8. Playing Modern: Blending Japanese and Western Music

When we think about it today, it [playing music that mixed Japanese and Western elements (wayō chōwa gaku)] was a childish, low-level pastime, but back then it was enjoyed by the populace.1

Perhaps, rather than listening to and enjoying the music, it was about playing and enjoying the sound; when we consider the traditional music of Japan before the modern era, constrained by status and locality, then being able to simply take up an instrument easily and bring forth a melody on it, must have been an unsurpassable pleasure.²

Shikama Totsuji’s enthusiasm for experimenting with musical instruments and styles appears to illustrate Ueno Masaaki’s observation perfectly. Living and working as a free agent and entrepreneur, the heir of a former samurai made the most of his newly acquired liberation from the status system. He evidently enjoyed taking up new instruments and playing them. Playing Japanese music on Western instruments was part of his reform agenda; a first step towards the creation of a new national music. At the same time, it was a way of physically acting out civilization in the modern version of bunmei, which was based on Western notions of universal progress. The experience of physically acting out bunmei, together with the joy of producing a familiar melody on a novel instrument, may well explain the popular appeal of what came to be known as wayō setchū gaku (music mixing Japanese and Western elements), wayō chōwa gaku (music harmonizing Japanese and Western elements), or wayō gassō (Japanese-Western ensemble playing). The practice, which in the following will be referred to as ‘blended music’ or ‘blended performance’, could take different forms. Most commonly it involved playing traditional Japanese music of different genres on Western instruments, from sheet music in Western staff or cipher notation. Sheet music was crucial for spreading the practice as well as for enabling traditional pieces to become part of a national repertoire and thus further breaking down one of the divides that characterized the practices of Japanese music.

Its proponents can be roughly categorized as ‘reformers’ and ‘entrepreneurs’. Shikama represented both. The reformers who came after him were recent graduates of the Tokyo Academy of Music. Their arguments for music reform were similar to those of Isawa, Shikama, and others. Unlike their predecessors, however, they had thorough training in Western music, and several were employed in government institutions. Ultimately, these circumstances led them to privilege Western music.

Others, however, embraced blended music as a leisure activity, and enterprising musicians, including performers of indigenous music, promoted the practice by publishing sheet music. This was in itself revolutionary, not just because many of them used Western-style notation, but because it liberated would-be players from the need for a teacher. While the practice came to be looked upon with contempt by the Western-educated elite in Tokyo, it remained popular until at least the time around the First World War, as programmes of concerts in provincial towns, including Sendai, demonstrate.3 Even when its performance at public concerts declined, it may well have continued to be popular in more private settings: sheet music for the performance of blended music continued to be published and to be available in print well into the twentieth century.4

Music Reform in Practice: Graduates of the Tokyo Academy of Music and Blended Music

In 1909, when playing Japanese music on Western instruments was in its heyday, Katō Yōzō published one of the earliest comprehensive histories of Japanese music, which included a brief section on blended music. He defined it as the comparative study of Japanese and Western music, with the aim of making up for the weaknesses of Japanese music with the strengths of Western music in order to create an ideal music (risōteki no ongaku). As leading advocates, Katō named Kitamura Sueharu, Takaori Shūichi, and others.5 Shikama Totsuji he described as a major disseminator of Western music, who pioneered the publication of Japanese music in Western notation in Ongaku zasshi.6 Beyond that he had little to say about the new phenomenon. Interestingly, his short section is followed by one entitled ‘The advancement of our countrymen in Europe and America’, in which he briefly outlined the achievements of Tanaka Shōhei, as well as Takaori Shūichi and Iwamoto Shōji.7 The activities of the last two (treated later in this chapter) illustrate another characteristic this new generation of reformers shared with Isawa: they wanted Japan’s music to gain international currency.

Kitamura Sueharu: Sheet Music, Kabuki Reform, and Musical Theatre

Even actors who never left Japan appear to have considered a potential audience beyond Japan’s borders. Kitamura Sueharu (1872–1931) was among the last students to have studied at the Tokyo Academy of Music under Isawa, when the idea of blending Japanese and Western music had not yet been abandoned. Beginning in 1901, Kitamura published several nagauta (a lyrical genre of shamisen music) in staff notation with Kyōeki Shōsha, a leading trading company for books and musical instruments as well as a major publisher. The cover page of Kitamura’s first publication, Kanjinchō (The subscription list), is dominated by the English series title Japanese Dramatic Music, followed by the volume number, the title of the piece, and his name in romanized Japanese. Only then follow the Japanese titles. The voice part includes romanized as well as Japanese script. The following two volumes, Tsurukame (The crane and the tortoise) and Echigo jishi (Lion of Echigo) even include ‘Introductory Remarks’ in English.

Kitamura had transcribed Kanjinchō several years earlier.8 His interest in publishing Japanese music in staff notation dated back to the early 1890s, when he was still a student at the Tokyo Academy of Music. The son of a prominent scholar in Edo who counted James Hepburn among his acquaintances, Kitamura came into contact with the foreign community at an early age. From 1887 he attended Hepburn’s school, Meiji Gakuin. Wishing to study music more thoroughly, he enrolled on Shikama Totsuji’s private music course, Tōkyō Shōka Kai. After a year in the Preparatory Department of the Tokyo Academy of Music he continued into the Teacher Training Department in 1891. By then, the initial efforts at combining Western and Japanese music were losing ground, but Kitamura did study the koto with Yamase Shōin, and at his graduation in 1893 he performed as a member of a koto ensemble, playing Bach.9 A chance meeting with the wealthy businessman Kashima Seibei (1866–1924) led to the foundation of the Great Japan Music Club (Dai Nihon Ongaku Kurabu) in 1893. Kashima’s many interests included brass bands and Japanese theatre. The club’s members, who included some of Kitamura’s fellow graduates, formed a private ensemble that rehearsed regularly and played Japanese music transcribed by Kitamura.

In his transcriptions Kitamura aimed to be faithful to performance practice. He collaborated with Kineya Rokuzaemon XIII (1870–1940) and his brother Kineya Kangorō V (1875–1917), as well as their father, Rokuzaemon XII (1839–1912). Kitamura would have them play a phrase and write it down; a laborious, slow process (it took two months for the first work, Kanjinchō), although with experience they became more efficient.10

Kashima and Kitamura also collaborated with kabuki actors. The members were invited to perform at an Inari festival held at the residence of the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjūrō IX (1838–1903) on 20 and 21 April 1894.11 The performance of nagauta by the club’s mixed ensemble of Western instruments and shamisen impressed Danjūrō so much that he encored them and they performed Kanjinchō. Danjūrō’s performance in the kabuki play of that name was one of his signature roles.12 He was, moreover, a leading representative of the movement for theatre reform. At his suggestion, the club members agreed to collaborate in a performance of Ninin dōjōji (‘Two people at Dōjō temple’) at a charity event at the Kabuki-za in June.13

Meanwhile, on 28 April 1894, the club held an inaugural reception, with more performances of nagauta on Western instruments and in mixed ensembles, including Aki no irokusa (Autumn leaves), Kanjinchō, and Echigo jishi.14 Ninin dōjōji was duly performed on five days, starting on 15 June; the dancers were Danjūrō’s two daughters — another innovation, as performance in the kabuki theatre was prohibited for women before Meiji. Part of the score for the play was subsequently published in the magazine Kabuki shinpō (Kabuki news), which had been taken over by the club, backed financially by Kashima. The magazine also published scripts of plays from the private Ichikawa collection, making them publicly available for the first time.15

Danjūrō himself performed Dōjōji in the role of the female dancer, that is, as the traditional onnagata, with the music club’s mixed ensemble in January 1896. Danjūrō’s performance was praised, but the reception of the music by the critics was largely negative. The heyday of the theatre reform movement had passed anyway, and the ensemble’s accompaniment was perceived as intrusive.16

The Great Japan Music Club continued its activities for a few more months, but when Kashima ran into financial and personal difficulties it lost his backing and could not survive. Kitamura accepted an appointment at Aomori Normal School, then at Nagano Normal School, returning to Tokyo in 1901, where he worked freelance, performing and publishing music. He continued to believe that transcribing indigenous music was a meaningful contribution to the renewal of Japanese music. Between 1901 and 1909 he published several nagauta, with Kyōeki Shōsha: some of these, like Kanjinchō, may well have been based on his earlier transcriptions. He continued to publish Japanese music in staff notation in the following decade.17 Some of the nagauta he later recorded with American Columbia, featuring himself, his wife, and Maeda Kyūhachi playing violin and piano.18 He had previously performed Japanese pieces with his wife (née Amano Hatsuko), another graduate of the Tokyo Academy of Music, in the Mitsukoshi department store, where the couple, joined by Hatsuko’s sister, gave regular recitals on the violin and piano between 1906 and 1908.19

Kitamura also composed himself. Three vocal works that he described as joji shōka (narrative songs) were premiered in 1903 and 1904: Suma no kyoku (Song of Suma), Roei no yume (Dream during bivouac), and Hanare Kojima (A remote small island).20 They are forgotten today, although they were successful at the time. Roei no yume in particular became quite a hit. Its story was topical: a soldier during a bivouac (scene I) visits his home and his mother in a dream (II), until he is awakened by the sound of the bugle, calling his unit to defend themselves against an enemy attack (III). Composed for male chorus, with female soloist and instrumental interludes, Roei no yume was almost certainly premiered at Nagano Normal School, but the first recorded performance took place at a concert by the Wagner Society at Keiō University, held on 28 May 1904, in aid of soldiers fighting in the Russo-Japanese war. The following year, while the war continued, it was performed as a theatrical interlude at the Kabuki-za, with the kabuki actor Ichikawa Komazō (Matsumoto Kōshirō VII, 1870–1949), a disciple of Ichikawa Danjūrō IX, in the role of the soldier. Komazō had been among the actors and musicians associated with the Japan Music Club, where he had also tried his hand at playing Western instruments. Although apparently not the first theatrical performance, it was the first to receive media attention, including detailed reviews that enable a plausible reconstruction.21 The silent role of the soldier’s mother in the second scene (the dream) was acted by Onoe Kikusaburō IV (1860?–1937), accompanied by the female vocal solo, sung off-stage by Kitamura’s wife Hatsuko. Komazō acted, spoke lines (based on the text of the work), and sang. The male chorus was positioned as geza, on the side of the stage, to the right of the actors. In the third scene, the camp under attack, the soldiers were played by actors and accompanied by the chorus. Most of the staging thus resembled that of traditional kabuki plays, with the exception that Komazō sang some of his lines, and the instrumental sections were played with Western instruments. The performance appears to have been under-rehearsed (attempts to have the kabuki actors sing were abandoned), and the reviewers found much to criticize. Nevertheless, the show, which ran from 19 March to 23 April, was a huge success.

Conventional historiography of music in Japan describes this as the first Western-style opera by a Japanese,²² but this does not do it justice. Kitamura did not compose it with the intention of creating an opera, and the Western-style notation and terminology in the score should be considered in the context of Kitamura’s transcriptions of nagauta. The opening bars, marked ‘Recitativo’, bear a striking resemblance to those of Kitamura’s Kanjinchō transcription, likewise marked ‘Recitativo’. It therefore makes more sense to describe the performance as another example of blended music and in the context of efforts to modernize kabuki.23

Shōka, as well as children’s operettas or ‘fairy tale’ operas (otogi kageki), represent the bulk of Kitamura’s own compositions.²⁴ His opera Donburako (‘Splash’, onomatopoeic), based on the well-known tale of the ‘Peach Boy’, was published by Kyōeki Shōsha in 1912, with an English title prominently displayed on the front cover: ‘Children’s operetta Dom-Brako, in Five Scenes, the Plot Founded (sic) on the Japanese Nursery Story, The Momotaro, Word (sic) and Music composed by S. Kitamura’.25 This was the first work to be staged by the Takarazuka Girl’s Opera (Takarazuka Kageki; known today in English as the Takarazuka Revue).

Takaori Shūichi and Iwamoto Shōji: Music Reform and the Global Stage

By the time Takaori Shūichi (?–1919) and Iwamoto Shōji (1881–1954) graduated from the Tokyo Academy of Music, in 1900 and 1901 respectively, music reform was no longer actively pursued there. The two were close associates, who, at least in the early years after graduation, pursued the idea of music reform by blending Japanese and Western elements. Following Shikama’s example, they founded a music journal in 1901, together with Yamamoto Masao (previously Tsutsumi Masao; 1880–1943), who graduated from the Academy in 1903.26 This was Ongaku no tomo (Friend of music; from April 1905, Ongaku), which in 1908 merged with another journal to become Ongakukai (Music World). Ongakukai appeared monthly from January 1908 to December 1923 and attained the largest readership of all the music magazines of the time.27 Initially edited by Iwamoto, Takaori, and Yamamoto, the latter took over most of the editorial work when Takaori and Iwamoto left for the United States in spring 1905. While Shikama had demonstrated his awareness of operating in a global context by giving Ongaku zasshi an English subtitle, Ongakukai went one step further: for several years it boasted an office in New York, and Takaori was the ‘Foreign Editorial Manager’.28 Takaori remained in the United States until 1912.²⁹ He published regular reports about musical life in America.

Ongakukai, like Ongaku zasshi, covered a wide range of music-related subjects. Its contents included new songs, instruction in violin and music theory, discussions about the role of music, information about current trends, and reports about musical activities throughout Japan and abroad. Teaching, particularly of shōka, was a major theme, and presumably many of the readers were music teachers in schools.30 On the whole, Ongakukai increasingly privileged Western music, although it included articles on traditional Japanese music (hōgaku). Knowing as little as we do about the editors―beyond what they wrote for the magazine―we cannot say for sure what changed their attitude, but the years Iwamoto and Takaori spent abroad almost certainly contributed to it.

In 1904, Iwamoto Shōji expressed his views on the need for a new kind of Japanese music in an article published in Ongaku no tomo entitled, ‘Yūgeiteki ongaku to bijutsuteki ongaku’ (Music as an accomplishment and music as an art).31 He stressed the significance of music as an indispensable part of civilization (bunmei), and the need to create a new kind of music modelled on that of the West. According to Iwamoto, it was essential for Japanese to understand the importance of music as an art in order to conduct international relations in a manner befitting civilized (bunmeiteki) nations. Music was important for the health of society and for a happy family life: as an example, he cited the role of music in the German empire. The Japanese needed to learn that music was not merely a form of entertainment. Iwamoto did not advocate abolishing Japanese music, but improving it by studying Western music and creating a new form of music that comprised the best of both.32

Iwamoto’s arguments were similar to those of the earlier advocates of music reform, and like them he saw the publication of sheet music as a way to promote a new kind of music. He and Takaori Shūichi expressed their views in their publication of the sheet music for a nagauta piece in staff notation in 1904: Aki no irokusa, which they translated as ‘Autumn Leaves’. In the preface, Iwamoto extolled the beautiful elements of Japanese music and the way it suited Japanese sensibilities. By publishing the best examples in Western notation, he hoped to promote its study. Takaori, who completed the transcription, even included an English translation of his own preface:

The musical world of our country, which is in a state of revolution and transition, is busily occupied in producing various kinds of new tunes and airs, all of which unfortunately lack refined taste and gracefulness. If left to its own course, our music will lapse into a lamentable state. My esteemed friend, Mr. Shōji Iwamoto, recognized the necessity of rescuing our music from this prevailing error by the comparative study and harmonious combination of European and Japanese tunes. Through his encouragement, I have been prompted to make a theoretical study of tunes and harmony of our native music. The result is the publication of this little song, entitled ‘Akinoirokusa’ (Iinge [sic: Image] of Autumn Flowers). Although it is far from satisfactory both to the public as well as to the composer himself, as it is his maiden effort, yet the author’s work would be more than compensated, if this little volume should become the motive of further inquiry into the proper study of our music, and should prove to be the forerunner of a more enlightened, and eventually a more highly perfected musical work in our country.33

Iwamoto and Takaori put their ideas into practice at charity concerts in Shizuoka on 4 and 5 November 1904, during the Russo–Japanese War, in support of soldiers’ families.34 While the mixed programme was not unusual, advertising the Japanese titles as ‘music harmonizing Japanese and Western styles’ (wayō chōwa gaku) was. Five of the eighteen items on the programme were described in this way, two each in the first two parts of the programme (nos. 3 and 9; nos. 3 and 8) and the final performance (Part 3). These were as follows:

Rokudan (Six steps; consisting of maeuta, kumoi chōshi, hira jōshi), performed on the piano [?] by Takaori Shūichi, Muraoka Shōtarō, and Takaori Miyaji35

Tsurukame (The crane and the tortoise) – violin, piano

Muraoka Shōtarō, Takaori Shūichi, Iwamoto Shōji

Takaori Miyaji, Muraoka Shōtarō, Takaori Shūichi

Kanjinchō (The subscription list)

Reciting: Takaori Shūichi; piano: Muraoka Shōjirō, Iwamoto Shōji

Of the other items, three songs sung by all the members, as well as Kitamura Sueharu’s work, Roei no yume, might also qualify as blended music, in that they combined Western-style music with Japanese-themed lyrics. Two of them, Sanjūyon rentai (The thirty-fourth regiment) by Muraoka Shōjirō, and Kogō36 by Takaori Shūichi are described as new works. For the third, Bōyū o natsukashimu (Remembering a deceased friend), Muraoka is given as the composer, but according to the programme of the concert the group presented in Tokyo three weeks later, Schumann is named. Muraoka Shōtarō (1881–1940) was another student of the Tokyo Academy of Music, although he left without graduating, and from 1907 onwards spent twenty-five years in Dairen, China, composing and performing. The pianist Takaori Miyaji (1893–1963), Shūichi’s nephew, graduated from the Tokyo Academy of Music in 1909; he taught at the Academy from 1915 to 1946.

The concert In Tokyo took place on 27 November and again featured a mixed programme.37 Of the eight items in the first half of the programme, none were explicitly billed as wayō chōwa, but two of them were koto pieces played on Western instruments: Rokudan and Yachiyo jishi. The first was performed by Muraoka (voice; maeuta): Takaori Shūichi (piano, kumoi jōshi), and Sawada Kōichi (hira jōshi). The second was performed by the whole group. Sawada also played Kazoeuta on the piano; according to the programme, this was the Japanese song, ‘Hitotsutoya...’, which had been harmonized in America.38 Murata sang Bōyū o natsukashimu (Schumann).

The second part of the concert consisted of two nagauta, one by a typical nagauta ensemble composed of vocals and shamisen. The performers were from the Yoshizumi and Kineya schools, including the iemoto Yoshizumi Shōsaburō IV (1876–1972) and Kineya Rokushirō (1874–1956). They performed Miikusabune (The Emperor’s warship).39 The two iemoto had joined forces in 1902 and formed an association for the refinement of nagauta. They played a decisive role in elevating the status of nagauta as a genre in its own right. Both later held appointments at the Tokyo Academy of Music. The participation of musicians from the Kineya and Yoshizumi schools of nagauta in the concert, including the final joint performance, demonstrates that efforts at renewal did not only come from those primarily involved with Western music. For the final performance of Aki no irokusa, the nagauta artists were joined by Sawada Kōichi and Maeda Kyūhachi (piano); Saitō Sauda (organ), and Muraoka Shōjiro and Takaori Shūichi (violin). Maeda, Sawada, and Saitō were Academy graduates.40 This grand finale featuring blended music proved a great success, according to the (hardly unbiased) report in Ongaku no tomo.

Barely two months after the concerts, Takaori Shūichi and Iwamoto Shōji announced that they were leaving for the United States.41 They left in April 1905, and travelled to Hawaii and North America with virtually no money, planning to live by performing. The timing was auspicious: Japan had just won the war against Russia, so they could expect a heightened interest in their home country. On 21 April they gave a performance in Honolulu at the Mochizuki Club (a restaurant), with a selection of Western and Japanese pieces to ‘hearty applause’. According to the short article in The Pacific Commercial Advertiser, the two musicians were planning to study in Boston for a year before making their way to Italy.42

When they performed in San Francisco in July, their tour was worth half a page in The San Francisco Call, with an impressive photograph of the two men and an even more impressive description of their alleged status in Japan. The picture had the caption, ‘Two Japanese professors of music who discoursed interestingly on oriental melody [...].’ In the article, Takaori was described as ‘Professor Shuichi Takaori of the Tokio Musical College, ”principal of the Japan Musical College,” ”president of the Takaori Musical Studio,”’ while ‘Professor Shoji Iwamoto’, besides being called ‘the black-locked, ivory-skinned Paderewski of Japan’, was ‘“special commissioner of the Musical College of Tokyo, Japan”, ”president of the Japan Musical College,” ”proprietor and editor of the Japan Musical Magazine,” and “director general of the Tokio Musical College Graduates’ Association.”’43 The author of the article (Blanche Partington) had interviewed the duo at their hotel with ‘Mr. Mori, the Stanford student’ acting as her interpreter. She had not attended their recent concert herself, but she was treated to a short recital by Takaori, who played ‘Träumerei’, followed by ‘an “ancient chorus” arranged by himself, “Akino-Irokusa”’, and ‘the popular song expressing “The Ecstasy of joy,” Scotch and jiggy in character, and with three whole bars of “Bedella” adorning it!’ The author liked the last piece best, although she wrote, ‘it is dreadful to have to confess’ to the fact.

Apparently Takaori did most of the talking, boasting of Japan’s achievements in mastering Western music and the high standards at his alma mater, and telling her that his preferred composers were Mozart and Beethoven, who were ‘most sympathetic with the Japanese sentiment of all the European composers’. They then discussed Japanese music, and Takaori told her of their hopes for the future of music in Japan. The author found this explained clearly in the preface to Aki no irokusa (quoted above), which she quoted in full.44 She concluded by advertising the forthcoming concert, in which the duo would be playing the shamisen and the koto as well as the violin and piano.

Presumably, Takaori and Iwamoto gave several performances on their way to Boston.45 In November 1905 the pair gave a violin and piano recital as well as a performance in Japanese costume with Takaori playing the shamisen at a meeting of the National Society of New England Women; the programme included a lecture entitled, ‘Why Japan was victorious in the late war’.⁴⁶ They may well have continued to perform in order to finance their studies. In December 1912, Takaori and his wife travelled to Europe before returning to Tokyo in May 1913.⁴⁷ Iwamoto returned earlier, although when exactly is not clear.48 With or without Iwamoto, Takaori reportedly played the violin in over sixty hotels in New England over the summer (1911) and earned substantial sums of money.⁴⁹

The real success, however, was Takaori’s wife Sumiko; the same report in Ongakukai stated that she was more famous than her husband. A former voice student at the Tokyo Academy of Music, she took lessons from the famous singer Geraldine Farrar (1882–1967) in New York.50 In September 1911, Sumiko became the first Japanese to appear on stage at the Met in a matinee performance of Madame Butterfly, although not in a major role.51 Most of her performances, however, were in vaudeville theatres, with her husband acting as her musical director and as conductor. In an advertisement for a show at Chase’s in Washington she was billed as ‘Madame Sumiko, the Famous Prima Donna Soprano of the Imperial Opera House, Tokio’. The advertisement also promised ‘geisha girls, rickshaw runners etc’, suggesting that the event was to be an exotic spectacle rather than a significant musical event.⁵² Like the geisha-turned-actress Kawakami Sadayakko, or Miura Tamaki, of Madame Butterfly fame, ‘Madame Sumiko’, ably promoted by her husband, successfully capitalized on Western audiences’ fascination with Far Eastern exoticism.53

Her husband, meanwhile, had taken to conducting. In the same Washington advertisement, he was described as ‘the Celebrated Director B.S. Takaori of the Imperial Opera House’, who was to conduct ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’. Subsequent engagements in Europe included a performance on 30 December 1912, at the famous Wintergarten Varieté theatre in Berlin.⁵⁴ After their return, Takaori directed two operatic works at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo, the only two works at the time not directed by the Italian Rossi. The Takaoris travelled to America two more times, taking with them other performers and staging exotic shows.55

Takaori’s transformation from would-be reformer of Japanese music to director of music in variety shows is remarkable, although not entirely surprising. Renewing Japanese music was as much about enhancing Japan’s global reputation as it was about educating citizens. Even while expressing the need for Japan to essentially Westernize its performing arts, Takaori appears to have wanted to impress people in Western countries with displays of Japanese achievements. He wrote as much in an article published in Ongakukai not long after his return, entitled, ‘Hōgaku no kosui kara seiyō no sūhai e’ (‘From advocating Japanese music to revering Western music’).⁵⁶ When he enrolled at the Tokyo Academy of Music, he asserted, he preferred Japanese music, having played the shamisen from childhood. His Western and Japanese teachers, and even the students, were convinced of the superiority of Western music, while he himself continued to play the shamisen even while studying the violin. He came to feel that, although Japanese music had its weaknesses, these were at the same time its strengths. He had resolved to study at the Academy because he felt he needed ‘the light of Western science’ (seiyō no kagaku kō) in order to improve Japanese music.57 He began to play Japanese tunes on the violin, believing that by doing so he could revive Japanese music, which to him appeared to be doomed. Promoting blended music, he hoped, would preserve the best of Japanese music and convince others, including foreign musicians, that Japanese had a power of expression that Western music lacked. This, he claimed, was also felt by many Japanese who, although they listened to Western music without aversion, found that ultimately it left them cold. When he travelled to America it was with the double aim of deepening his knowledge of Western music and bringing Japanese music to the West. Citing the example of Arthur Schopenhauer being inspired by Indian thought, he asserted that Japanese music might do something similar for Western musicians. Once in America, however, he not only realized that his aims were contradictory, but also became convinced that Western music had something to offer that he had not yet fathomed, and that Japanese music lacked. This, for him, was the beginning of a monumental spiritual revolution.⁵⁸

Iwamoto’s priorities too had shifted. In an article published a few months before Takaori’s return he highlighted the responsibility of provincial music teachers for educating not only school children but provincial society in general.59 He did not discuss the kind of music he had in mind, but school teachers were trained in Western music, and he did not suggest that they promote other kinds, beyond briefly stating that there must be a balance between common music (zokugaku) and ‘classical music’ (kotengaku), as both had their characteristics and influenced each other. ‘Classical music’ does not refer to Western music here; Iwamoto named ‘classical’ (kotenteki) as one of the characteristics of music in the countryside.60

Iwamoto’s arguments were remarkably similar to those of the earlier propagators of music reform. Like them, he stressed the link between music and civilization (bunmei) and the importance of music for improving the customs and morals of the people. He even quoted classical Chinese literature, although not from the Confucian canon, but from a poem by Bai Juyi, who in Pipa xing (Song of the lute, 816), laments that he has been banished to a remote district (Xunyang) where there is no music and neither the sound of the lute nor the flute can be heard all year.61 Iwamoto argued that civilization, including music, had progressed in the city, but that the countryside, whose people represented the roots of a nation’s civilization, lagged behind. Meanwhile, its customs and morals were in decline, and those with responsibility for music in the countryside had to ask themselves how a people who followed the teachings of Confucius and Mencius had come to neglect rites and music. Compared to the city, culture in the countryside had deteriorated and moral decline was the result. The Ministry of Education had been promoting shōka nationwide, but its efforts were limited to schools, and had little effect on the people (kokumin) in general. The resulting void was filled with vulgar and obscene music (yahi inwai naru ongaku).62 Iwamoto concluded that it was up to music teachers to use their expertise outside as well as inside the schools in order to promote and improve music in the countryside; he suggested three areas of work: 1) Innovations in teaching methods and choice of songs; 2) Promoting and organizing music in the home; 3) Community education, including the organization of movement games associations (Ongaku Yūgi Kai) for children as well as school concerts on public holidays.

Iwamoto’s views reflect the Confucian idea of music as an important tool for improving the morals of the people and by extension the whole country. His argument that the individual home (katei) is the foundation of the state is another familiar concept from the Chinese classics.63 But Iwamoto also described the home as a paradise on earth, where the family enjoys peace and happiness, when he recommended music in the home (katei ongaku), a new (and Western-inspired) concept, much discussed at the time. His phrase ‘our humble little home’ (Waga hanyū no shōsha) is reminiscent of the Japanese version of ‘Home Sweet Home’.64 Iwamoto frequently referred to Europe and America (Ō-Bei), where, according to him, music outside the big cities, while not the same, was highly developed. He concluded by stating that the quality of music in the countryside should be regarded as closely related to the prosperity and decline of the nation’s fortunes. The harmony (chōwa) between Japanese (or ancient Chinese) and Western civilizations was arguably more successful in the realm of ideas than of practical music-making, and katei ongaku remained an unfulfilled dream.65

By 1913, Ongakukai clearly privileged Western music, particularly the teaching of music in the public education system. Japanese music, while not neglected entirely, was given nowhere near as much space as in Ongaku zasshi. Blended music featured hardly at all, except when writers criticized the practice of playing Japanese music on Western instruments. One commentator, writing in 1910, compared Osaka, the city of merchants, unfavourably with Tokyo and described its inhabitants’ taste in Western music as superficial and childish: they treated the violin as a variant of the kokyū and played popular koto pieces on it. All koto teachers now had to teach the violin and taught Japanese music, taking payment for each new piece they taught. Others played Japanese pieces on the piano. The businesspeople of Osaka, the author speculated, did not want anything too demanding after a long working day. Thus, he lamented, the violin and the piano, the flowers of Western music, were abused.66

Criticism of what he perceived as deviant and backward practice was also expressed in Yamanoi Motokiyo’s series ‘Baiorin sōhō oyobi gakushū hō’ (How to play and study the violin), published in Ongakukai in seven instalments in 1912.67 Yamanoi, a court musician and a graduate of the Tokyo Academy of Music, essentially equated playing Japanese tunes with playing badly.⁶⁸ He condemned what he called the haikara fashion of playing the violin, supposedly common in Kansai, with the bow held around the middle of the stick rather than close to the nut. The violin, the king of instruments (the Chinese character has the phonetic syllables for the English word ‘king’ printed above it), deserved better, Yamanoi asserted.69

The self-appointed authorities on the nation’s music in Tokyo might have abandoned the idea of playing Japanese music on Western interests as immature, but that did not prevent the practice from becoming highly popular in the early twentieth century.

Blended Music as a Commercial Enterprise

While the reformers published traditional Japanese music in staff notation and performed it on Western instruments as part of their agenda for music reform, there was another trend, that, arguably, threatened to thwart their efforts and heightened their sense of urgency.

Playing popular Japanese tunes on Western instruments was not invented by music reformers. The military bands included well-known common music pieces (zokkyoku) in their repertoire, and the private bands formed by civilians that began to proliferate in the 1880s naturally selected repertoire that appealed to their audiences with its familiarity. The repertoire of Shikama’s youth band likewise included Japanese pieces.

For individuals wanting to try their hand at playing a Western instrument, a substantial number of instrumental tutors and sheet music collections of pieces became available from the end of the century. In the 1890s, the accordion was one of the most widely played Western instruments; from the turn of the century, its popularity was surpassed by the violin. Shikama Totsuji was one of the first to cater to the new trend. He published Tefūgin dokushū no tomo (The Accordion: a companion for self-study) in 1890.70 Shikama employed cipher notation, which would have been familiar to some readers from shōka education in elementary schools. Besides shōka, the pieces in the collection included marches and Japanese music of various genres. Volume three (1892) includes a brief description of percussion instruments for use in an ensemble (as later seen in Shikama’s youth band), as well as an explanation of accordion fingering and of notation symbols.

In total, at least forty-six music collections for accordion were published in Tokyo and in the Kansai area from 1890 to the end of the Meiji period.71 Like Shikama’s publications, most of them were intended for self-study and aimed at ‘beginners’, although it is not always evident whether this meant beginners of the instrument or of Western music in general. Nearly all included explanations of basic (Western) musical theory. Several authors described the accordion as particularly suited to self-study.72 The notation systems used reflected the intended audience: tablature was the most common, used exclusively in more than half of the publications (twenty-six) although not in the same way; another thirteen used it in combination with one or two other systems. Cipher notation followed. Staff notation, exclusively or in combination with other systems, was only used by nine publications in total.73 Tablature, being instrument-specific, was, of course, not helpful for ensemble playing. Some authors, like Shikama, included hints on playing with others. Machida Ōen (1896), for example, included advice on playing together with shamisen and even a tablature for flageolet. He included both tablature and cipher notation.74

Even while introducing Western-based musical theory and notation, many collections included only Japanese pieces, variously described as zokkyoku (common pieces) or zakkyoku (miscellaneous pieces), which also dominated most of the other publications.⁷⁵ Machida Ōen divided the fifty-five pieces in his 1896 publication into shōka (fourteen); military songs (gunka; eight); marches (five); common music (twenty-three), and Qing music (five). Musically, shōka and gunka, like marches, can be described as ‘Western’. The shōka, beginning with Kimigayo, included several that celebrated national holidays, and in that sense might be described as blended songs. It seems safe to assume that both the shōka and military songs would have been familiar to the publication’s audience, and the same may well be true of the marches.

The accordion tutors contributed to the dissemination of both knowledge of Western music theory and of repertoire from common music.76 The latter caused concern for advocates of reform, as is evident from an article in Ongaku zasshi whose author, writing from Tokushima, lamented the poisonous influence of obscene and coarse (inwai yahi) music being published to satisfy commercial interests.⁷⁷ There must have been considerable demand; many of the publications for accordion went through several editions. Buying by mail order was well established, so they could be obtained even in remote parts of the country.

In the early twentieth century, the violin began to surpass the accordion in popularity. By January 1907 the magazine Ongaku sekai (The world of music) described the violin as the most widely played instrument, and several other newspapers and magazines that year also mentioned its popularity.78 Two years later, an article in the Ōsaka Asahi newspaper remarked upon the huge popularity of violin lessons.⁷⁹ For women, wrote the author, the violin competed with the koto as a desirable accomplishment for marriage. The most popular teacher was Kōga Musen, who had come to Osaka in 1888 with the band of the army’s fourth division. Kōga Musen (Ryōtarō, 1867–?) who also taught the accordion,80 believed that people would take pleasure in playing the violin if, rather than struggling with Western pieces, they learnt familiar Japanese tunes. He taught his students to play the violin kneeling on the floor in Japanese style, so that they could comfortably join in an ensemble with koto and shamisen in the home.

Newspapers and magazines may have actively contributed to the trend as well as catering to it. Articles in the music magazines introduced famous violinists such as Paganini and Sarasate and legendary makers such as Stradivarius, as well as providing practical instructions on how to play the violin. Domestic production had, moreover, resulted in affordable instruments becoming widely available.81 School teachers, especially those trained at the Tokyo Academy of Music and the prefectural teacher training schools, learnt the violin and used it for teaching shōka when no reed organ or piano was available. From around 1890, individual musicians established private music courses or gave individual lessons. Some, like Kōga, were veterans of the military bands, while others had graduated from the Tokyo Academy of Music. In Sendai, Maedako Shinkin, who had trained at the seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tokyo, became one of the most active violin teachers in the city (see Chapter 9). In the 1890s and early 1900s, at least nine teachers offered music courses in Osaka, four in Kobe, and five in Kyoto. From around 1907, advertisements for violin studios in Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, and Wakayama appear in the newspapers.82

It presumably helped that the Japanese were already familiar with stringed instruments, bowed as well as plucked. Takaori wrote that he chose to study violin at the Tokyo Academy of Music because it resembled the shamisen most closely.⁸³ Japan’s only native bowed lute, the kokyū, was still played as part of a sankyoku ensemble with koto and shamisen, although it was increasingly replaced by the shakuhachi. Several types of Chinese fiddles were, moreover, played in Ming-Qing music. It may well be significant that the violin became popular around the time that the popularity of Ming-Qing music suffered a setback during the Sino-Japanese war of 1894–95 (although Ming-Qing music continued to be enjoyed well into the twentieth century).84 The violin could, if played appropriately, blend in well with indigenous stringed instruments.

Indeed, versatility is one of the chief characteristics of the violin. Associated with a wide range of musical genres and styles even within Western music, and played among all classes, it accompanied Europeans wherever they went and, in the late nineteenth century, became an ‘instrument of four continents’, which often displaced indigenous instruments. Its adoption outside Europe can thus ‘be seen as an index to the expansion of European influence over the centuries’.⁸⁵ In Meiji Japan, it represented Western civilization.⁸⁶

Given the limited supply of teachers, many attempted to study the violin by themselves, and, as with the publications for the accordion, most of the violin tutors were intended for self-study.87 Even in the earliest tutors, the repertoire of practice pieces included the odd sōkyoku. The first tutor to include common music pieces was Tsūzoku vaiorin hitorimanabi: shiyōhō no bu; jisshū no bu (A popular violin self-study book: method section; practical section), first published in 1905. With at least thirty-one print runs by 1926, it was one of the most popular tutors.88 In the preface the author, Ōtsuka Torazō, stated that he was responding to the rising popularity of the violin, and that the violin blended well with the koto and the shamisen.⁸⁹ In the following years, most tutors included popular common pieces (zokkyoku). For example, the practice repertoire in Vaiorin dokushū no shiori (A guide to self-study for the violin), published in 1906, included separate sections with shōka for Japan’s national holidays (eight, including Kimigayo), the national anthems of six countries, marches and dances (seven), and zokkyoku (ten pieces).90 Another example, a short treatise published in 1907, consisted of four pages explaining staff notation and musical terms, followed by twenty-four pages of koto and shamisen pieces (jiuta) including lyrics, some of them with parts for ensemble playing.91

Some tutors included advice on playing in an ensemble with koto and shamisen, most remarkably another bestselling tutor, Violin kōgiroku (Violin lecture notes), published in Fukuoka in 1913, which by 1933 had been reprinted 151 times.⁹² The book, which used both staff and cipher notation, as well as ‘do re mi’ in Japanese syllables, included a section entitled, ‘Posture when playing in a Japanese-style room’ with the following advice:

To play a Japanese piece, one has to play with the frame of mind (kimochi) appropriate to a Japanese piece. One does not hear Japanese songs sung as one sings hymns. It is the same thing. And if you fold a floor cushion twice and put it under your behind while you play, it is more comfortable to bow and your feet will not go numb. 93

The following page (18) depicts a woman in Japanese dress playing, kneeling on the floor with a low music stand. The caption, besides repeating the advice about the folded cushion, adds that it is acceptable to lower the violin slightly to look at the music.

The above passage not only points out the difference between Western and Japanese musical genres and their performance styles, but also emphasizes the significance both of space and of physical posture and how they relate to the appropriate frame of mind for playing a given piece of music. The mention of people who insisted on playing the violin standing up (although even Western musicians sit down to play in orchestras or chamber ensembles) and who treat koto pieces like marches is revealing. Possibly, the staff notation of Japanese pieces encouraged march-like playing because of the visual impact of the two- or four-time rhythms and dotted notes. On the other hand, the observation may have been addressed to the kind of haikara-would-be violinists condemned by Yamanoi Motokiyo. It suggests that many people took up the violin because of its significance as a symbol of Western civilization. Haikara described people superficially aping Western ways, mainly by displaying Western apparel and gadgets. For the people thus designated, however, adopting haikara fashions and in particular an activity such as playing the violin may well have expressed a desire to join in with Japan’s modernization project. Playing the violin―or any Western musical instrument―was a way of physically performing Western civilization. Music represented one of the most exalted products of this civilization, and the violin, as readers were regularly reminded, was the king (or, occasionally, the queen) of Western instruments.94

One tutor stands out as the only work that actually advertises itself as a violin tutor specifically for Japanese music: (Hōgaku sokusei) Vaiorin tebiki (A short course of Japanese music for the violin), published in 1913.95 The author, Machida Ōen (Hisa; ?–1928), was an active promoter of blended music. He had previously published a violin tutor which included a few Japanese pieces,96 as well as tutors for accordion, koto, shamisen, gekkin, minshingaku flute, harmonica (mouth organ), and shakuhachi. In addition, he published collections of shōka, biwa songs, hauta, zokkyoku, and nagauta.97

In his new violin tutor, Machida used staff notation (the earlier tutor used cipher notation), and in the preface he recommended playing Japanese tunes with Western instruments. His explanations of violin playing and musical notation were followed by popular Japanese pieces of different genres, including Rokudan and Echigo jishi. The book nevertheless concluded with a selection of Western tunes, including ‘Boat Song (Lightly Row), and ‘Rose Song’ (The Last Rose of Summer), as well as (Western) dances. The final page had a short glossary of Western musical terms. Thus, even while promoting his ideal of playing Japanese music on Western instruments, Machida included the most popular tunes from the school song books; presumably, he could assume that they had become as familiar as the Japanese favourites.98

Only four years later, however, in 1917, Machida published a new version of his Violin tebiki, this time entitled Violin sokusei yōgaku tebiki. This edition included an English title page with the following inscription:

The use of English, even in a work that appears to be intended for a Japanese audience, is another indication that playing a Western instrument signalled awareness of and a desire to actively participate in what was perceived to be the modern civilized world. Machida’s preface seems to suggest the same: his earlier book, he stated, suited the times and enjoyed a good reception. Now, however, times were progressing, the taste for Western music had spread widely and a national music worthy of an advanced country (shinkōkoku no kokugaku) was not far off. The first pages of the book (introducing the violin and the notation system) are almost identical with his previous book, but the practice pieces are shōka or famous pieces from the Western repertoire. Evidently, Machida, one of the most prominent propagators of blended music, felt that the fashion was fading.

There is, however, good reason to assume that playing Japanese music on the violin remained popular for longer than Machida’s views, or reports (or lack thereof) in Ongakukai imply. This is suggested by the considerable amount of sheet music published at the time, and, perhaps even more significantly, by the fact that these publications, including some of Machida’s own, remained available for years. Although initially advocated as a measure for music reform, most of the substantial series of individual pieces were published by enterprising individuals, often performers of traditional Japanese music. Twenty-two series have been identified, of which thirteen were issued continuously.99 The publisher of the earliest one was Nakao Tozan (1876–1956), best known as the founder of the Tozan school of shakuhachi. Trained chiefly in the jiuta school, he travelled widely in the Kansai area and played with many different local musicians before settling in Osaka and founding his school in 1896. His shakuhachi tutor for self-study, published in 1908, although not the first of its kind, is regarded as a major break with the tradition of direct transmission from teacher to student.100 Tozan also published Western pieces for the shakuhachi: one of his shakuhachi tutors even includes a picture of a shakuhachi player standing (rather than kneeling Japanese style) and using a music stand.¹⁰¹ Playing Japanese pieces on Western instruments remained more common than the other way round, however.

Nakao had already begun to collaborate with Kōga Musen, with whom he also performed.102 From 1906 they published a thirty-four-volume series for the violin, including thirty-eight zokkyoku pieces.¹⁰³ The first volume contained the koto piece Chidori no kyoku (Song of the Plovers). Besides Nakao, this edition listed Kōga Musen and two other violinists as co-editors. The publications used staff notation throughout. They were intended for playing in mixed ensembles with Japanese instruments.104 Kōga published his own series from 1910 onwards. The fifty-two volumes included fifty-nine zokkyoku pieces. Kōga played the saxophone, but he had also mastered the violin and performed on both.105 In 1897 he founded a violin ensemble with his students.¹⁰⁶

Sheet Music and the Nationwide Dissemination of Japanese and Blended Music

Presumably it is because the highly active and prolific Nakao and Kōga were based in the Kansai region, and because musical activities in general are well-documented there, that blended music has been associated with that region.107 But the sheer amount of sheet music published suggests that it was much more widely practised, and some of the music was published in Tokyo, such as the many and varied volumes published by Machida Ōen for different instruments. One of his first was the nagauta, Dōjoji, first published in 1907, with a third edition in 1912.108 His series for violin, published from 1907, consisted of seventeen volumes in staff notation, mostly nagauta and sōkyoku.109 Volume 3 of his collection of hauta (a genre of short shamisen songs) included diagrams of a piano keyboard and a violin fingerboard and presented the songs in cipher notation.110

Hauta in staff notation were also published by the piano technician Fukushima Takurō (1886–1958), who was likewise based in Tokyo. He also published koto pieces (in the version used by the Yamada school) for violin in staff notation.111 His Vaiorin dokushū no tomo (Violin: a companion to self-study, 1910) had a picture on the cover of two people playing the violin: a man in a suit who is standing, and a woman in Japanese dress and sitting in Japanese style (seiza), and it included a section on how to tune the violin to a koto, shamisen, or shakuhachi. ¹¹² The practice repertoire included koto and shamisen pieces. This suggests that even in Tokyo, with its conservatoire and a substantial Western music scene, there was a market for blended music.

Even when the number of new publications declined, existing ones continued to be reprinted.113 The volumes of Nakao’s and Kōga’s violin series are listed in a catalogue issued by the Kansai-based music shop Miki Gakki in 1923, which included a substantial number of other publications of Japanese music for violin and various Western instruments, such as a nine-volume series of nagauta transcribed by Kitamura Sueharu listed under sheet music for piano.114 In addition, Ongakukai continued to publish advertisements for such sheet music even while its authors rejected the performances of blended music, and even after it had virtually ceased to report on concerts that included such music. Clearly, there was a discrepancy between what the elite propagated and what even readers of Ongakukai, who can be assumed to have had an interest in Western music, practised. 115

Compared to the availability of and demand for sheet music, actual performances are much harder to ascertain: they almost certainly went underreported once the fashion had passed. The declining number of programmes listing performances of blended music that were published in Ongakukai does not necessarily reflect reality. In Sendai, where the private music academy Tohōku Ongakuin regularly gave concerts featuring such music, the programme of a concert in the spring of 1917 featured only two such items, according to Ongakukai, and by 1920 blended music did not feature at all.116 On the other hand, an earlier issue in 1917 contained programmes of a concert in Shuri (Okinawa) and another in Otaru (Hokkaidō).117 The concert in Shuri was the first organized by a newly formed music association and the programme listed twenty-five items, including solo and ensemble performances of Western music (singing, piano, organ, violin, mandolin), satsumabiwa, chikuzenbiwa, and koto, as well as three items described as ‘Ryūkyū ongaku’, and one violin and koto ensemble playing Chidori. The concert in Otaru, described as the third organized by the Katei Ongaku Kai (Association for Music in the Home), likewise featured a mixture of Western and Japanese music; the thirteen items on the programme included one item each with koto, shakuhachi, satsumabiwa; an ensemble of koto and shakuhachi, and one performance of blended music: the sōkyoku Chidori, played by an ensemble of shakuhachi and violin. These programmes suggest that far from the major cities, concert programmes featuring a mixture of Western, traditional Japanese, and blended music were not uncommon, and that a popular piece like Chidori had become, as it were, national repertoire.

Even if the performance of blended music gradually disappeared from concert programmes, it may well have been played in other more private settings, as was the case with traditional Japanese music. One of them may have been the home. Starting in the last years of the Meiji era, both music magazines and magazines for women published articles discussing music as an important part of family life, and introducing the concept of katei ongaku. The term was used in various ways, sometimes, but by no means always, as a direct translation of the German Hausmusik. The discourse must be seen in the wider context of social and cultural change at the time, including changing perceptions of the domestic space.118 Ongakukai published several articles on the subject from the 1910s onwards. Opinions differed markedly on a number of points, including which instruments were the most suitable and whether traditional Japanese music, Western music, or blended music was most appropriate. While most either explicitly or implicitly recommended Western music, others recommended traditional Japanese music, or some kind of blended music; among them were Kitamura Hatsuko (Kitamura Sueharu’s wife), and Tōgi Tetteki, a court musician trained in Western music.119 They asserted that Western music was still far removed from people’s lives and experiences, and that their preferences could not be changed overnight.

Meanwhile, in 1910, the Dai Nihon Katei Ongaku Kai (Great Japan Home Music Society) was founded in Fukuoka, with the aim of promoting and disseminating appropriate music for music-making in the home, whether Western, Japanese, ancient, or modern.120 Besides tutors for self-study, like Tsūshin kyōju vaiorin kōgiroku (introduced above), the Society published sheet music for Japanese and Western instruments, including the koto, the shakuhachi, the violin, and the mandolin. From 1915 until about 1925 it also published a magazine, Katei ongaku (Home music), which, although it included educational articles, served mainly as a forum where learners studying by themselves could interact, somewhat like today’s social media (some even sent in photos of themselves). Interestingly, the majority of learners interacting through Katei ongaku appear to have been male, both students and working men.121 Music in the home was otherwise regarded as the sphere of women and children, the men being largely absent until they came home from work and (ideally) found solace in listening to the music rather than joining in.122

From 1924, the Society published the ‘New Japanese Music’ (shin hōgaku) of Miyagi Michio (1894–1956). It may well be that it was the fact that they had published Miyagi’s piece for shakuhachi and koto, Haru no umi (Sea in springtime) in staff notation in 1931 that enabled the French violinist Renée Chemet (1888–?) to perform the work with Miyagi himself at one of her recitals. The performance, which can be classified as an example of blended music, met a mixed reception.123 By this time, playing Japanese music on Western instruments had largely been relegated to the private sphere, and we cannot be sure how widespread or popular the practice was.

Blended music has been treated as a stage of transition that helped the Japanese become familiar with Western music. While it may well have been that, it should not be overlooked that it also increased familiarity with different genres of Japanese music, which, thanks to instrumental tutors for self-study and considerable amounts of published texts and notated music, was more widely disseminated than before; this trend only increased with the dissemination of sound media in the 1920s. As well as traditional genres, gramophone recordings around this time included blended music: the Shikama sisters recorded at least two: Yachiyo jishi and Takasago.124

The strict separation of traditional Japanese and Western music was, then, by no means a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, by the 1920s the trend towards placing both European art music and traditional Japanese music on their separate pedestals, to be kept unsullied by hybridity, had begun. There is a certain irony in the fact that some of the former promoters of blended music, including Kitamura Sueharu and Maeda Kyūhachi, ended up working for the Hōgaku Research Committee at the Tokyo Academy of Music (see Chapter 3), the aim of which was to preserve rather than to renew traditional music.

Another irony is that in the late twentieth century, when efforts were made to re-introduce the Japanese to their musical traditions, this sometimes happened in the form of playing hardy perennials from the European canon or ‘Western’-sounding contemporary popular tunes on Japanese instruments. The first track on the accompanying CD to an introduction to Japanese instruments is Ave Maria by Bach/Gounod, followed by Bizet’s famous minuet from L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2, and Saint-Saëns’ The Swan, played on the koto and the shakuhachi. The remaining four tracks are instrumental versions of shōka; the only one that might be perceived as sounding ‘Japanese’ is Jūgoya otsukisan (Full moon), composed by Motoori Nagayo (1885–1945).¹²⁵ Thus a kind of reverse blending of Japanese and Western served to re-introduce young Japanese to the music of their ancestors.