Colorful, enigmatic Parsi composer and journalist (1892–1988) best known for keyboard works of labyrinthine complexity and protracted length, some lasting hours. Archive of five detailed and absorbing TLSs signed “Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji,” various lengths, all to W. McNaught, editor of the Musical Times, 1941. Sorabji writes on a number of musical and editorial matters, making handwritten corrections throughout. One letter, in part: “I have your letter of the eleventh. It is a blend of subterfuge and irrelevance…I contend that the arpeggio decoration in the Third Rachmaninoff Concerto is no more nor no less of the ‘stuff’ of the music than in the two works of Bach and Beethoven I mentioned…I myself have come to regard the work of Elgar with a steadily increasing aversion, but I do not ascribe that to any fault of this great musician, nor to [sic] I try to find or forge any such faults." Another letter, in part: "It really is high time a halt were called to the totalitarian insolence and impertinence of the lesser fry among the English musical journalists in the matter of that very great artist and great creative musician Sergei Rachmaninoff." A third letter, in part: "This controversy originated with your—and other critics'—expressed or implied dismissal of Rachmaninoff as a composer of small significance or importance…You have now gone on to dragging Delius, Busoni and Mahler into the discussion! Given time you will doubtless drag in the music of interstellar space as well." In overall fine condition. Accompanied by a related printer’s proof of a review, a TLS from McNaught to Sorabji, and an unsigned carbon of a letter from McNaught to Sorabji. RR Auction COA.
