Japanese Traditional Music: Koto and Shamisen, 1941

Despite the crackling sound quality, World Arbiter’s third reissue of early Japanese 78s is your only choice for a single-CD sampling of the full range of 18th and 19th century classical koto and shamisen lute genres. The 50-odd performers on the 24 tracks were recognised masters at the time of recording (1940). The first eight tracks present a usefully diverse taste of Ikuta-and Yamada-school koto pieces (often with voice, shamisen, shakuhachi and one out-of-tune kokyū fiddler). But koto CDs are abundant; it is the 16 tracks covering 8 genres of shamisen music that will intrigue Japanese music geeks. Like the guitar, the banjo-like three-string shamisen takes many forms, varying in skin, neck and string thickness, bridge height and weight, plectrum type, and technique. Eight tracks cover "narrative" genres from gidayu (Bunraku puppet theatre music) through rarely heard types such as katô–bushi and miyazono-bushi. The final eight excerpts are from three genres of Kabuki theatre music: tokiwazu, kiyomoto and nagauta. A determined listener will discover and enjoy the varied vocal and instrumental styles and moods of these musics. Around two minutes into track 21 is a melody (partly obscured by a counter-melody) used by Puccini in Madame Butterfly. The brief English annotations are supported by full commentary and translations of lyrics available on an associated website.