Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
Music of Japan.
singing in society. As against this accum-
ulation of adverse criticism on the music
of Mikadoland, we must set one or two
LAURA A. SMITH.
strong points in its favor. To begin with,
F the music of Japan we are still woful- it reflects in many ways the quaintness
ly, I am afraid wilfully, ignorant. and the national grace of its promoters; it
Among" many writers on the subject only is, therefore, characteristic and individual;
three or four can be found to praise it. then again, nature in Japan is a silent
Comparison between such music as the teacher, singing-birds are rare, the most
Japanese and that of European countries is frequently heard being the unmusical crow,
obviously unfair, and unsympathetically the air and the water seem motionless, and
inartistic. On the one side we have the the result of this wan and weirdly peaceful
environment is a peculiarly calm and mono-
tonous style of music.
If the Japanese are so particularly un-
musical as we would have them be be-
lieved, how is it that the "Koto," the most
difficult instrument under the sun to tune
and to keep in tune, is managed by them
with faultless accuracy ? There are thirteen
movable bridges to the Koto, and yet it is
the rarest thing for a player to make a mis-
A JAPANESE MUSIC TEACHER.
take; the tuning testifies to a most sensitive
ear, and the playing to a most painstaking hichiriki. The pipes of the sho give forth
and alert intelligence.
also some strangely delicate notes. The
In speaking of modern Japanese music drums and the gongs are full and sonorous
it would be quite impossible to overrate the in tone, and if only Japanese orchestras
importance of the biwa, or, as it is often were not composed of so many different-
called, the "hei-ke-biwa." Briefly, the his- sounding organs, we might find more to
tory of the biwa runs thus: It was import- commend them to Western ears.
The koto music may perhaps stand as
ed from China about A. D. 935; in its
original form it was ponderous and rich in synonymous with modern Japanese. Koto-
tone, but once under Japanese fingers it uta are songs for the koto; the koto seems
A JAPANESE SINGER.
changed its form if not its tone; it became to have freed the national music from the
best that a highly developed estheticism graceful, refined, and lighter. It was first burden of Chinese influence; it is moTe
can command; we have organs of powerful naturalized in Satsuma, and thus it is fre- definite in tone, purer in timbre, and aptly
grandeur, orchestras of almost phenomenal quently spoken of as Satsuma-biwa. It is interprets the graceful, if somewhat quaint
strength, our stringed instruments are fash- essentially a harmonic instrument, and is ideas of the natives.—Nineteenth Century.
ioned either by the experts of musical Italy
or replicaed from those which have served
the greatest musicians the world has
known. In material, in form, in tone, in
veneer, they are unsurpassed; our pianos
seem as though they had reached even the
•stretched limits of perfection, and of teach-
ing an J criticism we touch the highest lati-
tudes.
On the other, we have a few paltry
string and percussion instruments, made
"by those who are unlearned in sound-pro-
ducing properties; no literature of har-
mony, since it would be useless, the blind
being the principal musicians in Japan; no
grand masterpieces of musical history; no
striving to touch, by means of the divine
art, the deepest sentiments in the human
mind; for this light-hearted nation arc not
likely to be moved by anything w T hich can
measure its existence by longer time beats
than the mere evanescence of momentary
A
JAPANESE
MISIC
LESSON.
pleasure. In Japan music serves to bring
the smile to the cheek of the maiden, to well suited to the burden of songs dealing
THE stockholders of the Brambach Piano
preface the banquets of the Japanese no- with love and war which are in such vogue Company, Dolgeville, N. Y., held their
bility, and to accompany the mazes of the among the Japanese. Many of the modern annual meeting Friday of last week.
dance.
songs now set to the samisen owe their
THK piano trade is warned by Edward
It is, in fact, a record of the trivialities origin to the biwa.
Gram, of Milwaukee, to be on the lookout
The shakuliachi, also a Chinese instru-
of the daily routine, and perhaps the infe-
for George H. Decker, a piano tuner, whom
rior position which music occupies in Japan ment, came to Mikadoland early in the he charges with turning in forged leases
is best shown by the fact that its chief, and Fourteenth Century, and save as an occa- after selling pianos for cash. Decker hails
until quite recently only, exponents are sional accompaniment to the samisen, which from Texas.
women, and women in this country are still is the instrument of the people, it is always
LOOK out for a new catalogue from Bush
treated as an infinitely lower sex than the considered a solo instrument. It is pecul-
&
Gerts, Chicago. It will be ready in a
men. Most men would consider they were iarly sweet and soft in tone, and may be
week
or two.
/- • - r - " - - ^
making themselves ridiculous by playing or classed as the musical antithesis of the
O