Japanese Song Fantasy (score & parts) - WW5

When the faculty quintet at Montana State University was invited to tour Kumamoto Prefecture on Kyushu , they wished to present some familiar Japanese melodies to the audiences that they would meet. Alan Leech decided to find songs that are used in schools and communities throughout Japan and put them into an easy-to-listen-to fantasy. The tunes he chose were both by Rantaro Taki, who wrote many such songs around the year 1900. Japanese audiences are very accustomed to Western music and forms. Twentieth century Japanese composers have, in fact, modeled much of their own music after Western forms and standardly use WEstern instruments. Although the songs commonly used in the Japanese schools and communities sound much like nineteenth century models of Stephen Foster and Franz Schubert, they often have some relation to older, more traditional Japanese music.