Harich-Schneider, Eta

eVols at University of Hawaii at Manoa

EUROPEA'N M'USICIAN IN JAPANBy P:fA ILUUCH-SCBNEIDERBIa BtIftcA.~, _ oj 1M fIlM ......,.,~~~ w • 1M .,.. n- _ oj 1M bM·a.o- -'0 I«IcAeN oj lHrUnCIIlei die cMAor oj II __ oj floo,b OII~. 8M' _ GIN oomPo-J'lAe tMIftcJor -'ow G....- jilfu. DwUt, _ -" low '" JllpGft '" 1M _ oj1911, 1Ma-.~ _ lwob owl CNWI~ _ rdwn 10~ B'-lAM Me _ ".,. CI __ Jor 1NrNlJ ." JClptm CIM &ut AM tArougA~-" lour. lind tlwot.tglt eM 1«IcA'''' oj Japtl_ pupiU. Bef'~, 1M~ (calMJ caUIId oem6alo), W~ II r_iuaftce ." GfrmD~~Clnd _ ".., toiIA panict.llar''''''' in 1M "'~ _14 oj JOT-lift. BV learn-i,., 10 plav JCIfJG- "'~i~ ancI bv muir'ng 1M JClptI_ lmIgucage,aM w "'Ving 10~ 1M~ oj JClJlClflUe "'uaic. I" UI,e JollotDing arlicU,Mra. BaricA·ScAncidfIr ,Iflla oJ UI,e~ aAe 1I.CIa~mJGf1IJft, lIw.ebvmaki,., ° tlCIlt.lGble COfllribuhoft· to 1M "fldcIratanding oj tIaaI oouN"1I.-K.M.DEOJU>TIVlll APPlLULANOE8 discovers an immense seriousness, aA FTER all he has heard about the brooding devotion and an almost obstinateJapanese soul and spirituality, the zeal which are applied to the absorptionEuropean musician on a concert and learning of European music andtour in Japan is at first very much which are far removed from enjoyingsurprised. The first impression one has it only as a feast for the ear.of Japanese musical life is that of an I, too, was conscious of this contradic-imitation of American stunts and fash- tion. I was at once moved by theions. One finds the same huge au- eagerness and enthusiasm for our music,diences, the same type of publicity, the by the veneration for the performer, bysame bustIe on the part of reporters, the an elementary, devout relationship tosame eternal photographing before and music. Were not the people here almostafter concerts. (Indeed, the latter un- more reverent even than in Germany,fortunately goes on even during the con- the land of music? How could thiscert, where the photographers do not attitude be reconciled with autograph-hesitate in the least to pop out from hunting of Hollywood proportions, withbehind a curtain on the platform during huge publicity campaigns and photo-the most beautiful parts of the music in graphing, and with the great interest-order to flash off a few bulbs at the per- so embarrassing to Europeans-in theformer and then to tiptoe off again details of the daily life of the performerlnoisily.) MUSJO AND POETRYThe usual choice of programs seems The perseverance and the p888ionateto confirm this impression. Audiences enthusiasm with which the Japanese havealways want to hear the same, well- been studying European music for theknown standard works and virtuoso show last forty years have led many Westernerspieces. The desire of the European pub- to the mistaken assumption that thelie to study a master or a period even in Japanese have lost the true feeling forthe less famous works has not yet been their own music. We are oJily toofelt in Japan. It almost appears as if, inclined to believe that at least twofor the Japanese, Beethoven has once generations have grown up without theand for all revealed himself in the Ninth influence of their own music, and thatSymphony and Liszt in the Oampanella, today the educated Japanese, feelingand as if these works were enough for ashamed of its "barbaric level," hasall time to uphold the proper idea of definitely thrown it overboard after hear-these two composers. ing the revelations of Schubert andBut soon these first impressions are Beethoven. It is indeed amazing howdissipated by contrary observations. One the Japanese drink in our music. There...must be thint there. But 0U1 an un-mUllcal people be capable of euch •thintl no. it not rather prove aware-Dell aDd lpiritual8exibilitytWhat 0U1 IDOIt euily be esplained iethe fact that in Japan 80me Germanfolk eoDp and the beet known of Schu-bert'. melodies have become natural ex-prt!lIJIIions of the people. For the Japa-nese, poetry and music are most closelyunited. The art of the samisen-themost popular-is unthinkable withoutsinging and without the meaning of thetext. Our idea of "absolute music" isforeign to the Japanese. But the lyricalcontent of Schubert's 80ngs is close totheir hea.rta. It h88 often seemed to methat it 80unded 88 natural from Japaneselips 88 when sung in Germany. Once, ina train, I heard 80ldiers on leave, happyto be home, sing with their arms aroundeach other: ..HOr icA da8 M iihlrad geAn."And one evening, in a narrow, crowdedlane in Aoyama, I saw a Japanese,dre88ed in his dark summer kimono,walking completely engrossed throughthe noisy crowds of women and children.He W88 whistling, with 80 serious, 80gloomy a face that he might have beenintoning an ancient Japanese hero's BOng-but it was "Lei8e flehen meine Lieder."Why have these melodies become 80popularl Only, I am sure, because theJapanese can interpret 80mething Japa-nese into them.It is by no means true that the Japa-nese developed only the other arts highlyand that in the sphere of musio theywere poor and without roota until theWest came. Japanese music, whioh isclosely linked with poetry, drama, pan-tomime, and dancing, is on an equallevel with these arts. The fact that thisis not known outside Japan is not to beblamed on Japanese music but on theEuropeans, who, themselves inflexible inthis respect, are inclined to regard therhythmic symmetry and clear harmonyof the highly developed music of Europe 88the only form of music worth discussing,just as they are inclined to accept noother manner of performing musio thanthe free, emotional European manner.JIl7810 ...... CULTIt ie true that the Japaneee approMhto..,.-d muaie ie di1fereDt from our own;and even when aJapaneee interpret. Euro-peul mUlle, he still cumot get away fromhisJa~ aesthetice, from his Japaneeeconception of art, in which he is deeplyrooted. Japanese music has been veryartfully developed to an exquisite intri-cacy, both in rhythm and melody, andin his performance the Japanese does fulljustice to this. Thus he is musical inthe real senae of the word; that is tosay, he poseeese8 the neoeesary gifts formusic of ear, sense of rhythm, and memory.But his manner of performing is oppositeto our own. Where we impart our ownemotions, the Japanese hides his. Wherewe grow out of ourselves, he destroyshimself. To him art is like a No mask,in which his sacred dances serve thegods. Music, too, is very much part ofthis sacred service. Behind its m88k theindividuality of the performer destroys it-self because it does not dare infringe uponeternity, of which music is but a symbol.Although the Japanese strives for thegreatest poesible stylization and "de-personalization" in music as in all otherarts, he does not perform "objectively"(by this we mean rationally). It is truerto say that he serves a cult. He casts aspell. This religious attitude is, for me,also the explanation for the venerationaccorded a few great European works, torepeat which the Japanese never tires.Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has be-come for him the object of a cult, thereligious symbol of t.he spirit of allWestern music.The Japanese knows no "absolutemusic" in the European sense-but nei-ther does he know any "profane music."I sometimes think of our Europeanvaluation which gives first rank to "ab-solute music," then lets that music followwhich is bound up with poetry, places"light music" third, and "military music"188t, and I wonder what a Japanesewould make of these valuations. For. ofall European music, the German, or, tobe more exact, the Prussian militarymusic h88 had the stronge8t influence in:;"'i,T!lB ,·JlXUl,·~y,·Japan. Japanese,. miUtary, ,.marches are~ai~hfully. m~eled on it.. But these,*"oots, t&ke~ from.' oompletely 'foreignsoil, are ni<;>re sacred t9 the Japanes«fthanthe original plantS in their native soil areto wi. To the Japanese, it is the godswho call the soldier, arid music is thelanguage of the gods.THE "SENSEI"The path of learning and the per-sonality of the teacher are sacred to theJapanese. For him, that interpreter ofhis national music is the greatest whohas advanced furthest in pure reproduc-tion of style and who is himself nothingbut a faithful mirror of tradition. It is anarrow European view to discover noth-ing but lack of imagination and musicalfeeling in the striving of the Japanesemusician to copy his sensei, his teacher,exactly. Not only was the Japanese,before we came, not poor or withoutroots in musio: on the contrary, he was sodeeply rooted in his own conception ofart that, even today, it is not yet possiblefor him to abandon it. Although he hasassimilated European forms of art, hismethod of learning them has remainedJapanese. This, and not lack of talent, isthe reason for his wishing faithfully to copywhat he has heard, for his studying fromgramophone records, and for all the othermethods which to us soom so strange.I realized this for the first time duringa lesson one day. I had proceeded fromthe only accepted point of view in Europe,namely, that musio is something handeddown in a distinct form and yet some-thing flexible, something that has to bereproduced faithfully and yet, at thesame time, be given new form throughthe personality of the interpreter. So Iwanted to explain the general laws ofmusic and then have them freely appliedby my pupil in her playing. First of allI explained to her the laws of carrying amelody on the piano. Then I playedsomething as an example, explainingcarefully that she should not copy myperformance slavishly but that she wasfree to give her own interpretation withinthe laws I had outlined to her. I shallnever forget the sad expression in her~yes when she looked at me! ''.But.sensei plays it just one we,y! I want' to.play like ~enati!" She did, not evendream that I dared to expfe!58 my ownideas and that I might even be proud ofso m.iserable a venture. Sh~ .was· firmlyconvinced that I did nothing but faith-fully pass on the traditions handed downthrough generations of musicians, andshe believed that, for quite inexplicablereasons, she was not allowed to enterupon this sacred tradition, since I hadexpected her to be impolite and withoutrespect, had expected her "to desire toplay differently from Sensei."COMPREHENSION THROUGH IMITATIONWhile playing his Oampanella, Lisztmay, at a certain point, once have liftedhis head. Supposing that the knowledgeof this moment had been preserved inthe tradition of Liszt's pupils, a Europeanpianist who did the same thing todaywould be ridiculed as showing affectationand for trying to copy Liszt. But if aJapanese who has studied under Kulen-kampff or Cortot has noticed an involun-tary smile on the face of his master ata certain change of harmony and hence-forth also always smiles at the sameplace, he does this for a reason that isthe opposite of affectation. He has no-ticed that, at this point in the music,the mood of the master wa-s a gay oneand that therefore this point signifies agay mood. So he smiles beoause hewishes to become that which his masterwas, and this does not mean an ontwardcopy of Mr. X but a faithful ima.ge ofthe musician per se.The way of the Japanese in art isthat of faithful imitation. It is a pathof self-denial and of faith. His self-denial is rewarded by his final achieve-ment of artistry, his faith by the eventualabsorption of magic forces which makesof the pupil a master.Once one has unde1'8tood this, oneunderstands all those things in the culti-vation of European musio in Japan whichat first seem either backward or emptyactivity and so hard to reconcile with therest of the Japanese character: the prac-tising to gramophone records, the copy-EUROPEAN MUSICIAN IN JAP~"'i 421ing of outward mannerisms, the constantmania for the same program made up ofthe most famous works. For we knownow that the gramophone record is forthe Japanese the "faithful ~r"; thatoutward behavior is full of meaning andimportance, since for him music andpantomime are inseparable; and thatfinally the famous standard works rep-resent for him almost that which ourfamiliar prayers represent for us: throughtheir fame they have proved their sacredvalue, they have the greatest magicpower, th~refore it is our duty to playthem over and over again.Once one has Reen the vocation of the8en8ei through the eyes of the Japanese,the adoption of American methods ofpublicity appears in a different light. Asa European artist, one no longer feels asembarrassed by it as one did at firstwhen one thought that this exaggeratedactivity was meant for one's own per-son. On the contrary, everything ismeant for the idea of the 8ensei, and thedesire to absorb every nuance during aconcert is not lust for sensation; it isgenuine desire to understand our musicby understanding its interpreters, inwhom the Japanese believe the entiretradition to be alive.And in what touching ways does thisveneration of the 8ensei show itself! Ishall never forget the eager eyes of theflocks of girls in Niigata whom I hadallowed to come onto the platform sothat they were better able t() see themovements of the hands; nor the lanesformed by young people after my con-certs, reaching from the concert hall tothe hotel, and aU the solemnly bowingheads and the "sayonara" whispered byevery pair of lips; nor the overwhelmingsolicitude for my comfort which wasextended to every detail."LlOiVOOATION OF THE GODS"From the way in which theaudiences reacted to each ofmy programs, I could easilyobserve how the Japanese are pre-pared to accept, to understand, andto love everything that approaches hisown nature: all music into which he canread poetic ideas or which is to him ofsemireligious significance. Consequently,Liszt's "St. Francis Preaching to theBirds" became one of my greatest suc-ce88e8: I played it at almost everyconcert. First of all, it is a musicalpoem; secondly, the pale, fragile colorsof its descriptions of Nature correspondto the taste of the JaPanese with hiedeep love of Nature; and thirdly, it isan "invocation of ~he gods."My most treasured experience was thefollowing one. I was once giving aperformance of Schumann's music forJapanese women and, through an inter-preter, I explained the poetical ideasunderlying it by drawing parallels withJapanese poems and the art of gardening.When t.he concert was over, a Japaneselady got up quite spontaneously (this initself is a very rare occurrence in Japan)and spoke impromptu about the profoundspiritual kinship between Germans andJapanese which had been revealed toher through Schumann's music. Whathad been revealed to her, she said, wasthat both peoples believed that one couldbest speak to the gods through music.In the days of yore, she went on, theSun Goddess, the original anCC8tre8s ofthe Japanese people, had hidden behinda rock; consternation and despair hadovercome the people until they finallysucceeded through music in persuadingthe Goddess to come forth and bestowher splendor again.Music as magic! I thought of thewild, imploring sounds of the bambooflute in the Japanese orchestra, soundswhich wing their way over the chorusof the severe samise~, the chanting ofthe singer, and the intricate rhythmof the drums, as suddenly, asboldly, as serenely as a soul risingup from the earth.

European Musician in Japan

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European Musician in Japan

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