Mi Contra Fa: The Immoralisings of a Machiavellian Musician

Description

As prolific a composer of articles, essays, reviews, letters-to-the-editor and personal correspondence as of music, Sorabji contributed much to the world of intelligent, thoughtful and penetrating criticism on a vast variety of subjects, including, of course, music. His style is as appealing as it is compelling; his wit is irrepressible, his erudition devastating and his terms of reference as wide-ranging as can be imagined. Jami, Leonardo, St. John of the Cross, Macchiavelli, Bach, Pareto, Liszt, Busoni, Guénon, Coomaraswamy, van Dieren, MacDiarmid, Godowsky, Sir Sacheverell Sitwell and Szymanowski are some of his idols; cant, humbug, democracy, egalitarianism, systematised mass education, cultural trendiness, sentimentality, linguistic imprecision, obscurantism, received opinion purveyors and busybodies are his bêtes noires. One who damns so-called “Musical Appreciation” classes as training in “how to obtain the highest rate of investment return from Beethoven” and the science of educational psychology as “the drawing of obscurity from fools” is arguably a preternatural controversialist; one who displays unfailing emotional and intellectual precision, pansophy and heroic sanctity in commending beaux idéaux to his readership is surely an instinctive and radiant communicator: one who does both is, uniquely and inevitably, Sorabji. This is Sorabji's second published collection of essays, with corrections by Sorabji and an annotated index by Marc-Andre Roberge. 1. Introito - 13 2. When is a Concerto not a Concerto? - 17 3. Music and Muddleheadedness - 18 4. The Amateurs, or Thick Skins and Thicker Hears - 41 5. Organic and Inorganic Form - 47 6. Sentimentality and Contemporaneity: with Especial Reference to Music 7. Leopold Godowsky as Creative Transcriber - 62 8. Yoga and the Composer - 71 9. Portmanteau Words: or those "British" Composers - 76 10. "La Trahison des Clercs": Music and War-Mongering - 80 11. The Decline of Music and Musical Taste in England - 89 12. The Way of the Virtuoso - 107 13. Cant and the Classics - 114 14. A Note on Ernest Chausson - 119 15. Beer and British Music - 125 16. Modern Popular Music as part of a Plan of Progressive Besotment - 128 17. Blanche Marchesi - 133 18. "Il Gran Rifuto" - 141 19. Bernard van Dieren - 149 20. The Great French Song Writers - 158 21. Petit Dialogue Philosophique - 168 22. Rachmaninoff and Rabies - 170 23. Karol Szymanovsky - 178 [Also spelled Szymanowski] 24. Open Letter to a Conductor - 188 25. Metapsychic Motivation in Music - 193 26. The Songs of Francis George Scott - 217 27. Piano Design - 224 28. Indian Music and Indian and Western Musical Criticism - 229 29. A Note on York Bowen - 235 30. The Physiognomy of Musicians; or, Composers out of Countenance - 240