Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji (1892–1988) was an English composer, music critic, pianist and writer whose music , written over a period of seventy years, ranges from sets of miniatures to works lasting several hours. One of the most prolific 20th-century composers , he is best known for his piano pieces, notably nocturnes such as Gulistān , and large-scale, technically intricate works like Sequentia cyclica . He had a lifelong tendency to seclusion and felt alienated from English society by reason of his homosexuality and ancestry; his mother was English and his father a Parsi businessman and industrialist from India. After playing his music publicly between 1920 and 1936, Sorabji imposed restrictions on its performance, which he lifted in 1976. He has been likened to the composer-pianists he admired, including Franz Liszt and Charles-Valentin Alkan , and his harmonic language and complex rhythms anticipated works from the mid-20th century onwards . ( Full article... )