote enough that would "fit the bill"

If you like the dreamier piano music of Debussy it's time to step up to Sorabji. This particular piece is aptly named, like a perfume wafting on the breeze, shifting, receding, gentle. A lot easier to listen to than Scriabin but somewhere in that ambiguos world not unlike lying on a waterbed.

This is my second CD on Sorabji. Soloman played this piece beautifully! The music seems to bring me inside a "Dream"!

I give 4 stars not 5 because I think some part of the music could be played in a faster tempo with more excitement and tension.

Good music, very good performance, but too little music and poor packaging for the price.