Kaikhosru Sorabji: 100 Transcendental Studies, 26-43

Sorabji composed the set of 100 Transcendental Studies, his second longest work with a total duration of at least seven hours, between 1940 and 1944. As Ullén remarks, with Study No. 26 Dolcissimo we enter a different world. The first longer piece in the cycle is more of a fantasia or nocturne than an étude: a delicate piece of night music, with allusions to Debussy. The programme then takes in such varied pieces as the playful No. 29 A capriccio, the mysterious and eerie study in major sevenths, No. 30 Con fantasia and No. 36 Mano sinistra sempre sola – a grand étude for the left hand alone, which includes a fugue that, in Ullén’s own words, “in places borders on the physically impossible”.