Voices Outside the Western Orbit: Music of Hatzis and Sorabji

Orbiting Garden William Hobbs, piano. Blue Griffin Records 689

Total Time:  77:35 Recording:   ****/****

Performance: ****/****

Pianist William Hobbs invites listeners on an interesting musical journey highlighting the music of two less-familiar composers whose music blends the Western classical tradition with more Eastern thought.  There is an extensive work by Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892-1988) which demonstrates the composers fusion of Western style with Persian influences.  It is surrounded by contemporary pieces by Greek-born composer Christos Hatzis (b. 1953).  Hatzis was a student of Morton Feldman which led him to explore more expressionist writing, but later experiences then began to blend other influences into his music from a variety of popular and folkish sources.

Through a Glass Darkly (2005) is a rather bombastic opening to the album with a big, bold romantic harmonic approaches that shift into a more minimalist central section.  A single pitch becomes an incessant urging line in the midst of all the arpeggiated material.  There are also some interesting dynamic contrasts that shift between the hands as the piece churns along.  The harmonic language shifts between more modernistic lines and then sudden tonal moments as well.  Flurries of sound create a variety of virtuosic demands which are handled well here.  More of that exploration of styles can be heard in the second work, Face to Face (2019).  The four-movement piece traverses moments of serialism, harmonic “sets”, Greek and Arabic musical components, 19^th-Century piano gestures and harmonies, and even a brief allusion to Pachelbel.  Underlying it all is a blended serio-religious program that Hatzis uses to inform the dramatic aspects of the work.  Orbiting Garden (1989; rev. 2019) is a work with additional text playback which adds a more personal sensibility to this work.  It also comes out of Hatzis’ work with Feldman and serves as a sort of amalgamation of his style and shifting responses to how his own aesthetic would need to overcome the shadow of his mentor.  It is an interesting piece to finish off this program, especially with its semi-rock and minimalist ideas.  Even in the midst of all this additional electronic overlays, to the primary piano line, the textures all provide interesting layers. 

Sorabji is in theory an English composer whose mother was eventually abandoned by his Parsi father when he never returned from India—where he subsequently remarried.  A mixed heritage resulted in a great deal of bullying to the young composer as he tried to assimilate into the English Parsi community.  His sexuality orientation was another barrier to overcome.  As a young man, Sorabji ended up developing a sort of cult status due to his pieces which tended to be extremely difficult and were mostly unpublished.  They also tend to be lengthy.  In the 1980s, shortly before his death, his music began to pop up a bit in recordings but his work still remains to be discovered anew.  (I was actually surprised to rediscover I had two of Michael Habermann’s Sorabji surveys which included the work here!)  His Nocturne: “Djami” (1928) refers to a Persian poet and the interesting blend of modernist and Debussy-like qualities makes for a good introduction to his work.  There is always a sense of mystery in the harmonic movement of Sorabji’s expression.  Small gestures help to blur the harmonic structures a bit and some of the ideas tend to float from one idea to the next pulling a motive or other component forward.  In this way, the music often has a semi-improvisational quality.   

Willam Hobbs has chosen music that has little competition with repertoire that includes 3 world premiere recordings.  He is adept at making the shifts that occur from impressionist, to modernist, to more romantic and parlor music-like gestures, to minimalism and contemporary musical avant-garde approaches.  All of those aspects blend between the two composers here which makes them good companions for this musical journey.  The more romantic moments help balance the denser harmonic and dissonant ideas.  Movements like “Entanglement” in Face to Face, exemplify his ability to shift from almost Lisztian flair to contemporary dissonances.   By so doing, he makes an excellent case for these pieces with engaging and exhilarating performances. 

The recording helps emphasize the crisp articulations here with just the right amount of ambience.  To aid in the understanding of these works and composers, Blue Griffin has included an extensive 20-page(!) booklet with excellent overviews of the composers and the music contained here.  It provides some additional background context for the music that can help provide some additional clues to more careful listening.  That said, Hatzis’ pieces are quite accessible even when they veer into more contemporary construction.  There is a deep emotional connection that Hobbs brings out in these pieces well that is clarified by the accompanying notes.  Orbiting Gardens is a fine album of engaging piano pieces blending a variety of compositional voices into unique, music that is often quite captivating.  It is also excellently performed here in great sound which further advocates for this stellar production that reminds us why physical media are still preferable!