The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-20

Boston. Nov. 19.--Japanese music has only slightly influenced the occi- dental musical world, although Japa- nese art has powerfully affected the whole breed of painters and their fol- lowers from James McNeil Whistler down. Every little artist surrounds himself in his studio with Japanese prints and textiles; art teachers eve i.ywhere are nowadays passing their instruction in design upon principles exempIified : by such craftsmen as Ho- kusaf and Hircshige. But American composers seem not as yet to have discovered very much that is of more than general interest in the epic chants, short lyrics and instrumental music of the Nipponese Kingdom.
 A study of Japanese musical instru- ments as they appear in the Shuji Iza- wa collection at the New England Conservatory of Music--which was presented to this music school by the Mikado and Is said to be the best col lection of its kind in the. United States and probably in the world--leads one readily to understand why the music of the. little Oriental. Kingdom can hardly. Shayes had a great effect in an age when color has been the pre- ,Yailing aim of the composers $ art: and
 
 there is a reaction, from the present vogue of complex chromatic effects will the comparatively primitive forms of music prevailing in the far East be found to contain valuable suggestions for our students and composers. At any rate there the music is and. though European popular airs are be- coming known in the cities of the islands. it is unlikely that the older forms will be neglected for long time to come. It may De true that the gamins of Yokohama and Yeddo have all summer been whistling "Bedelia" and Blue BeIT' as earnestly as the small boys of New York or San Fran cisco: yet the sentiment of the people for the art which the Emperor Jimmu is fabled to have invented out of love for the beautiful maid Isuzu still con- tinues to be very strong. For that req son such collections of instruments from the land of the Mikado as the Conservatory possesses will always have genuine human interest. calling up pictures of exquisite tearooms shaded with cherry trees and throng- ed with deltcately-gowned singing girls.
 That the best gathering of Japanese musical instruments in the United States should be found in the New England Institution Is perhaps not uniting since it was through an in vitation extended to Dr. Eben Tourjee. founder of the New. England Conser- vatory of Music, that a Boston mu- sician, Luther Whiting Mason--the same who first placed music in the curriculum of the public schools of this city--was singularly honored by being called to Japan to accomplish for the Mikado's capital what he had done for his own home town. The three years which Dr. Mason spent in building up In Tokio a course of in struction according to European standards, if it had no other results. at least led to the first real under standing by occidentals of Japanese music. In recognition of the music fans services the government at To- kio some time since forwarded to the Conservatory the original charts which were first used in teaching Japanese students in accordance with Euro- pean methods.
 In the Conservatory collection one finds of course abundance of exam ples of that most common of Japanese instrumentS-the one with which Dr. Mason first investigated the Japanese scale-the Samisen. The instrument is made of hardwood with the usual SOuuuluB pOdTOb OT Deily, or urum- head stun and strings of silk. On it are played the popular songs of the nation which, though different enough in musical quality, are said to be strikingly like our own in sentiment consisting principally of love songs and comic efforts. On the Samisen for example, the singing girls play the music of that poular ditty "Harosami' or Spring Rain." which may perhaps be taken as an Oriental counterpart of The Good Old Summer Time" It tells something about a bird which in storm takes refuge on a plum tree and longs for his nest far away. Rem derfng such melodies on the Samisen the singing girl, or gheko, never lacks for audiences and even European trav- ehers stop and listen while she thrums her three e-stringed instrument with the little plectrum, or horn of hardwood. The tone is said to be not unlike that of the banjo, although 1t is sweeter in timbre.
 Another instrument which appears lin the collection is the biwa, resemb-