Bach + koto and shakuhachi + jazz trio = J.S. Bach Is Alive And Well And Doing His Thing On The Koto – Tadao Sawai et al (1971)

This rather unusual and improbably named LP marks the moment that I realised I had been neglecting the ‘classical’ bins at the record fairs. I’m not a huge fan of Bach – he’s a bit too chromatic and conventional for my tastes – but I couldn’t go past an album of his music being interpreted by traditional Japanese instrumentation supported by a jazz rhythm section.

How/why did this get made? God only knows, but I suspect that it was conceived and produced by the Japanese players who thought it would be an interesting musical exercise but that it then later made its way into the hands of an American label who thought that the only way to market such a chimera would be with a wacky angle and silly record cover. (As you can see, the cover depicts a gentleman in full baroque regalia whimsically nursing a koto in a traditional Japanese room. It's basically a direct appropriation of the cover concept for Switched On Bach.) The liner notes continue this light-hearted theme with a faux interview with Bach himself who muses on his works, gives his approval to this new interpretation of his music and cracks a few very corny gags. The LP appears to have been released in an earlier incarnation in 1969 with the (slightly) less silly title “A New Sound From The Japanese Bach Scene”.

Despite the label trying to sell this set off as a bit of a joke, the music itself is very well produced and skilfully played. The fusion of the disparate elements of Bach, Japanese traditional and jazz works seamlessly and it’s actually a very congruent listen overall.

Label: RCA

Released: 1971 (Original release 1969)

Players: Tadao Sawai - first koto

Kazue Sawai - second koto

Hozan Yamamoto - shakuhachi

Sadanori Nakamure - guitar

Tatsuro Takimoto - bass

Takeshi Inomata - drums

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Grand Canyon Suite triple post - Ferde Grofé, Eugene Ormandy, Tomita (19??, 1958, 1982)

And from Antarctica, we conclude our geographonic tour in the northern hemisphere, specifically, America’s Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon Suite composed by Ferde Grofé from 1929 to 1931, is a majestic, colourful and above all accessible piece of music which to a modern listener evokes elements from soundtracks, classical music and jazz. The Grand Canyon Suite covers a huge amount of dynamic range, transitioning from quiet shimmerings of celesta, strings and reeds depicting the canyon sunset to galloping trumpets so manic they intersect somewhere near Gershwin at his liveliest and Carl Stalling. This piece is probably the most well-known of the symphonic works I’ve looked at over the last few posts and has been played by many, many ensembles over the years. I’d like to look at three such LPs that I have happened upon in op-shops and a record fair.

Ferde Grofé and The Capital Orchestra. This is an old, scratched Capital 10” record I found in an op-shop in Northcote. I haven’t been able to find any information on this particular release in any of the usual places. Although the sound quality is pretty bad due to the condition of the record, I include it for historical relevance of this version being conducted by the composer.

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Eugene Ormandy and The Philadelphia Orchestra. This is a beautifully recorded performance of the suite released sometime in the sixties (I think - the recording has no date anywhere on it*). This is the LP I probably listen to the most of these three as it is very faithful to Grofé’s own interpretation but with a far superior sound quality (and the disc is in much better condition, which doesn’t hurt). This LP was my first exposure to this piece - I was going through a phase of obsessively consuming nature documentary soundtracks and found this in an op-shop in Healesville. I saw the title and the lovely photo of the Grand Canyon on the front and thought it might give me a similar buzz.

*EDIT 4/05/2016 - According to Discogs it's probably 1958. 

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Tomita. Finally we have Japanese electronic artist Isao Tomita translating this piece with the Plasma Symphony Orchestra ie. numerous Rolands, Moogs, Synclaviers, Yamahas and a Mellotron. The electronic approach works well in the hands of Tomita and his “orchestra” and this 1982 version is surprisingly faithful to Grofé’s original composition. Tomita does bring in some interesting new interpretations of particular instruments from the traditional orchestra however and introduces some great vintage synth tones in their place. The incongruity of an all electronic version of the Grand Canyon Suite was obviously not lost on the cover artist who attempts to naturalise the concept by depicting a canyon on a distant planet in space! Which planet this is supposed to be is unclear, but it is somewhere in the vicinity of Saturn (or a Saturn-like planet) and has some sort of high-tech transparent pyramid in the canyon which appears to be topped by the disembodied head of Strong Bad. This LP is concluded with an electronic rendition of Syncopated Clock, a playful jazzy tune composed by Leroy Anderson.

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Sinfonia Antartica - Vaughan Williams (195?)

From New Zealand, we move slightly further south, for a musical examination of Antarctica - Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antartica. This piece was adapted from the incidental music Williams’ wrote for the 1948 film Scott Of The Antarctic. The first performance of this sinfonia was in 1953 by the Hallé Orchestra under the direction of Sir John Barbirolli. There is no date anywhere on this LP, but as it is performed by the same ensemble, I’m assuming it was recorded not long after its debut.

Sinfonia Antartica is broken into five movements, all combining elements of soundtrack and modern classical music. The first section (Prelude) starts slowly, with a sense of our team embarking on their great adventure into the unknown. At around the 3:00 mark, things get interesting; we hear the appearance of what the composer referred to as ‘antarctic shimmerings’ of xylophone, piano and harp and an eerie female soprano - sounding as if lifted from a seventies horror movie score - enters the scene. A trumpet fanfare announces the coda, and the orchestra turns its attention to the main melody for the remainder of the section.

The second movement (Scherzo) opens with a whirl of woodwinds and tuned percussion over slightly ominous chords and follows this pattern for the rest of the section. The liner notes inform us that in this section ‘there is the unmistakable sound of penguins’. I’ve listened to this LP a lot and I studied a colony of penguins for my thesis, yet I’ve never been able to discern them on this record. I reckon Scott Goddard is talking nonsense. 

The third and fourth movement (Landscape and Intermezzo) share a band on side two. More antarctic shimmerings can be heard in these movements before building up to a dramatic peak of brass and woodwind. From the liner notes: ‘This is the illusory region of atmospheric and visionary impressions[...] Slowly the landscape reveals itself through the mist and huge outlines appear.’ At around 5:00 (in what I assume is the beginning of the fourth movement) a lovely section of harp, reeds and bass strings is introduced. — At just before 7:00 an organ blasts out of nowhere! Things eventually quiet down and the pace slows; this is the appropriately sombre music which accompanied Oate’s death in the original film score.

The final movement (Epilogue) alludes to all the preceding themes and attempts to wrap them up in a satisfying conclusion. The Epilogue turns the bombast and tragedy up a notch depicting the ultimate fate of our embattled heroes. A wind machine can be heard and the melody from the first movement is repeated. In the final couple of minutes the female soprano reemerges, accompanied by a chorus and more wind machine and nicely evokes the bleakness of the Antarctic landscape.

For other great pieces of music which attempt to evoke the Antarctic, check out Vangelis’s soundtrack to the 1983 film Antarctica and Benjamin Bartlett’s Antarctic Spring and Spirits Of The Ice Forest from the excellent Walking With Dinosaurs soundtrack.

Label: HMV

Released: Mid-fifties

Players: Sir John Barbirolli - conductor

Margaret Ritchie - solo soprano

Hallé Orchestra and choir

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Landfall In Unknown Seas - Lindsay String Orchestra of Wellington (1960)

I’m very interested in the ways that Australasian musicians and composers attempt to recreate their natural surroundings with music. In some cases, as in last post’s Rainforest or John Sangster’s work, this is done in a literal sense with field recordings, bird calls and occasionally abstract evocations of ‘otherness’. These are old continents, but new to the Europeans whose musical traditions we inherited. This lovely recording by the Lindsay String Orchestra of Wellington takes a very different approach; this is the discovery of New Zealand by white men interpreted in modern verse and orchestral strings.

The A side is taken up entirely by the titular track - a combination of original poetry and music by Allen Curnow and Douglass Lilburn respectively. Curnow was commissioned to write a poem for the 300th anniversary of Abel Tasman’s discovery of New Zealand. Lilburn, one of New Zealand’s most prominent composers of the time and a student of Vaughan Williams, was approached to create music to accompany the verse. The poem, read by the author, is interspersed by three movements of a pastoral, modern classical feel. The second movement is my favourite, ‘a dramatic lyric, in rapid short metre and strict pattern recounting the Landfall in New Zealand, the bloody clash with the islanders, and Tasman’s departure.’

Landfall In Unknown Seas is followed up with three pieces by other New Zealand composers. All three are modern classical interpretations of folk music. Cindy: A Square Dance For Strings and Turkey In The Straw are both from the American folk tradition, while Dances Of Brittany was inspired by ‘a suite of Breton popular tunes.’

I have no idea when this recording was produced, but I’d say it was sometime in the early sixties, based on the dates mentioned in the various composers’ bios*. Also, this record is the first I’ve seen on the Kiwi label. According to a blurb on the sleeve, this label used to release ‘New Zealand composers, New Zealand bird song, leading Maori concert groups, records for children and for educational purposes, folk song, language instruction’ - it all sounds very appealing! If you have any interesting records on this label please let me know in the comments.

*EDIT 4/05/2016: I have found a review of this record in the December 1960 edition of Te Ao Hou, from the National Library of New Zealand: 

Te Ao Hou was published from 1952 to 1976 by the Māori Affairs Department in New Zealand Aotearoa. According to its first editorial, Te Ao Hou aimed "to provide interesting and informative reading for Maori homes … like a marae on paper, where all questions of interest to the Maori can be discussed."

Although the release date of this LP was originally unknown to me, I can now assume it was 1960. 

Label: Kiwi

Released: 1960

Players: Alex Lindsay - conductor

Allen Curnow - poet

Douglas Lilburn - composer (Landfall In Unknown Seas)

Ashley Heenan - composer (Cindy: A Square Dance For Strings)

Larry Prudent - composer (Dances Of Brittany)

John Ritchie - composer (Turkey In The Straw)

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