to suffer from rheumatism, can be difficult to decipher. After complaining about errors in one of his open letters, the editor of the journal responded, "If Mr. Sorabji will in future send his letters in typescript instead of barely decipherable handwriting, we will promise a freedom from misprints". In later life, similar issues came to affect his typewriting. Pianism and keyboard music As a performer Sorabji's pianistic abilities have been the subject of much contention. After his early lessons, he appeared to have been self-taught. In the 1920s and 1930s, when he was performing his works in public, their alleged unplayability and his piano technique generated considerable controversy. At the same time, his closest friends and a few other people hailed him as a first-class performer. Roberge says that he was "far from a polished virtuoso in the usual sense", a view shared by other writers. Sorabji was a reluctant performer and struggled with the pressure of playing in public. On various occasions, he stated that he was not a pianist, and he always prioritised composition; from 1939, he no longer practised the piano often. Contemporary reviews noted Sorabji's tendency to rush the music and his lack of patience with quiet passages, and the private recordings that he made in the 1960s contain substantial deviations from his scores, attributed in part to his impatience and uninterest in playing clearly and accurately. Writers have thus argued that early reactions to his music were significantly coloured by flaws in his performances. As a composer Many of Sorabji's works are written for the piano or have an important piano part. His writing for the instrument was influenced by composers such as Liszt and Busoni, and he has been called a composer-pianist in their tradition. Godowsky's polyphony, polyrhythms and polydynamics were particularly influential and led to the regular use of the sostenuto pedal and systems of three or more staves in Sorabji's keyboard parts; his largest such system appears on page 124 of his Third Organ Symphony and consists of 11 staves. In some works, Sorabji writes for the extra keys available on the Imperial Bösendorfer. While its extended keyboard includes only additional low notes, at times he called for extra notes at its upper end. Sorabji's piano writing has been praised by some for its variety and understanding of the piano's sonorities. His approach to the piano was non-percussive, and he emphasised that