Hozan Yamamoto & Tadao Sawai - 1969 - A New Sound From The Japanese Bach Scene

Hozan Yamamoto & Tadao Sawai

1969

A New Sound From The Japanese Bach Scene

01. Toccata And Fugue In D Minor

02. Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring

03. Prelude No.1 

04. Fugue No.1 (From The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I)

05. Sleepers, Wake!

06. Polonaise (From Orchestral Suite No.2)

07. Bourree I (From English Suite No.2)

08. Two - Part Invention No.1

09. Air On The G-String (From Orchestral Suite No.3)

10. Minuet In G (From The Notebook For Anna Magdalena)

11. Arioso (Sinfonia From Cantata No.156) 

12. Gavotte I (From English Suite No.3)

13. Bourree (From Partita No.1 For Solo Violin) 3:03

14. Minuet In G Minor (From The Notebook For Anna Magdalena) 

15. "Little" Fugue In G Minor 

Tadao Sawai: Koto

Kazue Sawai: Koto

Hozan Yamamoto: Shakuhachi

Sadanori Nakamure: Guitar

Tatsuro Takimoto: Bass

Takeshi Inomata: Percussion

Great composers, once they ascend to the glorious Pantheon in the sky, are too often forgotten as human beings. Instead of being remembered for their marvelously colorful and remarkably diverse personal qualities, they are revered as Great Masters—godlike creatures beyond the pale of simple everyday frailties.

And it’s a shame. Surely Johann Sebastian Bach’s two marriages and twenty-some children were not related to the quantity and diversity of his music. And what of the purple prose in Mozart's colorful letters to his cousin? Or Wagner’s unabashedly hedonistic sensuality and Brahms’ undying love for an older woman? To overlook these elements is to perceive the music only from a two dimensional point of view.

Even worse, placing the music in some pristine, hallowed shrine where it cannot be interpreted and reinterpreted by the virtuosos of succeeding centuries is surely antithetical to what would have been the real attitudes of Bach, Mozart, et al. Great Masters they may be today, but they were, during their lifetimes, pragmatic craftsmen/artists who composed like so many of today’s pop, jazz and film composers—for specific place, circumstance and performer.

How much more fascinating—indeed, how much more a testimony it is to the intrinsic greatness of Bach—therefore, to confront his music with the electric new ideas and technological marvels of the generations which have followed. Many musicologists are willing to accept a small measure of ‘‘meddling.” They will go along with Toscanini’s Bach tempos or Casals’ lyricism or Schweitzer’s ornamentations. Less acceptable are such hybrids as Stokowski’s orchestral transcriptions.

But the Colonel Blimps of musicology draw the line when it comes to accepting the transformation of Bach’s music by —horror of horrors—pop artists. “How awful,” they say; “what a sacrilege” that the music of the great “flowing brook,” the pinnacle of Baroque sensibilities, should be submitted to electronic manipulation, jazz rhythm accompaniment, close-voiced vocal harmonization or, worst of all, the “ugly” distortions and technical inadequacies of rock ’n’ roll.

Are they correct? Is Bach’s music truly so fragile that it cannot tolerate a confrontation with musical procedures, instruments and aesthetics that were non-existent during his lifetime? Surely even the most hidebound critical “Rollo” (as Charles Ives named him) should have confidence that Bach’s music is quite capable of surviving, and even flourishing, under such interpretation. If it can emerge unscathed from endless music school and conservatory recitals, if it can tolerate the mitten-handed Town Hall recital programs that are obligatory for all young pianists bent on concertizing careers, then it can survive what is certainly a more loving treatment by musicians whose abilities lie in areas beyond “classical” music.

Which leads us to A NEw SOUND FROM THE JAPANESE BACH ScENE. Recent years have seen scooby-doo Bach, electronically synthesized Bach, electric bass and guitar Bach, jazz piano Bach and, I suppose, virtually everything in between. Now we have something genuinely new, and something which in many ways is more appropriate to the authentic spirit of Bach than any of today’s hybrids. It is a fascinating reinterpretation of Bach pieces, both large and small, mostly melodic, and performed with remarkable fidelity to the originals by Japanese instruments called the koto and shakuhachi.

Why more appropriate? First, because both the timbre and the plectral articulation of the koto are similar to those of the cembalo (or harpsichord or clavecin) commonly used in Bach’s day. Notice the instrument’s effectiveness in the Bourrée, the familiar Minuet in G, the Prelude and the Gavotte.

Second, the shakuhachi, like the recorders and transverse flutes used by Bach’s contemporaries, is controlled by sliding fingers and complicated cross-digital combinations; in addition, most flutists feel that wood instruments like the shakuhachi produce a mellower, more vocalized tone—one that sounds particularly impressive on lovely Bachian melodies like the Air on the G String. Note, too, its effectiveness in the Siciliano, the Minuet in G Minor and the Largo.

Equally fascinating are the interchanges between koto, shakuhachi, an additional koto and a guitar on the light, briskly moving fugue pieces. On the Fugue from ‘The Well ‘Tempered Clavier a bossa nova rhythm is added for special seasoning.

A few words about the instruments. The koto is virtually the Japanese equivalent of the piano, present in most homes and studied by most upper-class young ladies. It is a highly sophisticated instrument, with a long, wooden body that is placed on the floor in front of the performer. It has from 13 to 17 silk strings with movable bridges and is usually played with three ivory plectrums attached to the right hand. The instrument recently has become a favorite with many of Japan’s young composers.

The shakuhachi, a bamboo flute, is deeply rooted in Japanese folklore and once was used as both instrument and weapon by itinerant samurai. Like the Indian shehnai, it has recently come to be accepted as a full-fledged concert hall instrument. Both are rudimentary tubes, lacking the keys and articulated mechanisms that make the Western oboe and flute into technically controllable instruments. Performing on them, especially when the musical material is, as in the case of Bach, based on the tempered intervals of Western music rather than the natural overtone pitch relationships more naturally fundamental to the instrument, is—at the very least—difficult.

The performers heard here are among Japan’s finest young musicians. ‘Tadao Sawai was born in Aichi in 1937; he is a graduate of the Tokyo University of Arts and is an outstanding contemporary composer. Hozan Yamamoto was also born in 1937; in addition to studying the instrument at the Seiryu Musical Academy, he is a graduate of the Kyoto Foreign Language Institute. Like Sawai, he is a prominent young composer and, in recent years, has become interested in jazz and popular music.

It is extremely doubtful that Johann Sebastian Bach gave much thought to Japan or its music during his busy lifetime. But one can speculate that his probing musical mind and perceptive ears would respond with delight to these new versions of his music.

Don HECKMAN