A personal view by Bernard Keeffe

Filmed during one long, hot summer month of August, this music documentary is a series of vivid impressions of how the Japanese have not only wholeheartedly adopted Western music but are now challenging the West in musical education and in the mass production of music itself. For instance Dr Shinichi Suzuki teaches his violin pupils (the youngest not yet 2 years old) to play with the naturalness of a spoken language. But now Japanese composers are searching for a national style of expression after 100 years' exposure to Western traditions.

"The best music documentary to have been shown for a long time. The Japanese emerged from this programme as fiercely determined to beat the West at the cultural as well as the economic game musical" (Times: April 1971)