“With a wracking head and literally my whole body shaking as with ague I write this and tell you I have just this afternoon early finished Clavicembalisticum… The closing 4 pages are so cataclysmic and catastrophic as anything I've ever done — the harmony bites like nitric acid — the counterpoint grinds like the mills of God…”

—  Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji

Letter to his friend the Scots composer Erik Chisholm (1904-65) upon completion of Opus clavicembalisticum, 1930; quoted by pianist John Ogdon.

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English composer, music critic, pianist and writer 1892–1988

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