Sorabji’s numerous friendships over his long lifespan are sometimes represented by exhaustive correspondences. Often, it seems that Sorabji’s side of the correspondences bordered on the obsessive:

From Philip Heseltine’s letter to Frederick Delius, February 11, 1914:

"The Parsee I told you about continues to write the most gushing and enthusiastic letters! In the fourth letter, I was already "the most sympathetic person he had ever come across", save his mother (to whose apron-strings he appears to be tied!), and by the time the fifth was reached, he was convinced that in a "former incarnation" (!) I must have been closely related to him: "the law of Karma has ordained us to meet in this life. What sort will it be in the higher stages of the Marwantara? Can you imagine?!!"etc etc. He concludes with the wonderful phrase, "Yours quite as much as my own"!!! This to a person he has never seen! It really is great fun, and I encourage him to write more and more, since I find his letters most entertaining, and sometimes really interesting when he talks about music."

In a letter to his former composition tutor Heseltine writes:

"The Blackamore whom you spotted at Ravel's concert was the very man!... I shall never dare to visit him now and am beginning to fear that, amusing as his correspondence is, I shall soon repent having encouraged it, since I am sure I will never get rid of him again! He becomes more and more queer every letter he writes, but it is getting much too personal: I am "the most sympathetic person he has ever met", etc. etc.(although he has never met me- for that, at least, I am thankful!!) Moreover he is convinced that in a former incarnation, I must have been related to him. What funnys these Parsees are!!"

One wonders if the demise of a friendship with Sorabji occurred when it was clear that the other side did not reciprocate Sorabji’s feelings equally.

This may have been the case with the occult scholar and lecturer Bernard Bromage, whom Sorabji felt strong enough about to devote a 6-hour long composition to. Piano Sonata V (Opus Archimagicum) is based on all things Bromage, which would explain the Sorabji’s programmatic use of tarot, the obsessive pedal points based on B(ernard), the use of the motto G-A-B-E (Bernard B[rom]AGE), and the very title being a possible pun: Archmagicus, without the Latin use, in King’s English becomes ArchMAGE, not unlike BroMAGE. If this were intended, comparing Bromage to grand sorcerer would be, to use Sorabji’s own phrase, putting the dedicatee “in highest estimation,” an attempt to flatter Bromage beyond his wildest belief.

Yet, many years later, Sorabji affixed a new dedicatory piece to the Fifth Sonata, directed to a Mr. Clinton Gray-Fisk, the principal critic of Musical Opinion:

TO CLINTON GRAY FISK:

-HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, THE AUTHOR OF THIS ‘ERE PIECE.

EPISTLE DEDICATORY:

MY DEAR CLINTON:

I TRUST YOU WON’T TAKE IT AMISS MY REDEDICATING THIS WORK, TO YOU, IT HAVING BORNE SINCE IT WAS BEGUN IN 1934 (UP TO NOW 1943) THE NAME OF ONE FOR WHOM I HAD FOR TWENTY YEARS REGARDED AS MY GREATEST FRIEND UNTIL HE DENIED ALL FURTHER POSSIBILITY OF THE TRUST AND FAITH THAT IS THE VERY ESSENTIAL OF FRIENDSHIP: BUT THAT I PLACE YOUR NAME ON IT IN SUCCESSION TO THAT OF ONE FOR WHOM FOR SO LONG I HAD SUCH REGARD, SPEAKS, I THINK YOU WILL AGREE AMPLY FOR THE ESTIMATION IN WHICH I HOLD YOU.

YOURS EVER. K.S.S. X. III. MCMXLIII

The greatest irony was that when Sorabji’s relationship with Bromage soured, or grew non-existent, he changed the dedication, thus rendering the original meaning of the entire composition almost null-and-void – for Sorabji would never be able to remove Bromage from the music’s numerous mottos and motifs that pervaded the whole, short of burning the composition, which thankfully he did not do. It would almost be the equivalent of painting the Mona Lisa and then trying to distance oneself from the subject, but nevertheless, it was not the first, nor the last, of a Sorabji composition to receive a second dedicatee.