Sundry Facts about Dates

This page collects various facts related to Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s dates or years of birth and death and the age at which significant events occurred in his life. Calculations involving years, months, and days have been done using the calculator at EasyCalculation.com. A useful source of date-related biographical data on composers is Musicalics.com (formerly the Classical Composers Database).

Composers and Performers Who Were Born in the Same Year as Sorabji (1892)
Composers and Performers Who Died in the Same Year as Sorabji (1988)
Composers and Performers Who Were Born on the Same Day as Sorabji (14 August)
Composers and Performers Who Died on the Same Day as Sorabji (15 October)
Age of Sorabji and of His Parents on the Day of Their Death
Age of Sorabji’s Parents at the Time of Their Marriage (18 February 1892)
Age of Sorabji’s Parents at the Time of His Birth
Age at the Death of His Parents
Age at the Time of Important Meetings (or Start of an Epistolary Relationship)
Age When Composing His First and Last Works
Age at Significant Steps of His Career
Age during the Two World Wars

Time elapsed as of today ()
Since his birth (14 August 1892):
Since his death (15 October 1988):

Composers and Performers Who Were Born in the Same Year as Sorabji (1892)

Artur Rodziński (1 January)
Rudolf Mengelberg (1 February)
Arthur Honegger (10 March)
Ferde Grofé (27 March)
Victor De Sabata (10 April)
Germaine Tailleferre (19 April)
Arthur Vincent Lourié (14 May)
Ezio Pinza (18 May)
Felix Petyrek (14 May)
Giorgio Federico Ghedini (11 July)
Philipp Jarnach (26 July)
Darius Milhaud (4 September)
Joseph Szigeti (5 September)
Hendrik Andriessen (17 September)
Herbert Norman Howells (17 October)
Leo Ornstein (11 December)

Composers and Performers Who Died in the Same Year as Sorabji (1988)

Henryk Szeryng (8 March)
Marcel Poot (12 June)
Giacinto Scelsi (9 August)
Kenneth Leighton (24 August)
Yves Baudrier (9 November)
Antal Doráti (13 November)

Composers and Performers Who Were Born on the Same Day as Sorabji (14 August)

Leopold Hofmann (1738)
Pierre Schaeffer (1910)

Composers and Performers Who Died on the Same Day as Sorabji (15 October)

Zdeněk Fibich (1900)
Franz Reizenstein (1968)

Age of Sorabji and of His Parents on the Day of Their Death

Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji: b. 14 August 1892, d. 15 October 1988; 96 years 2 months 1 day
Father (Shapurji Sorabji): b. 18 August 1863, d. 8 July 1932; 68 years 10 months 21 days
Mother (Madeline Matilda Worthy): b. 13 August 1866; d. 5 May 1959; 92 years 8 months 23 days

Age of Sorabji’s Parents at the Time of Their Marriage (18 February 1892)

Father (Shapurji Sorabji), 18 [according to his passport] August 1863; 28 years 6 months
Mother (Madeline Matilda Worthy), 13 August 1866; 25 years 6 months 5 days

Age of Sorabji’s Parents at the Time of His Birth

Father (Shapurji Sorabji), 18 [according to his passport] August 1863; 28 years 11 months 27 days
Mother (Madeline Matilda Worthy), 13 August 1866; 26 years 0 month 1 day

Age at the Death of His Parents

Father (Shapurji Sorabji), 8 July 1932; 39 years 10 months 25 days
Mother (Madeline Matilda Worthy), 5 May 1959; 66 years 8 months 22 days

Age at the Time of Important Meetings (or Start of an Epistolary Relationship)

See a full list of dedicatees with the (often conjectural) date on which a first meeting took place or an epistolary relationship began.

Norman Peterkin (1917): 24
Ferruccio Busoni (November 1919): 27
Bernard Bromage (early 1920s)
Hugh MacDiarmid (ca. 1921): ca. 29
Sacheverell Sitwell (1921 at the latest): 29
Harold Rutland (1922): 30
Harold Morland (1926?): 34
Erik Chisholm (July 1929): 39
Alfred Richard Orage (21 February 1932): 39
Mervyn Vicars (1933): 41
Frank Holliday (1937): 44
Norman Gentieu (1946): 54
Alistair Hinton (21 August 1972): 80
Paul Rapoport (14 June 1976): 83

Age When Composing His First and Last Works

First work: Transcription of “In a Summer Garden” (1914; 0 p.); 22
Last work: Due sutras sul nome dell’amico Alexis (1981, 1984; 2 pp.); 92

Age at Significant Steps of His Career

First public performance (in London): 2 November 1920; 28 years 2 months 19 days
First article as critic for The New Age: 3 April 1924; 31 years 7 months 20 days
First article as critic for The New English Weekly: 28 April 1932; 39 years 8 months 10 days
Last public performance (in Glasgow): 16 December 1936; 44 years 4 months 2 days
Move to Corfe Castle: November 1951; 58 years 9 months
Move into “The Eye”: June 1956; 63 years 9 months
Last article as critic for The New English Weekly: 28 June 1945; 52 years 10 months 14 days
Last published article (in The Musical Times): June 1961; 68 years 9 months
Start of series of recordings by Frank Holliday: 6 May 1962; 69 years 8 months 23 days
Interruption of compositional activities when completing the Concertino non grosso for String Sextet with Piano obbligato quasi continuo (1968; 48 pp.): 9 December 1968; 76 years 3 months 26 days
Resumption of compositional activities by writing the Benedizione di San Francesco d’Assisi (1973; 2 pp.): 20 February 1973; 80 years 6 months 6 days
First official Sorabji recital (by Yonty Solomon): 7 December 1976; 84 years 3 months 24 days
Break of friendship with Frank Holliday: 11 November 1978; 86 years 2 months 28 days
Release of the first commercial recording of his music (by Michael Habermann): November 1980; 88 years 2 months
First modern performance of Opus clavicembalisticum (1929-30; 253 pp.) by Geoffrey Douglas Madge: 11 June 1982; 89 years 9 months 28 days
Move to the nursing home: 20 March 1987; 94 years 7 months 6 days

Age during the Two World Wars

World War I (1914-18): 22-26
World War II (1939-45): 47-53