OHN SEBASTIAN, SR PLAYS
OHANN SEBASTIAN BACH
ARRANGEMENTS FOR HARMONICA & PIANO
BACH: FLUTE SONATA IN B MINOR, BWV 1030
(ARR. FOR HARMONICA AND PIANO)
I. ANDANTE 07:47
II. LARGE E DOLCE 04:30
III. PRESTO 05:58
WITH PAUL ULANOWSKY, PIANO
BACH: FLUTE SONATA IN E-FLAT MAJOR, BWV 1031
(ARR. FOR HARMONICA AND PIANO)
I. ALLEGRO MODERATO 03:37
II. SICILIANO 02:09
III. ALLEGRO 04:44
WITH PAUL ULANOWSKY, PIANO
BACH: PARTITA IN A MINOR, BWV 1013
(ARR. FOR SOLO HARMONICA)
I. ALLEMANDE 02:45
II. CORRENTE 02:31
III. SARABANDE 03:48
IV. BOURRÉE ANGLAISE 01:44
“Don't, for Heaven's sake," said John Sebastian, "write that here is a man who has taken a toy instrument and raised it to the level of the concert hall!" Such an attitude, he carefully explained, would not be in keeping with the facts, for the four-octave chromatic harmonica is no toy. Furthermore, such a remark would suggest that there is a general prejudice against playing great music on the harmonica, and this is not at all true if you take the world view of it. Mr. Sebastian should know, for he has just been around the world -- in 82 concerts, if you please -- and has first hand reports of the easy, complete and enthusiastic acceptance of his harmonica recitals from enough corners of the globe to constitute a quorum -- among them Japan, Singapore, Bangkok, India, Persia, Germany and Italy.
That the harmonica he plays is no toy is demonstrated both by the fact that it is the musicians the world over who are his biggest boosters, and by the rapid rate at which he is gaining new compositions from first-class composers in this country and abroad. Already in his repertoire are concertos by Villa-Lobos and Tcherepnin, concertinos by Hovhaness and Dello Joio, a suite by Milhaud, and the Street Corner Concerto by Kleinsinger. In preparation are works for him by Tom Scott, Werner Egk, Camillo Togni and Carlos Surinach.
To point up the general acceptance Mr. Sebastian has enjoyed with the harmonica, one need only mention his appearances with the Philadelphia
Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and other fine orchestras in this country and, abroad, twice with the Berlin Philharmonic and, most spectacularly, in the solo spot in the opening night of the Venice Festival. It was about this last concert that Winthrop Sargeant wrote for The New Yorker, after a paragraph applauding the Tcherepnin Concerto: As for Mr. Sebastian, he proved himself to be an artist of great accomplishments by any standards, able to draw from his little mouth organ music of an eloquence and refinement that might well be envied by virtuosos who play more conventional instruments."
Though considerable time is spent by Mr. Sebastian in interesting composers in writing for his instrument and for him, even more is spent in research in old music to build up his repertoire. Sebastian has probably gone through more scores in search of likely repertoire than most top-flight pianists and violinists of equal industry. He has had to, he explains, for if he doesn't find it himself, he doesn't get it.
By nature he is at home in the music of Bach, Veracini, Telemann, Handel, Vivaldi and Sammartin and the largest amount of his research is done in this general period, Mozart, Schubert and Brahms figure in his repertoire importantly and, coming down toward the present, Debussy, Ravel, Falla and Bartók. In making up his programs he always attempts to present to the
potential composer in the audience works that will demonstrate the amazing variety of tonal qualities possible to the harmonica in his hands.
To do all he does, then, John Sebastian must keep three careers in the air at once: his career as a performer, a career of research in older repertoire, a third career as an innovator trying to get composers to write for the harmonica.
Born the son of a Philadelphia banker of Italian descent, John Sebastian had planned career in the diplomatic service of the United States before his penchant for the harmonica took him toward the concert stage. After his studies at Haverford College he won a two-year fellowship to the Universities of Florence and Rome.
In the initial phases of his musical career Sebastian realized that his instrument would gain validity if and when the contemporary composer became interested in writing for the harmonica Generally speaking, a composer's initial assumption that the harmonica is an instrument of small capacity gave over -- on hearing Sebastian play -- to a second mistaken assumption that anything at all could be written for it. Sebastian therefore has had to set himself out as a kind of moderator for his instrument.
When beginning work with a composer, Mr Sebastian first hands him a chart showing all the possible double stops. Actually considerable skill is involved in writing well for the harmonica, since no two notes can be sounded together where one
is an exhaled note and the other is one which is inhaled. On the other hand, surprising things are possible for instance octaves (played with the tongue in the middle), or an octave with an added third.
Composers often err in writing for the harmonica by missing good musical bets which are apparent to Sebastian's eye. Sebastian noted a line of melody in the Kleinsinger Street Corner Concerto which fairly shouted (to him) for the addition of upper sixths, and he was successful in causing the score to be so edited The matter of registers is often a course of dissension between composer and performer, the low register of the harmonica being particularly well suited, in Sebastian's view, to certain uses and particularly ill suited to others.
To demonstrate these facets and colors Sebastian has often called on his own études as a means of conveying these aspects of the harmonica to the composers
When traveling, he is also a collector of folk music, and he recently delivered to Alan Hovhaness seven Greek folk dances which the composer matched with piano settings. But Sebastian's collecting of folk music is admittedly hurried business, sandwiched in between concert performances and the next flight out.
In his recent l55-day tour of the world, with a concert at least every other day and sometimes oftener, he usually managed to work in at least one session of listening to the local music of each
country Much to his surprise he found the harmonica played every where, as in Hong Kong, where he found himself faced with a group of roughly four thousand children, all playing harmonicas, and in Tagamatsu, Southern Japan, where he heard grammar school children play “The Light Cavalry Overture" accompanied by xylophone and drums!
Exporters, he notes, send the instruments to every country in the world, including unlikely ones such as Afghanistan, where he was recently serenaded by a university student playing Afghan themes that mixed 5/8 and 7/8 time signatures. Harmonicas sent to Brazil and Israel, Sebastian informed us, are especially manufactured to render minor instead of major thirds together, s0 as to be adaptable to the folk music of those countries
Sebastian the roving musician has had some rare experiences in impromptu concert management
A Navy plane once dropped him off alone in an otherwise inaccessible cow field in Cambodia where he had to ad lib a solo recital Since no piano or accompanist of any kind existed there he had to resort to Sousa marches, Schubert's Moments Musicaux and Brahms' Hungarian Dances, all learned in his high school days. On the other end of the scale of grandeur, he played an acoustically fabulous air-conditioned theater in Bangkok, the performance attended by the King, whose avid interest in the music he was hearing kept his entire entourage stiffly in their seats through three encores lest they risk lese-majesty.
Having heard so much of the world's diverse music and played for so many audiences of different musical backgrounds, he has come by a frankly skeptical attitude toward our maxim that music is a universal language. In the unconscious arrogance of Western man, this maxim is too often applied exclusively to our music and excludes the rich musical cultures of the other continents of the world. (One discovery he made in India was that the slow movements of these Bach sonatas -- our pride and joy in lyric instrumental writing are often considered too naive! The Indian master musician, for instance, would want to take the basic notes of the theme presented and develop ever more complicated variations on this rag)
John Sebastian has been witness, with perhaps more sensitive perception than other musically inclined travelers, to the surprising multiplicity of musical instruments existing in the world, the varieties of flutes, the varieties of stringed instruments, the varieties of plucked instruments and percussive instruments. Each instrument gives a different texture and therefore a different emotional feeling, but, used correctly, each is as valid as any other.
His observations of these diverse musical practices have all had bearing on, and were no doubt made with reference to, the question of the validity of using the harmonica to play the classical music of the Western world. The conclusion he has drawn from these various experiences is that man, in his quest for has
expressed himself with music making, an infinite variety of sounds on an infinite variety of musical instruments. Therefore, playing a harmonica -- or a Korean flute -- is just as normal or usual as playing an Italian violin or a German flute. Sebastian feels that the only pertinent question he must ask himself when setting out to render a Bach flute sonata -- or any other music for that matter -- on his harmonica is this: Do I take away from the musical value by giving it another texture with my instrument? If after a period of study he decides that the musical and emotional content of the composition has not been diminished he feels that the purpose of the composer is being fulfilled. In the Baroque period, where composers often indicated com positions as suitable to one of several instruments interchangeably, Sebastian has found much of his most satisfying repertoire.
The general thesis of European reviews of Sebastian's art have been to the effect that, whether you are aware of it or not, this man has created an art form. He has found a means, through the harmonica, to express musical ideas artistically. He has with discretion and with taste chosen repertoire in which none of the musical values are sacrificed. The harmonica in his hands is an instrument possessing its own range of colors, unlike those of any other instrument. It has a quality that is at once pastoral, personal, peculiarly tender and warm.
suites, for violin, cello and viola da gamba, came from his Cöthen period, December 1717 to June 1723. In Cöthen the musical atmosphere militated against the composition of large-scale religious works, the Court being of a faith and service of a relatively austere kind. The preference of the local Prince was for instrumental musie, and he maintained a band of eighteen players for which Bach proceeded to write his major orchestral and instrumental pieces. The Sonata No. 1 in B Minor opens with Andante in 4/4 with a theme of lightly syncopated fluidity. The second movement, Largo e dolce, 6/8, D major, is graceful and flowing, with the syncopated motion still present. The final Presto, 4/4, B minor, is sprightly and again syncopated; a second Section in 12/16 is sometimes regarded as a fourth movement.
The Sonata No. 2 in E-Flat Major opens with seven measures of solo piano, Allegro modera to, 4/4, joined them with merry flourishes in the harmonica. The second movement is a Siciliano, 6/8, in G minor, a famous theme of serene and lovely aspect. The Allegro, 8/8, is a masterpiece of playfulness.
Bach's sonatas for flute, as did all his sonatas, or
The A Minor Solo Sonata is the only un accompanied flute sonata Bach wrote and, incidentally, is by reason of its difficulty not often chosen for flute recitals. This sonata is on the plan of the suite, in contrast to the E-Flat Major Sonata, which is notable for its 1ikeness to concerto form. Here we have an Allemande, 4/4, a Corrente, 3/4, a Sarabande, 3/4, and a Bourrée anglaise, 2/4.
In the course of John Sebastian's recently conducted tours of the world he has been heard by a greater audience than has ever before attended the recitals and concerts of one playing his instrument. At the Venice Festival, with the Berlin Philharmonic, or in the darkest wilds of Africa and the Far East, his tones have been heard. In this country and Canada he has given over six hundred concerts and recitals. In Europe he has performed eighty times or more and has held some seventy-five separate audiences in the Far East fascinated with his musicianship and artistry From faraway places, and close at hand too, come the voices of review: Paganini of the harmonica." Die Welt, Hamburg, September 24, 1954
“Sebastian wove a magic spell." Bombay Mail, February 23, 1957.
"A musical miracle " Giornale de Sicilia, Palermo, March 8, 1956.
“His mastery is equal to the virtuosity of any other first-rate instrumentalist He has brought the harmonica into the society of the great, where it commands respect." Herbert Elwell, Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 8, 1957.
“Mr. Sebastian's scope is nothing short of wizardry He has vast technical facility, a bulging range of colors, and his intentions are ever musical and sophisticated." Jay S. Harrison, The New York Herald Tribune
Mr. Sebastian plays the four-octave Hohner chromatic harmonica exclusively
