without the fourth and seventh step, which is based on the Western octave scale with notes four and seven removed; this scale became important in early 20th-century Japan and appealed to both Japanese and Western musical sensibilities. Yamada's music during the 1920s and 1930s successfully avoided the pitfall of many contemporaneous Japanese composers, who created awkward hybrids in their attempts to bridge the gap between Western and Japanese music. His music is closer to Japanese melodic ideas, and eschews the formal structural relationships of Western harmony. Matsue describes Yamada's "Akatombo" as follows: "[T]he vocal melody is quite simple but emotive .... [T]he harmonization on the piano ... is simple and unobtrusive, supporting the elegant lyrical line." Yamada was influenced by the works of Robert Schumann and other German composers, and the main phrase of this song closely resembles a musical theme that is prominently repeated numerous times in Schumann's Concert Allegro with Introduction for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 134 (1853). "Akatombo" is one of three lyric songs by Yamada using verses by Miki. Miki and Yamada both died on 29 December, their deaths exactly one year apart. Recognition In a 1989 nationwide survey by the NHK, "Akatombo" was ranked as by far the most-loved song in Japan. In 2007, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Agency for Cultural Affairs included it on their list of 100 Japanese Songs widely beloved in Japan. In 2008 the Japan Mint issued six denominations of legal tender "Aka Tombo" coins in honor of the song. A large wall-sized monument to the song, with memorial plaques, stands in Tatsuno, Hyōgo Prefecture, the hometown of the poet Rofū Miki. The song is often broadcast via outdoor speakers as part of the "5 o-clock chimes" Goji no chaimu (5時のチャイム), which mark the end of the day in many Japanese cities. Arrangements French flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal with his frequent performing partner Lily Laskine on harp, recorded an Akio Yashiro transcription of the song on their 1978 LP Japanese Melodies for Flute and Harp. On his 1982 album Yamanakabushi: Japanese Melodies, Vol. III, Rampal played a longer Yashiro arrangement of the song with , Yasuko Nakashima, and Utae Uno on kotos. In her 1981 work , commissioned by Kawai Musical Instruments, pianist and composer Haruna Miyake includes a variation of "Akatombo" written when she was twelve years old. Anne Akiko Meyers, on her 1994 CD