"Not for the doctrine, but the music there;"
a Japanese Bayreuth is unthinkable. Men on the spree send for singing-girls chiefly in order to ogle and chaff them, and to help along the entertainment by a little noise. To ask the name of the composer of any tune the girls are singing, is a thing that would never enter their heads. Still, of course pathology is as legitimate a study as physiology. Those, therefore, who wish to investigate more minutely the ways and means whereby injury is inflicted on sensitive ears should consult the authorities enumerated below, especially Mr. Piggott's book, where will be found capital illustrations of Japanese musical instruments, together with specimens of tunes transcribed into the European notation, so far—for that is one of the points in dispute—as such transcription is possible.
Dislikes are apt to be mutual. Of all the elements of Europeanisation, European music is the one for which the Japanese have been slowest to evince any taste. Bands do now, it is true, sometimes parade the streets,—alas! In fact, an English band-master was engaged by one of the departments of the government as far back as the early seventies, and his successor, a German, harmonised the national anthem which was considered a necessary item of Japan's new outfit;—for, as each modern nation of Europe possesses a national anthem, it followed logically that Japan could not remain without one. Eifteen or twenty years later, a Miss Kōda was sent to Germany to study the violin, and returned as an admirable executant. Her younger sister following her example, was placed under Joachim's personal care.[1] Other efforts were made, an academy of music was founded at Tōkyō, and towards the close of the nineteenth century passed under the direction of Prof. A. Junker, who, in the brief space of five or six years, has done marvels, evolving a pleasing chorus of some
- ↑ This Kōda family is a distinguished one, one brother being the eminent novelist who writes under the pseudonym Rohan, while the other, Lieut. Gunji, of the Imperial Japanese Navy, has made a name for himself by his adventurous life in the Kurile Islands.
