Subject: Sorabji
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 12:52:02 -0000
From: "Sorabji Archive" <sorabji-archive@lineone.net>

Dear Mr Nanasawa,

We are sad to note on your website that we did not permit you publicly to
release your recording of the first 18 of Sorabji's 100 Transcendental
Studies (and other items); the reason for our response is not because ot
that statement itself but in your accompanying assertion that its release
time is accordingly postponed until 2038. We assume that this statement is
intended to refer to the year in which the work enters the public domain
and, in this, it is incorrect, in that copyright expires at the close of the
70th, not the 50th, year following the composer's death - i.e. 2058.

Please let it be understood that we are as anxious as you are to ensure that
these works are recorded and released so that listeners may hear them. Your
statement that Geoffrey Douglas Madge must be encouraged to record this
music not only might be interpreted as gratuitous but it is also
unnecessary, since the Swedish pianist Fredrik UllqO has already been
contracted by the Swedish record label BIS to record the entire cycle of 100
Transcendental Studies; he has already recorded the first 22 (due for relase
later this year) and the other CDs will follow in due time. Mr UllqO has to
date performed nearly half of them in public concerts; other pianists
including the South African Yonty Solomon, the Italians Giampaolo Nuti,
Carlo Grante and Nicola Ventrella, the Swiss Jean-Jacques Schmid, the
Englishmen Jonathan Powell and Andrew Ball, the American Michael Habermann
and the Scotsman Alexander Abercrombie have performed some of them at
various times. To date, 52 of the 100 have received public performances. The
work now exists in a complete edition, with the first 18 in Marc-Andr!&
Hamelin's handwritten edition (with which, of course, you are familiar),
nos. 19 and 21 in Simon Abrahams's typescripted edition and all the others
in Alexander Abercrombie's typescripted edition; we issue this monumental
864-page score in two volumes.


We stress once again that we appreciate that your realisations of the first
18 of Sorabji's 100 Transcendental Studies are vastly superior in quality to
any other realisations of this kind that we have heard; all due credit must
therefore be given to you for the vast amount of work that we recognise you
have lavished on their creation. Our only reason for withholding permission
for their public release is, as you know, that we feel that Sorabji's best
interests will be better served by the release of recordings by real
pianists on real pianos in real acoustics and we are, of course, delighted
that this is now in progress. It would, we feel, have been somewhat more
helpful had you included this information on your site rather than merely
making it appear that we had declined our permission for release of your
recording without giving any reason.

We hope that you understand and accept our position and appreciate the
reasons for our observations; we will naturally also appreciate your making
these facts clear on your site.

Kind regards and best wishes,

Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive