Opus Clavicembalisticum - Composition and Dedication

Composition and Dedication

In a letter upon completion of the massive work, Sorabji wrote to a friend of his:

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...

The dedication on the title page reads:

To the everlasting glory of those few men blessed and sanctified in the curses and execrations of those many whose praise is eternal damnation.

Read more about this topic:  Opus Clavicembalisticum

Famous quotes containing the words composition and, composition and/or dedication:

    The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)

    Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.
    —Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)

    A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.”
    Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)