Kaikhosru Sorabji to Philip Heseltine 34 (12 April 1922)

 

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 D^r. 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 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!

 

Crowley 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. There remain the Chorus and Organ parts to do, and Sonata 3. 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. 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 Palatina I saw on a blazing sunny morning: it glowed like a gorgeous jewel.

This is my 3^rd 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!! 

[Cappella Palatina, Palermo, Sicily, August 2015] 

 

In Paris at the Champs Elysée I heard “Tristan” “sung” (!!) by a tenth rate Italian company and conducted by an equally 10^th rate Italian conductor but played by the Pas de Loup Orchestra. 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 2^nd 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.