Work

Well, I've never been employed by anyone other than myself and, given the kind of things that I do, getting paid anything at all is something to be relieved about. At least employees have some idea of when and how much they'll be paid for their work; I've never had a clue because I can't; the only thing of which I can be certain is uncertainty. I realise that this is a less than helpful answer in that it relates only to my own situation, but you did ask!

Well, I also run The Sorabji Archive, which I founded in the 1980s as I am that composer's literary executor but, again, income from all sources is precarious and largely unaffected by what goes on elsewhere.

Thank you for your kind words. I don't know how many people listen to my work (does anyone else have such information about theirs?) but no, I don't write what might be describable as "commercial" music nor, in my capacity as curator of The Sorabji Archive (see www.sorabji-archive.co.uk where you'll find some information and a works catalogue for me and for Marc-André Hamelin as well as for Sorabji himself), am I dealing with music that could so be described.

As to writing something to express how I feel about the times in which we live, that would of necessity and by definition be a non-starter; whilst I would not of course pretend to be aloof from issues of contemporary life, I would regard conscious attempts to write music about them as a fruitless exercise. Stravinsky's famous but not very good bon mot about music being incapable of expressing anything beyond itself might have something going for it but, I fear, it ultimately misses the point; whoever it was that countered it by claiming for music that it is capable of expressing everything but naming nothing was, I believe, far closer to the truth of what music is for and what it can do. Also, wasn't it Vaughan Williams who, when asked what one of his symphonies was "about", he tartly responded "it's about 35 minutes"? ANd weren't Richard Strauss's claims that he might one day be able to represent a sppon and fork in music intentionally tongue-in-cheek?(!)