One of the greatest defects of the samisen music is that it is divided into so many schools, each guarding jealously its traditions. When some new expression of the people’s will is necessary these separate elements may be concentrated to form a new musical force, just as Takemoto Gidayu recognised the value of the Joruri of his day and, combining them, established the balladry of the Doll-theatre on a firm foundation. Moreover, however much criticism may be levelled at the samisen for the trivial and superficial matter with which it is often related, it remains none the less the national music.
The samisen differs so largely from Western instruments that comparisons are useless. This is because samisen music depends almost completely on rhythm, rather than melody, to interpret emotion. Sound is inexhaustible, and by groupings of sounds in changing rhythms the samisen musicians gain the effects they desire. Western ears are so accustomed to harmony, that a departure from its stereotyped combinations causes bewilderment and irritation. Any other use of sound and rhythm than that to which their ears have grown familiar fails to affect them. The music of shibai presents a whole world of uncharted music material.
Ripple-clang-bang; smoothness, roughness, villainy, tranquillity; falling snow, a flight of birds, wind in the tree-tops; skirmish and fray, the peace of moonlight, the sorrow of parting, the rapture of spring; the infirmity of age, the gladness of lovers,—all these and much more the samisen expresses to those who are able to look beyond the curtain that shuts this musical world away from Western ears because of its baffling conventions of sound rather than melody.
Symbol of the despised yakusha, and in use in the none-too-irreproachable geisha world, the samisen has been held in disfavour by the upper classes. Left to their own devices, the people created their own theatre, music, and art. There was no impetus from the aristocracy, who held themselves aloof from the mass of the people. The samurai had little to do with the creative spirit, the scholars steeped in Chinese philosophy and literature looked backward to the glorious past of Japan’s great continental neighbour,—it was the people of the three towns, unaided, without guide or inspiration from their betters, who produced the music of shibai, the plebeian legacy of the Tokugawa age.
Crest of Nakamura Jakuemon
(Two sparrows, face to face).
CHAPTER XXI
SHIBAI AND INTERFERENCE
When the history of shibai is considered, the wonder grows that it did not die of discouragement. The effects of the ceaseless persecution that prohibited and hampered the creativeness of the theatre, and brought it into evil repute can hardly be measured.
Although the chilly formalism of the Tokugawa Shogunate seriously interfered with the development of the theatre, the latent genius of the people asserted itself repeatedly with new vigour after each fresh attack on the part of the authorities. Rules and regulations with regard to stage settings, costumes, architecture, furniture, and plays almost prohibited shibai out of existence. And the interference went so far as to concern itself with petty persecutions in the matter of the yakushas’ private lives.
Suppressed for centuries, the taste of the people began to express itself in luxury and extravagance, and nowhere was this state of society so perfectly mirrored as on the stage. Hence the constant conflict between the officials and the theatre. The enforcement of simple living ideals had gone too far, and the restless people, tired of repression, like a pendulum that swings back, began to long after the flesh-pots of Egypt.