Exactly what medium-price Altarus have in mind for this 22-minute disc I don't know; but if you have the slightest interest in unusual keyboard repertoire I think you will find it worth the outlay.
Sorabji composed his Piano Sonata No. 1 in 1919 and played it for his idol Busoni at their one and only meeting in London later that year. Much intrigued by the 27-year-old composer, Busoni commented that the piece was like ''a tropical forest'' and he agreed to write a letter of recommendation to help get it published (the full story is given in the informative accompanying notes, together with a facsimile of the letter).
The single movement starts as though on the crest of a wave, in a blend of Scriabinesque apotheosis and Art Tatum coruscation—a mood which will persistently return after intervening passages of pensive restraint. The barrage of repeated chords at the final climax suggests a deliberate attempt to outdo the ecstatic conclusion to Scriabin's Fourth Sonata.
What Sorabji is patently not interested in is the mid-range disciplines of composition, which can (as in the best of Scriabin) transform mood-evocation into psychological drama or (as in Debussy) give exotic harmony the force of revelation. Marc-Andre Hamelin himself puts it better (and more positively) when he writes of ''a coherent, unidirectional passage of musical rhetoric... a thrilling magic-carpet ride, hurtling from splendour to splendour within a virtually unprecedented breadth of tonal and instrumental audacity''.
It is a commonplace to describe any performance of Sorabji's music as a tour de force. But in his clarity and projection of textural ebb and flow Hamelin outdoes any Sorabji recording I have ever heard for sheer musicianship (readers may recall that he has also made a fine version of the Ives Concord Sonata, on New World/Koch International (CD) NW378-2, 9/89). He possesses that magic combination of total keyboard command, intellectual insight and imagination which must surely lead to a career of distinction. The fact that his repertoire also embraces Rzewski, Busoni, Godowsky, Alkan, Bolcom, Sessions and Wolpe suggests that he will be a connoisseur's pianist rather than an international superstar; but wherever he turns his attention I suspect he will prove an illuminating guide. Hamelin's playing, the beautifully clean recording quality, and the exceptional interest of the music wholly vindicate the unusual format of this issue.'