林謙三先生と平出久雄先生のこと

It has long been known that the late Prof. Hayashi Kenzo had, before his death, prepared a musical study of the Heian-period song genre saibara, which unfortunately still remains unpublished. In 1969 I received a letter from the professor, saying that the only obstacle preventing publication of the study was the unavailability of a single musical manuscript of the Ohara Raigoin temple written in the Koan year period (1278-1288). During my work on the medieval vocal genre soga, I was able to locate and examine this manuscript, and now regret that I was unable to inform Prof. Hayashi about it while he was still alive. Recently, on a visit to the late professor's home when I had the privilege of examining his study, I wondered whether he would object to publication of his study now that the manuscript has been located. I am sure it would be appreciated greatly by many members of our Society.<br>Recently, when my book on soga was finally published, I took the opportunity to visit the scholar Hirade Hisao at his house in Saku, Nagano prefecture, to present him with a copy. He was very ill last year, hospitalized for seven months with heart problems, and complained of bad eyesight and hearing. Loading me with messages for all of his old students and friends, he seemed to enjoy recalling his past meetings with them. As always, he was very uncompromising in regard to his own scholarly output, and although there are likely to be many fine studies of various aspects of the history of ancient Japanese music, he has published very little. I have a large collection of letters from him, full of remarkable information about the gagaku families and musicians, manuscripts and other documents, and feel that it is irresponsible of me to keep these shut up as my own personal belongings. One would like to look forward to a time when these, and other materials that our colleagues are sure to have received, as well as his own unpublished research, might be published for the benefit of all researchers in the field.