Page:Art Songs of Japan.djvu/9



My interest in the music of the Japanese was awakened when a little Japanese woman played for me on the samisen. The weirdness of this music founded on scales so entirely different from ours, impressed me with its unusual intervals and rhythms. The unresolved melodies, without our cadence, gives a sense of something so foreign to our occidental ears, that it is indeed an awakening.

I wrote down these quaint airs, which, with some fragments culled from their ancient folk-lore, and music written for the Koto, form the foundation of the following sketches.

The Koto is the instrument of the upper classes, while the samisen belongs to the people. The figure on the title page is playing the Koto.

The poems are translations from the poets of the period 300 to 700 A.D. In this period the height of Japanese poetry was reached. The verses were short, mostly in "Tanka" form, consisting of five lines with thirty-one syllables.

So impressionistic and vivid are these lovely little odes, they reveal the secret of all Japanese art一merely suggesting, and not weighing down with detail and elaboration.

The translations of the Japanese poems, "Old Samurai Prayer," "Butterfly," "Love-Lay of Mikado Temmu" "Slumber Song of Izumo" and "Fuji" are from "Meistersingers of Japan" by Clara E. Walsh, and are used with the kind permission of the publishers, E.P. Dutton & Co.

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