Matsu no Midori
松の緑
| [Genre] | Nagauta |
| [Also Known As] | The Green Pine |
History (William P Malm):
| Composed 1820 bt Kineya Rokusaburo IV One of the best-known nagauta, this piece is a part of neither the Kabuki nor the classical dance world. Its fame comes from the fact that every Kabuki actor has to learn to play and sing it when in training. It remains a fine piece for beginners. It was originally written in honor of the daughter of the composer, who had just acquired a professional shamisen name in the Kineya school. The maebiki (introduction to the main song) is said to represent the wind in the pines. The text is filled with references to the Yoshiwara floating world where geishas also receive ranks as they mature. |
Poem :
| This year greets its thousandth spring, and each year still deeper is the green of the pine. "Green" ("Midori") an apprentice geisha's name, the color of young pine needles through which blows the air of the rank of "pine" ("matsu"), with her "figure-eight" walk gorgeously exposing her attractive underskirt. Its silhouette calls to mind a pine's surface roots escaping through the single layer of the surrounding pale (fence). The [Yoshiwara] quarter is an uprooted world unto itself. Its truths are the opposite of the other world's. Comparing heights by the well side - a young girl's hairdo, too, will someday, as she grows older, spread out like a fan newly opened. Let us celebrate the newly opened name. |