9. Local Pioneers and the Beginnings of Western Music
in Sendai

[...] and becoming the prefecture’s first music educator, he was appointed to his alma mater and henceforth he taught at Miyagi Prefecture Normal school, as well as simultaneously holding appointments at Sendai First Lower Secondary School, Sendai Second Lower Secondary School, the Sendai Army Preparatory School, Hōzawa Shōsō School, Miyagi Prefectural Police Training Academy, and others. Not only that: he was constantly on the move as a lecturer, never resting. As a pioneering man of music of his time, our teacher composed the music and lyrics of numerous songs that were sung with pleasure and inspired the people’s spirit. Looking back at the progress of music education in our prefecture, it is no exaggeration to call him our unforgettable teacher to whom we owe gratitude (onshi).1

The above excerpt from a large memorial stone erected honour of Shikama Totsuji’s younger brother Shinji’s achievements, in front of the main hall of Kōmyōji temple in the northern part of Sendai, testifies to the importance of individual actors in disseminating Western music and the practices associated with it. Although Western music was well established in government institutions by the late 1880s, it took longer for it to become more widely disseminated. Outside the capital and the major port towns with their substantial foreign population, most Japanese had limited opportunities to hear Western music of any kind. In Sendai, the first efforts to introduce Western music were made as early as the 1870s, but it was not until the 1880s, when the Tokyo Academy of Music began to train teachers sent by the prefectures, and two missionary schools opened in the city, that the necessary preconditions were created. Even then it took several years until music was taught at all in schools and a concert scene developed. Public concerts, a modern institution even in Western countries, did not take place regularly until well into the 1890s. In in the early ones, performances of traditional Japanese music and arts dominated. The public concert as an institution thus preceded the regular performance of Western music. Over the years, it became a creative space, where the people of Sendai encountered the modern world as it was both represented and shaped through its music.2

Most people are likely to have preferred traditional sounds anyway, and as a flourishing commercial city, Sendai naturally offered all kinds of musical entertainment. A list of performing artists and geisha in Miyagi prefecture shows the following figures for performers of traditional musical genres based in Sendai in 1882, totalling 269:

  1. Gagaku musicians (ongaku reijin) – 11
  2. Minshingaku – 24
  3. Jōruri – 12
  4. Teachers of the above (dō shosensei mongyō) – 124
  5. Nagauta – 14
  6. Shinnai – 12
  7. Tokiwazu – 51
  8. Kiyomoto – 51
  9. Hayashi – 123

Apart from court music, Ming-Qing music and hayashi (performers in percussion ensembles), the genres mentioned are all types of narrative shamisen music.4 These art forms remained popular well into the twentieth century, when gramophone recordings and broadcasting provided new platforms for their dissemination.5 The introduction of Western music did not in itself lead to their displacement, as the venues and social context of performance differed.

Efforts to introduce Western music into the newly established public school system in Miyagi prefecture began in the 1870s. As we have seen, Ono Shōgorō, one of several young men from Sendai who had been converted to the Russian Orthodox faith in Hakodate, published one of the earliest treatises discussing the role of music in education and arguing in favour of teaching Western music (see Chapter 6).6 His call to introduce music into schools was taken up by the school teacher Yano Nariaya (1830–94), who began to teach singing at his elementary school using textbooks published by the Tokyo Normal School for Women. His lessons were not part of the regular curriculum, but hardly any public schools at the time taught singing, so his course would appear to be one of the first of its kind.7

This began to change in the 1880s through increased missionary activity and efforts by the local authorities. In September 1882 Imafuku Tatsuo from Miyagi Normal School became the first educator from Sendai to be sent on a short training course at the Music Research Institute in Tokyo. He graduated in July 1883. His certificate detailed his achievements: singing and playing on the organ the first twenty-four songs in the first volume of songs for use in schools (shōka).8 That same year, Maedako Nobuchika (or Shinkin; 1861 (?)–1929), another convert to the Russian Orthodox Church, returned to his native town. He had studied music at the Russian Orthodox Seminary in Tokyo and subsequently taught church music at several churches. Although his service to the local church appears to have been less than satisfactory,9 he played an important role as a pioneer of Western music. For decades, his private studio with the impressive-sounding name Tōhoku Ongakuin (Tohoku Academy of Music) trained numerous students in Western music and organized regular concerts featuring both Western music and blended music.10 He performed himself, as did his daughters Haruko and Nobuko and his son Wataru. Haruko reportedly never married and was active as a violin teacher even after 1945: she died in in her eighties in 1975; she is an example of a pioneer whose professional engagement with Western music extended into the next generation of her family.11

The Shikama Brothers in Sendai

It is Shikama Jinji (1863–1941), however, the younger brother of Shikama Totsuji, who is generally described as the first music teacher of note in Sendai.12 In contrast to Maedako, he was educated in the modern public schools, where he also worked for most of his career. He held appointments at a number of schools in the prefecture for around fifty years, as is evident from the inscription quoted at the beginning of this chapter. The erection of a large memorial stone by grateful students in 1958, seventeen years after his death, represents an eloquent testimony to the respect his initiatives gained him.

Jinji was already a member of the ‘new’ generation whose education spanned the period of transition from traditional samurai education to the establishment of the modern school system.13 Having a traditional education in the Confucian classics, he continued his studies at Miyagi Normal School (Miyagi Shihan Gakkō) from 1878 to 1881. Immediately after graduation at the young age of eighteen, he became principal of Kashima Primary School in the Watari district.

In 1884, Shikama Jinji was sent by his home prefecture to complete a short teacher training course at the institute of the Music Investigation Committee. Candidates had to take an examination, at which Jinji achieved the highest marks. Even Jinji’s marks were distinctly lower in the singing test and in arithmetic (where the standard was generally low) than in the other two subjects, reading and essay writing. Although some candidates did miserably, all were admitted to the course, because the number of applicants fell below the institute’s quota.14

Both of the Shikama brothers graduated in July 1885 (the university’s later yearbooks mistakenly give the year as 1886), and Jinji returned to Sendai, where he remained for the rest of his life, and enjoyed a busy and successful career in education.15 He held concurrent teaching appointments at several schools besides his alma mater, including the ones named in the inscription quoted earlier. He acted as a school inspector and as an invited teacher at schools around Miyagi prefecture. In 1911 he officially retired from Miyagi Normal School, but continued to teach there until 1932. In 1923, he became the fourth principal of Miyagi Prefectural School for the Blind and Dumb (Miyagi Kenritsu Mōa Gakkō), a post he held until September 1933, during which time he significantly contributed to the development of special needs education (tokushu kyōiku).

Shikama Jinji’s activities went well beyond his regular appointments and helped disseminate knowledge of Western music beyond the classroom. In this regard he was typical of local pioneers elsewhere. Reports on musical activities in different parts of Japan regularly appeared in Ongaku zasshi, presumably supplied by the local actors themselves. Some highlighted the role of named individuals. Unsurprisingly, Sendai (and sometimes other parts of Miyagi prefecture) featured often in the early issues of Ongaku zasshi: almost certainly, Jinji acted as Totsuji’s main informant.

The earliest report about musical activities in the prefecture appeared in the second issue of Ongaku zasshi. It informed readers that music was being taught at the Second Lower Secondary School, the Normal School, three higher primary schools, and ten standard primary schools, as well as girls’ schools, and private sewing schools. The schools had organs, while the violin was used to teach movement games (yūgi) at the Normal School and the primary schools. Shikama Jinji had taught summer courses at the Normal School in 1887 and 1889, with sixty-eight participants in total; most of the current teachers had been trained on these courses. He regularly gave summer courses and lectures in different locations in Miyagi prefecture. With children now singing shōka when they gathered to play, the vulgar songs of the past would soon be eradicated, the unnamed author of the report remarked optimistically.16 The participants of the training courses in turn strove to further disseminate music education in the prefecture’s schools, and to further their aim, they founded the Miyagi Music Society (Miyagi Ongaku Kai) in 1889.17 The next report in Ongaku zasshi was short, but equally positive about the progress being made; shōka could be heard widely, even from errand boys and apprentices (kozō detchi); likewise, the sounds of organ, violin, and accordion, as well as Ming-Qing music could often be heard.18

The first musical performance in Sendai to be reported in Ongaku zasshi took place when the new building of the Second Higher Secondary School was inaugurated on 26 October 1891.19 A military band played ceremonial music (neither the band nor the music are specified),20 and the event included a sports meeting, accompanied by music. The music teacher, Takagi Tsuguo, conducted an ensemble playing a song he had composed to celebrate the occasion.21 In the afternoon there was a concert of koto music, where Sansa shigure,22 Rokudan etc. were performed. After this, a well-known local shingaku (Qing music) musician, Mr. Yamashita, intended to perform in honour of the occasion, but the audience had begun to disperse. According to Ongaku zasshi, the graceful and cheerful (yūbi kaikatsu) sound of the band had absorbed all their attention, and there was no audience for Yamashita’s performance, so he went home without having been heard: ‘this is how it is with European music and Qing music.’23

Subsequent reports suggest that Western music had by no means upstaged the local performing arts. The next report of a concert appeared in the March 1892 issue.24 It was a charity concert, one of many held in Japan at the time, organized by about ten local people, including musicians and music teachers.25 Held at the Sendai-za theatre, the concert reportedly drew an audience of two thousand and several hundreds. It lasted all day, and the programme included gagaku (performed by the Okabe troupe); two-stringed koto (yakumogoto, performed by the Haga troupe); koto (Yamashita troupe); Qing music (shingaku, Yamashita Oikawa troupe); singing (yōkyoku, Raishindō Satō troupe); comic noh interlude (kyōgen, Suzuki troupe); European music (Maedako troupe); tightrope walking (Wakatayu); hayashi (Katata troupe), and kabuki dance (Bandō troupe). The event was reportedly a huge success, raising one hundred yen and eighty-seven sen.26 The performances were clearly more varied than we would expect at a conventional concert, reminiscent of variety theatre or music hall events.

This report was followed up with a short note in the next issue describing charity concerts in general as a praiseworthy undertaking and commending the recent event in Sendai as an example.27 As well as raising money for general welfare projects (the money was presented to the local authorities), the purpose of the concert had also been to promote ‘our country’s traditional music’.28

A year later, Ongaku zasshi reported another charity concert, described as the third of its kind. Attended by 2,687 people and raising 68 yen 503 sen, it was described as an unprecedented success.29 The report listed twenty programme items (while implying that there were more), all of them Japanese genres: 1) imayō (popular songs of the ancient court); 2) gagaku (court music); 3) kumoi (koto played with a particular tuning); 4) Qing music; 5) shakuhachi; 6) two-stringed koto; 7) narimono (kabuki-theatre style ensemble with drums and flutes); 8) nagauta (a sung genre with shamisen accompaniment); 9) nagauta, imayō; 10) teodori (pantomimic dancing similar to that in the kabuki theatre); 11) gidayu (a narrative genre with shamisen); 12) nōgaku (music of the nō theatre); 13) kyōgen (comic interludes in nō theatre); 14) kiyomoto (a genre founded in the nineteenth century); (15) chaban (a type of short sketch with origins in kabuki theatre); 16) kiyomoto; 17) gentō (slide show); 18) satsumabiwa; 19) teodori; 20) Miyagi no sato jizen no nigiwai (The prosperity of benevolence in Miyagi village). Given that most of the listed items included several pieces, this concert, like the one previously reported, must have continued for many hours.

A fourth charity concert was announced in the September 1893 issue of Ongaku zasshi.30 The short notice included the information that ten members of the Association for Native Japanese Music (Kokufū Ongaku Kai) would be coming from Tokyo to perform. This society was founded earlier that year with the aim of preserving, reforming, and promoting the indigenous music of Japan (see Chapter 3). Whether they actually came to perform in Sendai is unclear, as Ongaku zasshi published no report after the concert. The November issue carried a report on what appears to be a separate concert, staged at the Sendai-za theatre on 19 November by the Sendai Philanthropy Society (Sendai Jizen Kai; formerly Sendai Jizen Ongaku Kai), again with a programme that included a variety of genres.31

Musical associations, established by teachers and others with an interest in promoting music, played an important role in Sendai and elsewhere by organizing regular concerts and lectures. For Shikama Jinji they represented part of his role as a musical pioneer in Sendai. He was a founding member of a music society named Hōmeikai (Phoenix Song Society), established in 1893 with the aim of ‘researching the true principles of music and at the same time to promote the essence of reforming customs and habits’.32 On 14 May 1893 the society organized their first concert in the office buildings of the Tōshōgū shrine, which was attended by over 350 members of the society as well as some 1,500(!) non-members. The programme included gagaku, Qing music, yakumogoto, shōka, mai-dance, and iai (the art of drawing a sword quickly).33

Ongaku zasshi continued to report on the society’s activities in the following issues, although not regularly, and the reports vary in detail.34 The next report described the society’s third meeting at the same venue as the first on 10 August 1893.35 The meeting started at nine o’clock in the morning and was reportedly attended by over fifty members and an audience of several hundred. After the singing of the national anthem and cheers of ‘banzai’ to the imperial couple and a lecture about music, a varied musical programme followed: the report mentions gagaku, Qing music, yakumogoto, Seiyō-gaku (Western music), and sōkyoku (koto music).

The next reported Hōmeikai concert took place on 22 November 1893 in the Gojōkan Hall. Described as a big autumn concert, it included Western music, court music, two-stringed koto, and Qing music, as well as lectures (including one by Master of Letters Hiranuma Shukurō, (1864–1938), professor at the Second High School 1888–94).36 The report does not include all the programme items, but mentions several that were particularly applauded: Shikama Jinji’s Roeikyoku (song of the encampment); the Qing music piece Gekkyūden (Moon Palace) performed by members of the society, and Rokudan, performed by an unspecified ensemble consisting Shikama Jinji and two others.

For the following Hōmeikai concert, which took place on 3 June 1894 in the city’s Gojōkan Hall, the society had invited the famous satsumabiwa artist Yoshimizu Tsunekazu (1844–1910). As a special guest he featured in four of the seventeen items on the programme. According to the report in Ongaku zasshi,37 the audience assembled early in the morning and included staff from the several of the city’s schools, prefectural officials, journalists, supporters (yūshisha), women, children, and students―about 300 people in all. The concert began at nine o’clock in the morning with the national anthem Kimigayo sung by all, standing up, and accompanied by the reed organ and the violin, followed by an address by Shikama Jinji, who was both the current president of the Hōmeikai and the head of the section for Western music. The subsequent performances were as follows: 3) satsumabiwa (Yoshimizu Tsunekazu); 4) wagaku (gagaku composed in Japan) performed on the koto, shakuhachi, and shamisen; 5) two-stringed koto; 6) Qing music; 7) Western music (seiyōgaku); 8) satsumabiwa (Yoshimizu Tsunekazu); 9) two-stringed koto; 10) Qing music; 11) wagaku; 12) Western music; 13) satsumabiwa (Yoshimizu Tsunekazu); 14) Western music; 15) Qing music; 16) wagaku (solo by Yamashita Shōkin);38 17) satsumabiwa (Yoshimizu Tsunekazu). According to the report in Ongaku zasshi, all Yoshimizu’s biwa performances received especially fervent applause, as did several of the wagaku compositions and the Western music performance of Ukikumo.39

Given that ‘music reform’ tended to take Western music as its primary model and that Shikama Jinji was regarded as a prime promoter of Western music, the programme is surprising: only three items are billed as Western music (seiyōgaku), and at least one of the five titles performed is a traditional piece.40 In any case, performing a mixture of genres in the same concert and playing Japanese pieces on Western instruments were common practice at the time, although the latter were usually billed as ‘blended music’ rather than ‘Western music’.

The report was followed by the information that the society’s regulations had been revised, and cited them in full for the first time.41 The stated aim was the same as previously reported, that is, ‘researching the true principles of music and at the same time to promote the essence of reforming customs and habits’ (ifū ekizoku; p.32). The genres of music that were to receive particular attention were named: court music, Japanese music (wagaku), yakumogoto, Western music (seiyōgaku), Qing music, and koto music. The society had separate sections for these genres (except for koto music), and the head for each section was appointed for a year at a time. Four smaller gatherings were held each year, with presentations of research, lectures, and performances, as well as one large gathering in May, where the reports of the society’s activities would be given. Eligible members were persons of upright, proper conduct and willing to promote music, and there was a joining fee of thirty sen and a monthly payment of five sen.

The Hōmeikai concert in June 1894 was the last major one to be reported in Ongaku zasshi. A shorter report, on the Hōmeikai’s fifth general meeting on 8 March 1896, appeared in connection with a longer report on music in Sendai in the fifty-seventh issue.42 As in previous concerts, the programme included court music, koto music, yakumogoto, and satsumabiwa by the honorary member Yoshimizu Tsunekazu, as well as Western music by the honorary member Shikama Totsuji together with Shikama Jinji. The brothers reportedly performed a military song that roused the brave military men (yūshō) in their seats.

Nevertheless, Shikama Jinji seems to have been more active as an organizer than as a performer―hardly surprising, given his limited musical training. He did compose a significant number of shōka, an achievement mentioned on the memorial stone. They included school (alma mater) songs (kōka) for several schools as well as military songs in connection with the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, such as Yuke, yuke, danji, Nihon danji (Advance, advance, boys, sons of Japan).43 In 1901 he published Miyagi-ken kyōdo shōka, a collection of three songs that described local history and geography.44 Jinji was, moreover, famed for his skill with words, a result of his early education in the Chinese classics. Apart from the lyrics for some of his songs, he also wrote tributes for teachers who died while carrying out their duties. He was, moreover, a sought-after writer of inscriptions (often under his penname Seidō).45

In summer 1896, Shikama Totsuji moved to Sendai, and for a few years he was a significant local actor. The Hōmeikai concert on 8 March 1896 featured him as a guest performer: he had arrived on 6 March and stayed until 30 March. During his stay he rehearsed the newly founded Miyagi Youth Band (Miyagi Shōnen Ongakutai), which performed for the first time at the Sendai Philanthropy Society’s eighth spring concert, held at Sendai-za theatre.46 As with previous concerts, the programme consisted of a mixture of traditional musical and theatrical genres. The performance by the band was a novelty, however. As the first band of its kind in Sendai, it drew applause from the packed hall despite not yet having rehearsed for long.

The founder of the Miyagi Youth Band was Serizawa Fumi, the owner of Sendai’s first Western-style laundry business, together with other wealthy local merchants. Shikama Totsuji was listed among the founders and advising teachers of a new youth band in Sendai at a time when he was still based in Tokyo. The founding statement and regulations describe its purpose, as the promotion of proper music (seisoku naru ongaku no fukyū).47 References to the ancient sage kings of China and ‘the realm of civilization’ (bunmei no iki) suggest that, for Shikama at least, the venture was part of the agenda to reform society through music. The businessmen may well have had more mundane objectives in mind. Eligible members were boys from age thirteen to fifteen. Strict discipline was expected, in return for which the boys would be paid twenty sen each time the band was invited to perform. The members reportedly rehearsed with enthusiasm, and the official premiere took place on 25 March in front of an audience of over two hundred, including high-ranking officials and other notables and wealthy merchants.48 There were speeches (Shikama’s own is included in the report), and the boys, resplendent in red trousers and blue caps, played the national anthem and some ten other (unspecified) pieces. Afterwards a photograph was taken, copies of which were to be given to the sponsors. A few days later, the youth band played Kimigayo at a daytime reception and concert to celebrate Shikama’s mother’s sixty-second birthday, where the audience of around two hundred guests included forty-three children and grandchildren from the extended Shikama family. This concert, like the others described here, included a variety of performances in traditional genres, although the violin and mandolin (mendarin) are also mentioned.49

Shikama Totsuji also actively involved himself in the formation of a band for adults, the Miyagi Ongakutai, although this was not officially launched until 4 April, when he was back in Tokyo.50 The immediate purpose of the band was specific: it was to play on the occasion of the triumphal return of the Second Army Division to its Sendai Garrison after being in action in Japan’s new colony, Taiwan. Subsequently, the band would perform by invitation at public and private events, and thus make a practical contribution to the reform of manners and customs (ifū ekizoku). The latter once again suggests the agenda of the Confucian-educated music reformer Shikama, as do other phrases in the founding statement:

Upon earnest reflection, there is nothing like music to bring the human disposition into harmony and to stir the human heart. [...] Japanese music is not useless; it can be sorrowful and move people to shed copious tears; it can also be stirring and excite people so they shout for joy. However, the instruments with which it is performed have a small sound and cannot reach the ears of the audience in a large hall. In this it is inferior to Western music.51

Although Sendai was the most significant city after Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, the statement continued, its music did not flourish to the same extent, and it lacked a wind band. The recently established youth band was a start, but the founders wanted more, particularly now that the Second Division was about to be welcomed home. The Miyagi Band, consisting of ten members in addition to the band master and his deputy, was to be financed by sponsors. The following instruments were listed: pitch clarinet; grand clarinet (2); piston; alto; baritone; bass; contrabass; cymbals; triangle; grand case; pitch case. A list of supporters followed: four supporting instructors, including the two Shikama brothers; six executives; an officer of the Second Division (in absentia); the prefectural governor, as well as fifty-six other individuals.

By October 1896 Sendai reportedly had four bands: the Miyagi Ongakutai, which was said to be doing well, and three youth bands. For some reason the Tokyo Youth Band was included.52 The third one, Shiogama Ongakutai, was founded in the neighbouring port town of Shiogama by two local businessmen. The band had eight to nine members and their instruments were the accordion, drums, side-blown flutes, and a triangle. Their repertoire included shōka and military songs. The Miyagi Youth Band had nobody to teach them, having broken off their relationship with Shikama Totsuji (no reasons are mentioned). Rather than perform as an accordion ensemble, as Totsuji had intended, its members imitated the adult band, and the thirteen to fourteen members were now playing piston, clarinet, alto, and baritone, which had given rise to concerns about the boys’ health. Consequently, the band was not a success. The Tokyo Youth Band included a division for girls, from which five members formed a chamber ensemble that was well regarded and was invited to perform at private functions. The band’s repertoire included the national anthems of several countries, famous waltzes and polkas, as well as military songs and shōka. By the time the report appeared, Shikama Totsuji had settled in Sendai, but it does not mention the subsequent fate of the Tokyo band.

Totsuji remained in Sendai from May or June 1896 to about 1906, and information about his activities after he relocated is scarce. We can assume that he involved himself in the training of the bands he had helped establish and that he may have supplied reports for Ongaku zasshi, while the magazine still existed. Possibly, he eventually took at least the youth band in hand again. He founded a new ensemble for girls. A report in Ongaku zasshi published in April 1897 named three bands: the Miyagi Ongakutai for adults; Miyagi Shōnen Ongakutai for young people; and Shikama Senka’s (Totsuji’s) Joshi Ongakutai for young women.53 All three were said to be doing well. No further details are given, except a short report about a ceremony in which four musicians from the Miyagi Ongakutai were awarded a certificate for having passed the first stage of training (zenki gakuka), and that two or three more awards would soon follow. The band was also preparing for a grand concert to be held soon in celebration of its first anniversary. This would involve all three local bands, as well as including satsumabiwa, Oku-jōruri, shakuhachi, koto, kokyū (bowed lute), shingaku, yakumogoto, piano, one-stringed koto (ichigengoto), organ, violin, and even sword dance (kenmai), music performed at Shinto shrines (kagura), the laterna magica/slide show, hayashi, and war-like dances. The Shikama brothers were among the organizers. Presumably the concert went ahead, but Ongaku zasshi did not report it.

The same report also mentioned that the Miyagi Band had performed at a farewell reception for two former prefectural governors. One of them was Katsumata, himself a supporter of the band, and he praised the band in a speech, describing it as the only private band in North-Eastern Japan that performed the perfect music of a civilized country (bunmeikoku no kanzennaru ongaku; p. 36).

During his three weeks’ stay in Sendai in March 1896, Shikama Totsuji had not only concerned himself with the performance of Western music. True to his ambitions for reforming Japanese music he and his brother had hosted a meeting at the Shikama residence with three performers of Oku-jōruri, a local style of narrative performance to the accompaniment of biwa, shamisen, and beating the rhythm with a closed fan. A performance, reportedly attended by at least eighty officials, teachers, and businessmen, made the audience reassess the music: ‘what they had generally dismissed as nonsense spouted by itinerant blind performers, had, as they discovered for the first time, a high level of classical elegance (koga) compared to other kinds of jōruri, and in that respect was similar in to satsumabiwa’.54 In order to raise its value, Shikama Totsuji suggested five areas for reform (kairyō): correcting the mistakes in the phonetic spelling of texts; improving the personal appearance of the performers; improving the musical instruments; focusing on the performance of war tales; and providing the audience with printed versions of the texts. Thus elevated, the genre could join satsumabiwa as something that could be performed even in front of high-ranking persons. One of the performers, Akaizawa, stayed the night with Shikama Totsuji while he was in Sendai, so they could discus things in more detail, and on that occasion Totsuji wrote a song for him, which he is said to have memorized after hearing it only three times. The report included the lyrics; beginning with proverbs associated with the Confucian canon, they seem unlikely to have had the kind of popular appeal expected from war tales.

Together, the two reports that appeared in the April and October 1896 issues of Ongaku zasshi include details of a broad range of musical activities. Besides the ones already mentioned, they informed readers that shōka were now taught in schools across the city and even the more rural districts, with the aid of the organ and the violin (the titles of songs from the standard elementary and higher school textbooks were named). Secondary schools where music was taught by specialized teachers included the private Sendai School for Girls (Sendai Jogakkō, founded in 1893), and the sewing school Shōsō Gakkō, which had established a twice-weekly shōka class, taught by Shikama Jinji, in addition to his regular position at the Normal School.55 Private tuition for aspiring music teachers was provided by the Tohoku Music Academy (Tōhoku Ongakuin). Established by Shikama Totsuji in the Kakyōin-dōri area of Sendai, it had so many participants from the city as well as the neighbouring prefectures that he even taught on Sundays. Meanwhile Maedako Shinkin was teaching people to play shōka on the violin in his home.56

Musical instruments and other equipment were sold only by the Takatō bookstore. It had a limited selection, so customers had little choice, and if an item was sold out, they had to wait up to a year until it was re-stocked.

The chief organizers of concerts, the report continued, were the Hōmeikai, dedicated to music reform, and the Philanthropic Society. The latter’s concerts, held at the Sendai-za theatre, were more like traditional variety shows, and the audience behaved accordingly, eating their lunch boxes during the performance. Recently, garden parties including performances had become popular, although the spirit of drinking parties prevailed and unless the music performed was of the common popular kind (zokugaku) no-one wanted to listen.57 The report concluded with a series of short notes about different genres of music: koto music was very popular among the daughters of better families, and the most popular teachers were Yamashita Shōkin and Itō Matsuko; yakumogoto was only taught by one person (Masuda Michie), so only a few had the chance to study it; Ming-Qing music had gone out of fashion in the city but was still enjoyed in the countryside; court music was cultivated by a group of five to six performers who played for ceremonies conducted at temples and shrines, though their performances were not particularly popular. Buddhists had recently begun to include shōka, accompanied by the violin and the organ, in their music, and on occasion the Miyagi Youth Band had accompanied shōmyō chants at the Honganji Betsuin temple. This had excited the emotions of the believers so much that some had voiced criticism. As for Christians, they mainly sang and played hymns, mixing in the odd koto (sōkyoku) performance and occasionally organizing charity concerts.

Concerts, according to the report, were still an unfamiliar concept. The impressive programmes often came to nothing because the performers had no notion of time-keeping and much time was wasted waiting for performers arriving late; a bad habit that, according to the report, was not limited to Sendai.58 This last observation suggests that modern notions of precise clock time had not yet become fully embedded in everyday life.

Thus was the state of musical culture in 1896/7 according to Ongaku zasshi. The last few issues contain no reports on Sendai. No magazine devoted to music appeared continuously until the publication of the magazine Ongakukai (Music world) from January 1908 onwards, so for about ten years we do not have regular reports from a single source.59 Clearly, much happened in these years, because by the time Ongakukai appeared, the character of the concerts it reported on was different. Although the difference in the focus and scope of the two magazines might to some extent account for the change, it seems likely that it reflects the increasing spread of Western-style music and music-making. While the idea of the public concert, including the charity concert, was adopted already in the 1890s, actual performances consisted largely of established musical genres and the occasional Western-style piece or performance of blended music. Many, if not most, of the concert programmes published in Ongakukai, on the other hand, include predominantly, although not exclusively, Western music.

During his time in Sendai, Shikama Totsuji continued to compose songs. In September 1900 he and his brother published their Railway Song which detailed the stations on the line from Sendai to Aomori and to Hirosaki, Akita, and Yamagata.60 Several railway songs were published around this time, celebrating one of the most powerful symbols of modernity and as an aid to learning geography for schoolchildren. The most famous one, about the East Coast (Tōkaidō) line from Tokyo to Kobe, was published in May 1900 and soon reached the status of a popular song: to this day its opening bars signal the approaching trains in stations on that line.

Another joint publication was Tokkyō shōka (Moral education songs), published the following year.61 The collection of twenty-five songs and a short march-like tune without lyrics composed by Fujiko (presumably Totsuji’s late daughter) is preceded by the text of the Imperial Rescript on Education in literary Sinitic. Not all the songs were new compositions. They include the national anthem (with an added bass line) and the Sendai folk song Sansa shigure. The collection reflects the role accorded by reformers to singing as a means of moral edification.

Totsuji’s creation of songs for educational purposes also includes a collection of Sangyō shōka (silk industry songs), published in 1901 for the benefit of the workers in the Sano filature, opened in 1886 by Sano Rihachi in the town of Kanayama (now Marumori-Kanayama), south of Sendai.62 The aim of the collection was to ensure that the overwhelmingly female workforce sang songs with suitably edifying texts as they worked. Left to their own devices, factory workers often sang songs either deemed vulgar or highly critical of their work conditions.63 In his preface to the collection, Totsuji expressed the hope that the songs would serve as a replacement for the vulgar and obscene songs (hika waisetsu) usually sung by the workers.64 Concerns about the songs sung by factory girls had previously been the subject of two short reports in Ongaku zasshi in 1893. One came from Gunma prefecture and was based on a story from a music teacher named Uchida.65 The factory girls working in silk production around Maebashi sang while they worked, which helped them work rhythmically and speedily. Unfortunately, the lyrics of the songs were so obscene (inwai) that they were dreadful to listen to. For this reason, one factory owner had forbidden the girls to sing, but this had led to a sharp drop in productivity by an average of five to six yen per day, so the prohibition was rescinded. The report concluded that there was an urgent need to include these songs in plans for music reform. The other report came from Hikone, a castle town by Lake Biwa in Shiga prefecture.66 Here, according to the unnamed informant, efforts were being made to teach appropriate songs in schools, but the vulgar music enjoyed by the townspeople threatened to thwart such efforts. Meanwhile, in the silk filature, a musical box (a shikōkin, a Japanese-style box using paper rolls) had been purchased in order to expose the factory girls to appropriate songs (seikyoku) instead of the obscene and vulgar songs (hiwai no zokuuta) they were singing, so far, however, without effect. Finding a remedy was an urgent task, because the factory girls played a significant role in transmitting obscene songs (waiyō no denpansha tari).

Evidently, Shikama Totsuji continued to pursue his ideas about music reform during his time in Sendai. He was, however, only active in his hometown for about ten years. The influence of his brother Jinji on musical life in Sendai may well have been more lasting. Nevertheless, Totsuji too played a significant role in the development of Sendai’s musical culture by bringing his cosmopolitan aspirations to the provincial town and acting as a link with the capital.

Meanwhile, a new local actor, or rather group of actors, had arrived on the scene: the students at the Second High School.

Music in the Second High School

Schools played a major role in the dissemination of Western music, and Sendai, an educational centre, boasted the prestigious Second High School. Music was not formally taught, but from the turn of the turn of the century Western music came to represent a significant extracurricular activity. In 1893, students at the school founded a students’ association named Shōshikai. As at the other high schools, members engaged in both educational and recreational activities, cultivated a strong sense of school spirit, and published a magazine, Shōshikai zasshi.67 Meetings of the Shōshikai and its subgroups sometimes included music: at a meeting on 17 October 1902 the musical contributions amounted to a mini-concert. Mrs Dening, whose husband Walter Dening taught at the school,68 played several piano pieces, while a group of students performed a kagura piece on Japanese flutes, and two others performed Rokudan on the shakuhachi and koto.69

In 1902 a music club (Ongakubu) was formed within Shōshikai. The driving force behind this was reportedly a new teacher appointed in 1900, Miyoshi Aikichi (1870–1919). A native of present-day Niigata prefecture, Miyoshi graduated from the Imperial University in 1895 with a degree in philosophy. Miyoshi held several teaching appointments before moving to the Second High School, where he taught ethics and became the school’s principal in 1911. In addition, he taught at other schools in Sendai, and in his later years tutored two of the imperial princes.

During his brief tenure as principal of the newly founded Nagano Junior High School from 1899 until his move to Sendai, he worked hard to establish extracurricular music classes, inviting a court musician to perform, and having shōka taught to koto accompaniment. Aspiring to replace the koto with a piano, he gathered the school around him and told teachers and pupils that in order to save money for the purchase, the school would not be heated for one winter. The instrument was duly purchased and is reverently preserved in the principal’s office, while the anecdote about the ‘sacred piano’ features in the message from the school’s principal to this day.70 Nevertheless and despite his role in promoting Western music in at least two secondary schools, little is known about Miyoshi’s interest in music. In the substantial collection of obituaries, reminiscences, and a selection of Miyoshi’s own writings, published in 1931, hardly any of the writers mention music. A few of them name noh singing (yōkyoku) as one of his hobbies. In his own draft reminiscences (up to the year 1894), Miyoshi mentions two concerts he attended in Tokyo, one of them a traditional Japanese trio (sankyoku) recital in a school classroom, as well as a lecture entitled ‘music’ by ‘Mrs Summers’ (presumably Ellen Summers, 1843–1907) at the Tsukiji English Association in 1888, while he attended the First High School. He also recorded submitting an essay entitled ‘Gakubu enkaku shi’ (history of music and dance) to Professor Konakamura (Kiyonori), the author of the first book-length history of music in Japan, in 1891. Possibly he was also influenced by Raphael von Koeber, one of his professors at the university and a conservatoire-trained pianist, who also taught at the Tokyo Academy of Music.71

The only writer who discussed Miyoshi and music in detail stressed the importance Miyoshi attached to musical training in order to cultivate aesthetic sensibilities (jōsō kyōiku) as part of a complete education. Miyoshi reportedly described musical and physical training as fundamental to education in ancient Greece. The importance of music education, he asserted, was recognized in East and West: music was the highest of the arts, representing truth, goodness, and beauty. He argued that the emphasis on the material aspects of Western civilization had led to the neglect of the spiritual aspects, and so he supported and promoted the cultural and particularly musical activities of the student association.

Miyoshi’s stance seems to have been similar to that of his professor, Inoue Tetsujirō. He was studying in Tokyo at the time of the debate about the continued existence of the Tokyo Academy of Music, in which Inoue participated. Nothing suggests that Miyoshi had a particular liking for Western music. In fact, his well-attested engagement with Buddhism and Confucianism, and his misgivings about the influence of Christianity, particularly among the elite, appear to have been reflected in his attitude to Western music. This is suggested by his notes for a lecture he gave in Sendai on 29 January 1905 at the Chōgyū Kai (presumably a gathering to commemorate the literary critic Takayama Chōgyū, 1871–1902, who had taught at the high school for a short while in 1896–97). In the lecture, entitled ‘Nihon ongaku ron’ (A discussion of Japanese music) he described the state of music in Japan as divided and aimless, and discussed the decline of Japanese music and its future. Japanese music, he stated, was largely relegated to the realm of entertainment, while the young people in school were exposed only to Western music, which was also embraced by the upper classes and by those returning from study abroad. Japanese music was generally dismissed as coarse, vulgar, and obscene. Music, although international (Miyoshi uses the English word), was a product of the times and of the character of the people embracing it. Unlike the pictorial arts, he asserted, music is abstract and therefore difficult to assimilate without intensive and lasting exposure. Miyoshi was concerned that, while Japanese music would not become extinct, its neglect by the upper classes would cause its decline to continue. He stressed the value of vocal genres in particular, describing Western music as strongest in instrumental genres. He concluded that the adoption of Western music must not result in the neglect of Japanese music.

Miyoshi’s attitude to music and to the adoption of Western civilization in general was, like that of Inoue Tetsujirō, Takaori Shūichi and other advocates of music reform, ambivalent. He initiated the music club soon after taking up his appointment in Sendai, with the support of Shikama Jinji, and continued his involvement thereafter, regularly attending the concerts.72 The activities of the student association did include Japanese music (there was a biwa group and a shakuhachi group), and we can assume that Miyoshi supported that too. The concerts of the music club, however, featured predominantly Western music.

The first concert took place on 31 January 1903 in the school’s hall. Miyoshi was scheduled to give the opening address, which was read by Kurashima because he had fallen ill. The address contained some of the considerations expressed by Miyoshi in the lecture cited above: Japanese music had a tendency to lapse into sadness (hiai) and mournfulness (chintsū); it was, moreover, often obscene (hiwai). Music (and here he appears to refer largely to Western music) should, however, be more than entertainment and technical perfection; he urged the students to contemplate nature and the harmony of the universe when they were not practising, and cited Plato on music’s ability to move humans close to the divine.73

Unlike the concerts we have examined so far, the published programme featured only Western music:74

  1. Opening address, read by Mr Kurashima
  2. Organ, violin – Hotaru no Kyoku75 – T. Saito, S. Kuzuoka
  3. Piano – Galop – N. Rubo76
  4. Violin, violin – Louisville March77 – Mr. Z. Shikama, K. Koriba
  5. Piano – Grand Russian March78 – T. Murata
  6. Solo – K. Niina79 – S. Koda
  7. Chorus – Dainihon Bochono Uta80 – Members
  8. Piano – Waltz von F. Eckert – S. Inagaki
  9. Chorus – Mountain Maid’s Invitation81 – Members
  10. Violin, violin – My Sweet Home (Perinue)82 – Mr. Z. Shikama, K. Koriba
  11. Piano – Fröhlicher Landmann83 – T. Murata, S. Fukushima
  12. Violin – Ykpauhckar Hozß (?)84 – Mr. Y. Okamoto
  13. Chorus – Tabi no Kure (Nightfall at journey’s end)85 –
    Mr. Y. Okuyama, Mr. I. Wakuya, Mr. Y. Okamoto, and
    four others
  14. Violin, violin – Kayser’s exercises No. 286 – Mr. M. Nakamura, M. T. Sato
  15. Solo – Die Wacht am Rhein87 – Mr. Ernst
  16. Violin – Washington March88 – Mr. H. Maidako (Maedako)
  17. Piano – Schubert’s Waltz89 – Miss Mochidate
  18. Solo – The Holy City (by Stephens)90 – Mrs. Gerhald (Gerhard)
  19. Solo – Beyond the Gates of Paradise91 – Mrs. Gerhald
  20. Piano – Chopin Polonaise92 – Miss Mochidate
  21. Solo – My Ain Countrie93 – Mr. Axling
  22. Chorus – Kimigayo

The members of the chorus, the violinists Kuzuoka and Kōriba, the pianists Murata, Inagaki, and Fukushima, as well as the solo singer Kōda were students.94 The other performers came from outside the school. ‘Mr. Y. Okamoto’ is almost certainly Okamoto Fusao; the would-be Cyrillic of the first piece he performed suggests that the ‘Y’ might stand for the Japanese syllable transcribed as ‘fu’ according to the Hepburn system, if the types that are specific to Cyrillic were not available.95 The name Okamoto Fusao appears in later programmes, and in the Japanese versions he is usually described as kyōshi or kōshi, both of which describe a teacher or professor. He taught the violin at the Second High School, although his name does not appear in the school’s staff lists. Learning the violin would have been an extra-curricular activity, so his teaching may well have been an informal arrangement. His background is unknown. In 1909 he was listed (with an address) in Ongakukai as the magazine’s local representative in Sendai. This would suggest a possible personal connection with the editors through the Tokyo Academy of Music, but his name does not appear in the Academy’s student lists,96 and he might have met them when they came to Sendai as guest performers in concerts. Kate Hansen, who accompanied him on the piano on occasion, believed that he had studied in Tokyo, but that need not have been at the Tokyo Academy of Music. The (pseudo-) Cyrillic letters in connection with his name would suggest that Okamoto, like Maedako, had a connection with members of the Russian Orthodox Church.97 Ongakukai still listed him as their local representative in October 1912, but he is not included in the address list of musicians published in the journal over several volumes in 1913. From 1910 onwards, the name Kumaya Sentarō, with the title kyōshi, appears on the school’s concert programmes, which suggests that Okamoto had been replaced.

The foreign performers came from the missionary community. Laura Blanche Gerhard (née Ault) was married to Paul Lambert Gerhard (1873–1949), who had come to Sendai in 1897 to teach at Tohoku College. William Axling (1873–1963) was a Baptist minister who worked in Sendai from 1901 to 1906.98

The substantial contributions to the programme by foreign missionaries and teachers remained a feature of the concerts at the Second High School throughout its early years, when few of the school’s students had any significant musical training. Not that the foreigners were anything other than amateurs: but at the very least they could be expected to sing hymns and folk songs in tune, and in some cases play musical instruments competently. Most importantly, they had the advantage of being intimately familiar with the music.

For their second concert on 17 May 1903, the organizers of the concert were supported by Kisu Matsusaburō, a local wealthy merchant, the local university graduates’ society, and the Miyagi Womens’ Association. Together they had invited fifteen members of the Meiji Music Society (Meiji Ongaku Kai), founded in 1898 in Tokyo with the aim of disseminating Western music. But the guests had to cancel at short notice, and instead seven members of the Friends of Music Club (Gakuyū Kurabu) came, all graduates of the Tokyo Academy of Music, most of whom we have already encountered as proponents and performers of blended music (see Chapter 8). They included Kitamura Sueharu, Takaori Shūichi, Maeda Kyūhachi, Muroka Shōtarō, Ishino Gi, and Ōta Kanshichi. Ishino graduated in 1898. He published a volume of practice pieces for the violin in 1907.99 Ōta, a pianist and a native of Miyagi prefecture, graduated from the Teaching Department of the Tokyo Academy of Music in 1901 and subsequently taught music.100

The programme presented by the performers from Tokyo reflected their interest in promoting the performance of blended music, and stood in marked contrast to that of the music club’s previous concert as well as most of its subsequent ones. It consisted of three sections, of which the shorter middle section featured performers from the club:101

  1. Ensemble: (1) Huntsmen’s Chorus; (2) Butterfly Shotten102 – (by all performers)
  2. Piano solo – Harō (Waves)103 – Maeda Kyūhachi
  3. Ensemble – Rokudan – Ōta Kanshichi, Muraoka Shōtarō, Takaori Shūichi
  4. Violin duo – ‘Bēru’104 – Ishino Gi, Takaori Shūichi
  5. Chorus – (1) Hana (Flowers/Cherry Blossoms); (2) Suma no kyoku105 (Song of Suma) – all
  6. Piano and Violin duo – Mushi no oto (The Sound of Insects)106 – Kitahara Sueharu, Muraoka Shōtarō
—-

Chorus – Yasumasa (?)107 – Okamoto Fusao plus seven others

Piano solo – Midare108 (Disarray) – Murata Tsunemichi (member)

Chorus – Kikori no uta (woodcutting song)109 – members

—-
  1. Ensemble (1) – William Tell; (2.) Swinging Waltz110
  2. Piano duo – (1) Happy New Year March; (2) Jolly Sisters Galop111 – Muraoka Shōtarō, Maeda Kyūhachi
  3. Chorus – National anthems of America and France (in original language) – all
  4. Violin solo – Don Juan – Ishino Gi
  5. Uta (shamisen song) – Kanjinchō112 – Kitamura Sueharu
  6. Ensemble – Manzairaku113 – all

The concert ended with a closing address by Miyoshi (who is described as the president of the music club) and the national anthem sung twice by all.

The new association must have been eager to make its mark, for it held its third concert less than a week later, on 23 May. As with the second concert, the opening address was given by Kurashima, while Miyoshi’s closing address and the national anthem concluded the event. The programme resembled that of the inaugural concert: the formal part, at least, consisted of Western music only, and the efforts of the students were supported by members of the foreign community. Indeed, more foreigners took part, playing a greater variety of instruments. The programme, in English like the first, again contained a mixture of pieces:114

  1. Piano solo – Edward Rohlin’s Galop115 – N. Kubo
  2. Chorus – Robin Redbreast116 – Members
  3. Cornet – (1) Beautiful Isle of Somewhere (Fearis)117;
    (2) Of thee, Mother118 – Mr Stick
  4. Vocal solo – I love Thee, Dear Country119 – Mrs Cleveland
  5. 5. Piano – Potpouri (Inagaki) – S. Inagaki
  6. Vocal solo – Could I (Tosti)120 – Mrs Doering
  7. Violin – Galop Allemand121 – Mr Okamoto, Koriba
  8. Vocal solo – In Old Madrid122 – Mrs Gerhard
  9. Piano Duet – Dragon Fighters123 – Miss Cleveland,
    Miss Schneder
  10. Vocal solo – Yume (Schumann)124 – S. Koda
  11. Solo and Chorus – (1) Pussy Cats; (2) The Duck;
    (3) Fire Song125 – Miss Doering
  12. Piano – Sonatine de Fr. Kuhlau126 – T. Murata
  13. Mandolin – Princess Bonnie127 – Mr. Stick
  14. Chorus (sic) – In the Starlight128 – Miss Mochidate
  15. Violin – Perdona (Mozart)129 – Mr. Okamoto, Miss Nagao, Miss Sato
  16. Vocal solo – Good bye to all, Good bye130 – Miss Mochidate
  17. Piano Duet – Witches Frolic131 – Miss Cleveland, Miss Schneder
  18. Vocal Duet – Bird Song (Rubinstein)132 – Mrs Doering, Mrs Cleveland
  19. Vocal Solo – Abide with Me (De Koven)133 – Mrs Stick
  20. Piano solo – Polonaise (Chopin); Castignets (Ketten)134 –
    Mrs Doering
  21. Trio – Ye Shepherds Tell Me135 – Mr. Noss, Mr. Stick, Mr Clayton
  22. Chorus – German song (Immer flott)136 – Miss Cleveland, Miss Schneder
  23. Trio: piano, organ, cornet – The Holy City137 – Mrs Doering, Mrs Cleveland, Mr Stick

The concert, playing to a packed hall, was deemed a great success. The commentator in the Shōshikai magazine gave the unprecedented scope of the event as a reason and speculated that if such concerts were more widely held, this might well contribute towards the reform of society.138

More than half of the twenty-three items (fourteen) were performed by the foreign population, mostly missionaries, and of the nine items performed by Japanese, two were performed by a female singer, while one (no. 15) was played by Okamoto Fusao, together with two young women, possibly students of his from another school. The preponderance of foreigners, most of them from the missionary community, is reflected in the repertoire, which included several hymns (Nos. 3, 4, 19) or songs with Christian content (23). Most of the other pieces, sung or instrumental, might be classified as salon music, understood as a category ‘about midway between what is generally known as “popular music” and that called “classic”’.139

Reverend J. Monroe Stick (1877–1939), who is named for the first time here, played in many subsequent concerts. A missionary of the Reformed Church in the United States, he came to Japan in 1902 and taught at Tohoku College and, briefly, Miyagi College. During his time at the University of Pennsylvania he had been a leader of the university band. He became a regular performer at concerts, playing several instruments.

More missionaries had arrived on the scene by the time the sixth concert took place, on 15 October 1904: the Methodist missionaries Edwin Taylor Iglehart and Charles Stewart Davison.140 The number of performers from the Second High School had also increased. They were supported by Japanese performers from outside the school, including the violin teacher Maedako Shinkin, and Shikama Totsuji’s eldest daughter Ranko, who played violin both in the ensemble and solo. Having learnt to play Western instruments from an early age, unlike most Japanese in that period, she was almost certainly more proficient than most of the male high school students at the time. An ensemble played the Institute March (1899) and Brooke’s [Chicago] Marine Band March (1901), both by the American composer, bandmaster, and music publisher Roland Forrest Seitz (1867–1946). Many of his works were dedicated to particular institutions,141 and his music may well have been introduced to Sendai by Stick, who, as the leader of the university band, had himself requested and received Seitz’s University of Pennsylvania Band March (1900).142

The seventh concert took place on 11 February 1905, a public holiday celebrating the ascension to the throne of the mythical first emperor, Jimmu, in 660 B.C.E. The Russo-Japanese War was still ongoing, but on 2 January the long siege of Port Arthur had ended, and the mood was optimistic. The author of the report on the concert remarked how it boded well for the outcome of the war that Sendai was celebrating the holiday with a concert, while the Russian Neva River Festival that took place every January involved firing cannons. The concert, it was hoped, would encourage the people to keep up their spirits.143 It began with the singing of the school song, followed by thirteen items and a gramophone record performance to conclude the first part. Most of the performers were students at the school, although Maedako Shinkin played in one ensemble. The only foreigner was Davison, who accompanied two violinists on the organ in two items: an unspecified ‘Andante’ and Kriegsmarsch der Priester aus Athalia, presumably an arrangement of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s work (Op. 74). One of the violinists was Okamoto Fusao. Most of works performed were songs, sung by a small group or played on the violin and the organ.

The second part consisted of a broader range of items, nine in all. It began with University of Pennsylvania Band March played by a wind and string ensemble (the Chinese characters are accompanied by the phonetic transcription ōkesutora), presumably led by Stick, although his name only appears later in the programme, when he played The Holy City on the cornet. The march was followed by a vocal solo by Mrs Kobayashi, the wife of a Japanese scholar, who sang Satsuma-gata (Satsuma Bay).144

Foreign performers besides Stick and Davison were Mrs Faust and Marie and Margaret Schneder. Shikama Totsuji’s daughter Ranko played two solo pieces on the violin, a transcription of a koto piece entitled Hachidan, and Overture-Enchantment.145 The orchestra concluded with Palm Branches, probably the hymn by Jean Baptiste Fauré (1830–1914).146 This was followed by another gramophone record performance. The gramophone belonged to Doi Bansui (1871–1952), a native of Sendai and professor at the High School since 1900. He had brought it back from Europe the year before, where he had spent over three years studying literature in England, France, and Germany. The audience was treated, among others, to selections from Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Gounod’s Faust.

The progress made by members of the school’s music club was praised in the society’s magazine, and the concert judged to be a success overall, although the chorus number had not gone well, nor had Kobayashi Kōhei’s performance on the violin (he played in four duets), apparently because his job as an organizer had left him with too little time to practise.147

Only a week after the seventh concert, two more were held on 25 and 26 February 1905.148 This time the music club had finally managed to secure the participation of leading musicians from Tokyo: seventeen representatives of the Meiji Music Association (Meiji Ongaku Kai) travelled to Sendai, including its vice-president, Uehara Rokushirō (1848–1913). A music theorist and physicist, Uehara taught at Tokyo Academy of Music and conducted research into acoustics as well as koto and shamisen music (he himself played the shakuhachi). He gave a lecture on Japanese music on 26 February. The leading musician of the group was undoubtedly the violinist Wilhelm (Guglielmo) Dubravčić (1869–1925). Born in Fiume in Italy, Dubravčić had studied at the conservatoire in Vienna. Appointed by the imperial court in 1901 as director of the gagaku orchestra and to teach the violin, he remained there until his death.149 With him were several musicians from established gagaku families, namely the Ōno (five members) and the Sono (three members). Another was the violinist and flautist Ōmura Josaburō (1869–1952), a member of the gagaku department, as well as the first formally appointed teacher of the flute at the Tokyo Academy of Music, until he moved to Osaka in 1906, where he went on to play a pioneering role in music in the Kansai area. The pianist Maeda Kyūhachi, who had performed in Sendai at the second concert, was also part of the group; he became something of a regular. The group also included the violinist Kisu Yoshinoshin (1868–1951), whose musical career was unusual.150 Born in Sendai, he enrolled in the seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tokyo in 1881, at a time when the seminary’s music department offered more advanced training than almost any other institution in the country. From 1891 to 1894 he studied in St. Petersburg, where his teachers included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, thus becoming one of the first Japanese to study music at a conservatoire abroad.151 After his return he taught and performed in Tokyo where he opened a private music school. After the earthquake in 1923, he relocated to Sendai where he taught at several schools. He moved back to Tokyo in 1939.

The concert was exceptional in several ways. The audience had to pay to listen, a fact that apparently merited special mention in the report. In return they received the opportunity to hear some of the most advanced performers of Western music active in Japan at the time. Monroe Stick even lent his piano for the occasion, which, in the light of Hansen’s later remarks about the high school’s own piano, may well have contributed significantly to the quality of the music, as did the absence of student performances. The programme included solo performances, a string quartet (playing a minuet by Boccherini), and a large ensemble that among other things played suitably patriotic compositions, such as two marches composed by Dubravčić and Frantz Eckert celebrating the fall of Port Arthur in the Sino-Japanese and the Russo-Japanese Wars respectively.152 Even so, holding concerts in wartime apparently gave rise to criticism, and several articles in Shōshikai zasshi defended the association’s musical activities. In an article about the music club’s aims, the author (Watanabe Hideo) stated that it intended to united the fragmented music scene of Sendai. Certainly, the concerts organized by the Second High School brought together different groups of musicians (see Chapter 11).

The eleventh concert on 30 January 1906 again featured students of the school in the first half, while in the second half, performances by outside members dominated. The student performances included a four-part song as well as solo (vocal, organ, and violin) and ensemble items. Okamoto Fusao is described as kōshi (instructor) for the first time, although he almost certainly taught members of the club from the beginning. The second part featured mostly foreign musicians before concluding with a march played by a band. Presumably, the next two concerts on 28 April 1906 and 18 January 1907 followed a similar pattern.153

The music club’s ambitions for disseminating Western music extended beyond Sendai. On 1 April 1907, nine members and their instructor Okamoto left Sendai early in the morning (another member had left for Morioka the previous day) and travelled to Ichinoseki in the south of Iwate prefecture, where they gave a concert in the hall of the lower secondary school (chūgakkō) to an audience of around 400.154 On the following day the group performed in Mizusawa (now part of Ōshū city), in the town’s theatre, with the support of the local youth group. The local people were reportedly particularly keen on the arts, and over 700 attended; more than the theatre could hold, so some had to listen outside. The concert was obviously a social as well as a musical success: at the invitation by teachers of Mizusawa Elementary School, the students returned to Mizusawa on 4 April to celebrate, before returning to Sendai on 5 April.

On 3 April the students gave a concert in the Fujizawa-za theatre in Morioka. The concert was hosted by the city’s Christian Youth Association, and the programme is given in the published report. After an opening address and the Second High School’s school song, the following items were performed:

Part 1

  1. String and wind ensemble Imperial Gallop155
  2. Vocal (three students) – Heisokutai (military song about the blockade of Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War)
  3. Koto – Tamagawa (Tama River; Ikutaryū piece) – local performers
  4. Vocal solo – The Maid of the Mill156
  5. Instrumental (two students, instruments not specified) – Rokudan
  6. Vocal solo – Hana (Flowers/Cherry Blossoms)
  7. Violin solo – Andante – Okamoto kyōshi
  8. Wind and string ensemble – Quadrille

Part 2

  1. Wind and string ensemble – Wedding March157
  2. Vocal solo – Zanmu (Lingering dream)158
  3. Organ solo (no work specified)
  4. Vocal (four students) – Chinchin159
  5. Koto – Tsuru no koe (Voice of cranes) – local supporters (yūshi) of Morioka
  6. Vocal (two students) – Roei no yume (Dream during bivouac)160
  7. Vocal solo Kanjinchō
  8. Wind and string ensemble – Hasenfu (The shipwreck); operatic song (kageki) Hanare kojima (Remote island)161

The ensemble pieces were played by the whole group. This concert too was reportedly a big success. The report reflects the students’ sense of mission, observing that the concert in the Morioka theatre was the first occasion where sales of refreshments in the auditorium were forbidden and people had to remove their hats. The students saw themselves as bringing light into the darkness of the Tohoku wilderness with their refined instrumental music (kōshō naru kigaku).162

While on tour, the students of the Second High School had to perform the whole programme by themselves or else with local players, rather than enlist the participation of the foreign community. In Sendai, on the other hand, the pattern of the early programmes, with the first part dominated by performances from students and the second with predominantly performances by musicians from outside the school, including the foreign teachers and their families, prevailed for years to come. The foreign performers, although they too were amateurs of varying competence, played a crucial role in the promotion of Western music in Sendai, both as teachers and as performers. It should be emphasized, however, that the staging of regular concerts was initiated by local Japanese actors, such as the Shikama brothers and the students at the Second High School. With the exception of Miyagi College after Kate Hansen’s efforts to develop a fully-fledged music department, the missionary schools did not play a major role in organizing concerts.

Sendai’s Concert Culture around 1907

The concerts organized by the Second High School were the most important ones for the public performance of Western music, at least initially, but other schools also held concerts. In November 1905, Tohoku College celebrated the inauguration of its new school building with a series of events, starting with a charity concert in aid of those suffering from a bad harvest, held at the Sendai-za on 22 November.163 The concert was supported by the governors of the prefecture and the city and the principals of several schools. Like the high school concerts, this one brought together representatives of different groups, featuring performances by students and teachers from several schools, as well as the Sendai military band. They were joined by an invited musician from Tokyo, the violinist August Junker, a highly trained professional, who performed, taught, and conducted the orchestra at the Tokyo Academy of Music.164 Foreign performers from Sendai included Florence Seiple, who, like Junker, was conservatoire-trained.165 Singing, solo and ensemble, dominated the programme, which also included ‘whistling’ (by a Russian, Paul Witte). Japanese music was represented by two of the ten items in the second part: Shōchikubai (Pine, bamboo, and plum blossom), performed on koto, shamisen, kokyū (bowed lute), and shakuhachi, and Nihonkai kaisen (the naval battle in the Sea of Japan), performed on the biwa: these were the only two works specified in the programme.

The most prolific organizer of public concerts besides the music club at the Second High School, however, may well have been Maedako Shinkin, who was also one of the most important local teachers, especially when it came to training music teachers for the region’s primary schools. Two reports in the short-lived journal Ongaku (Music) in April and June 1907 highlighted his achievements.166 The first stated that he had been training teachers since 1890, and that seventy to eighty percent of music teachers in the primary schools in the prefectures Miyagi, Fukushima, and Iwate were trained by him. The academy’s most recent concert had attracted an audience of 1,500. Maedako’s importance as a teacher was also highlighted a year later in three reports about music in Sendai published in the newly founded journal Ongakukai. According to the first, Tohoku Music Academy (Tōhoku Ongakuin) was founded by Maedako and consisted of three departments: the main department, a regular teacher training department, and an elective department (honka, futsū shihanka, senka). Maedako taught violin, organ, shōka, and related subjects, and at the time he had around forty students. He had been teaching since about 1887, and by now his numerous graduates included musicians who had made a name for themselves in Kyoto.167 In subsequent reports, Maedako’s Academy was even described as a local leader of Western music (tōchi seiyō ongaku no jūchin taru Tōhoku Ongakuin nite wa) and its affiliated society, Kyōseikai, as the only ‘society’ (the English word in phonetic script is used) dedicated to Western music. It was also praised for its serious, research-based approach: Maedako’s efforts stood out from the otherwise frivolous (keifu naru) music scene.168 The Academy was about to send out twelve graduates from its regular course (running for the twelfth time) and was recruiting forty students each for its main, teacher training, and elective departments. In addition, Maedako was listed as a teacher at Tohoku Vocational School for Girls (Tōhoku Joshi Shokugyō Gakkō) and occasional lecturer at the music club of the Medical School and the Tōka High School for Girls.169 At the time, members were preparing for a combined public concert and graduating recital. The programme of the concert, which took place on 19 April 1908, was published in the June issue of Ongakukai.170

Other institutions and associations that promoted music were the music association at the Sendai Medical School (Sendai Igaku Senmon Gakkō) and the Association for Native Japanese Music (Kokufū Ongaku Kai), which promoted the study and performance of indigenous music.171 The Association, organized by Yamashita Kengyō, devoted itself to the performance of music for koto in the style of the Ikuta School, as well as to kokyū and sangen (shamisen), that is, the instruments traditionally played in the three-part sankyoku ensemble. If Maedako’s academy was the leader of Western music, the Association led the field of Japanese music (hōgaku), the report stated.172

The Normal School, on the other hand, which ought to be the centre of music for education, was reportedly stuck in its old ways, prioritizing the teaching of notation over instrumental practice, with the result that most of the graduates were not able to teach music. Hope was expressed that a new teacher appointed to the local middle school and coming from Gunma Normal School (Iwaki Hiroshi) would help improve standards.173

As a major contribution by a foreign teacher, Ongakukai highlighted the Sendai Associated Wind and Strings Band (Sendai Rengō Kangen Gakutai) under the baton of J. Monroe Stick. It had twenty members, including two American pianists, and counted a cornet, piano, violin, and drums among the musical instruments at its disposal. Although Ongakukai described Stick as a cornet player, he appears to have been an experienced band leader who mastered several instruments.174 The band’s name hardly appears in programmes, however, so it may have been an ad hoc ensemble, or just a loose association of musicians who played together in varying formations. The choirs of Tohoku College and Miyagi College received special mention as the best in the area.175

Thus, by around 1907/08, Sendai boasted a lively and varied music scene, with Western music featuring increasingly prominently. The quality of the latter, however, was mixed―hardly surprising, given the limited opportunities for training and listening to outstanding (or even competent) performances. While the Tokyo Academy of Music employed professionally trained foreign teachers and, increasingly, well-trained Japanese staff, teachers in Sendai were generally amateurs when it came to performing. The repertoire would seem to reflect this: much of the music performed consisted of either band music, songs and instrumental pieces found in the pedagogical literature, and popular music, including arrangements of excerpts from operas intended for playing at home.

With the arrival of Kate I. Hansen in autumn 1907 to take up her appointment at Miyagi College, one of the most significant foreign actors appeared on the scene. She was immediately persuaded to participate in the city’s musical life, as two concert programmes published in the newly founded journal Ongakukai demonstrate. The concerts would have been her first introduction to the local scene. The programmes, reproduced in full here, represent typical examples not only for Sendai but also for other parts of Japan outside Tokyo. The items performed are given here as they appeared in Ongakukai. Unlike the Tokyo Academy of Music, where, after the early years, concerts of Western music did not include traditional performances, mixed programmes prevailed in Sendai and elsewhere.176

The first concert, organized by the Sendai Association for the Promotion of Music (Sendai Ongaku Shōrei Kai), was held on 26 October 1907, in the Kokubun-chō quarter in the centre of the city. The programme was as follows: 177

Daytime Section, Part 1:

  1. Choir – yūshisha (members of the music association)
  2. Sankyoku ensemble (traditional Japanese three-part ensemble) – Mr Yamashita kengyō178 et al.
  3. Cornett solo – Tannhäuser: Evening Star – Mr Stick179
  4. Piano solo – Miss Hansen
  5. Vocal solo – Boat Song, Weber – Miss Takeuchi Imako180
  6. Banjo solo – Mr Zaugg181
  7. Harmonica solo – Kārumāchi – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu182
  8. Violin solo – Serenade – Mr Okamoto Fusao
  9. Vocal solo – Mrs Seiple
  10. Piano solo – Allegro and Adagio – Mr Maeda Kyūhachi
  11. Mandolin solo – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu

Daytime Section, Part 2:

  1. Ensemble performance – members of the association
  2. Piano solo – Miss Hansen
  3. Harmonica solo – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu
  4. Vocal solo – Mrs Seiple
  5. Mellophone solo – Mr Stick183
  6. Sankyoku – Mr Yamashita kengyō with others
  7. Banjo solo – Mr Zaugg
  8. Vocal solo – Weber, Oberon – Miss Takeuchi Imako
  9. Violin solo – “Māsa” – Mr Okamoto Fusao184
  10. Piano solo – Mr Maeda Kyūhachi
  11. Biwa (plucked lute) – Mr Kitajima Hiroshi

Evening Section, Part 1

  1. Sankyoku – Mr Yamashita kengyō with others
  2. Harmonica – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu
  3. Piano solo – Mr Maeda Kyūhachi
  4. Vocal solo – Miss Takeuchi Imako
  5. Cornett solo – Mr Stick
  6. Piano solo – Miss Hansen
  7. Vocal solo – Mrs Seiple
  8. Harmonica solo – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu
  9. Mandolin solo – Mr Stick
  10. Violin solo – Tenjin no yume (The angel’s/heavenly deity’s dream)185 – Mr Okamoto Fusao
  11. Piano solo – Mister Maeda Kyūhachi

Evening section, Part 2

  1. Ensemble performance – members of the association
  2. Piano solo – Mrs Seiple
  3. Harmonica solo – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu
  4. Violin solo – Largo – Mr Okamoto Fusao
  5. Sankyoku – Mr Yamashita kengyō with others
  6. Vocal solo – Miss Takeuchi Imako
  7. Banjo solo – Mr Zaugg
  8. Mandolin solo – Mr Kawakami Tsutomu
  9. Mellophone solo – Mr Stick
  10. Piano solo – Mr Maeda Kyūhachi
  11. Biwa – Mr Kitajima Hiroshi

The second concert took place only two weeks later, on 9 November, in the auditorium of Sendai Medical School (Sendai Igaku Senmon Gakkō). Described as ‘Concert of the Sho Gakkō Rengōkai (Sendai Federation of Schools)’, it was organized by volunteers from the school. The performers came from the Normal School, Tohoku Lower Secondary School, the Prefectural High School for Girls, the Second High School, Tohoku College and Miyagi College, and the members of the Sendai Associated Band (Sendai Rengō Ongakutai). Unlike the previous programme, no traditional Japanese music is listed, but that does not necessarily mean that none was performed: 186

First Part

  1. Organ solo – a member of the Association
  2. Violin quartet – four members of the men’s department of the Normal School
  3. Chorus – Suma no kyoku (Song of Suma)187 – students of Tohoku Lower Secondary School
  4. Four-part chorus – Memories of Gallilee188 – Komoriya Mitsuo, Yamamoto Tomikazu, Ikeda Kiyoshi, Onikawa Shunzō
  5. Violin ensemble – Mazas, Allegro189 – Saitō Jōzō, Maedako Kiyoshi
  6. Chorus – Maran [?] – Momijigari190 – Female students from the Prefectural High School
  7. Mellophone solo – Beon [?], Kanransan – (Mount of Olives)191– J. M. Stick
  8. Vocal solo (shōka) – Ryōshū192 – Miss Tanaka Ine (Normal School)
  9. Violin solo – Madrigal – Saitō Jōzō
  10. Chorus – Aki no yoru193 – Mr Ishimori Gōki Mr Ikawa Tadao
  11. Piano solo – American March – Miss. M. Schwartz194
  12. Vocal solo – Ōunahara195 – Mr Suzuki Shōkichi (Second High School)
  13. Chorus – March of Victory196 – Students of Tohoku College
  14. Vocal Solo – Oberon by Weber – Miss Takeuchi Imako

Second Part

  1. Mixed (kangen) ensemble a) Ze gereeto debuaito197 ; b) Waltz – The Sendai Associated Band (Sendai Rengō Ongakutai)
  2. Chorus – Aputosu, Aki no aware (Sorrows of autumn)198 – students from the Prefectural Girls’ High School
  3. Harmonica solo – Kaaru Maachi199 – Komoriya Mitsuo
  4. Vocal solo – Roei no yume200 – Mr. Nishiōida Takahira (Normal School)
  5. Organ solo – Sortie – Miss Kataoka Tamaki
  6. Chorus – Hototogisu (Cuckoo)201 – Mr. Nishimaki Hidezō,
    Mr Koizumi, Mr Kobayashi (Second High School)
  7. Chorus – Mendelssohn, The Maybells and the Flowers volunteers yūshi from Miyagi College
  8. Piano solo – Sonata Miss Shionoya Teruko
  9. Four-part chorus – Yonsu [?], Byūtifuru, randoji202 – Komoriya Mitsuo, Yamamoto Tomikazu, Ikeda Kiyoshi, Onikawa Shunzō
  10. Piano solo – Edward Grieg, Zug der Zwerge – Miss K. I. Hansen
  11. Voice solo – Mendelssohn Jerusalem – Miss Takeuchi Imako203
  12. Cornett solo – Stick, Polka – J. M. Stick
  13. Voice solo – Mrs Seiple
  14. Piano duet: Wagner, Tannhäuser – Mrs Seiple, Miss Hansen
  15. Kimigayo (national anthem) (sung twice) – all the assembled

Once again, the audience was treated to an eclectic programme that included marches, hymns, selections from operas, salon pieces, and a variety of songs, most, although not all, of them by Western composers, even if they had Japanese lyrics. The performers, students, and teachers came from at least seven different schools. The last item before the national anthem must have been a highlight: both Florence Seiple and Kate Hansen were well-trained musicians, and Richard Wagner, like Beethoven, was better known to Meiji intellectuals through books than through experience of listening to his compositions.204

Over the following years Hansen and Seiple (appointed to Miyagi College in 1908) performed regularly in Sendai in addition to teaching music. Miyagi College was the main subject of the last of the four reports on the state of music in Sendai, published in Ongakukai in December 1908.205 The mission school (as readers were reminded) with a newly appointed principal, Henry K. Miller (1866–1936), seemed to be paying particular attention to its music department, which, thanks to the strong American presence, was already more developed than that of other schools. Now the school had strengthened its music education with the appointment of Kate Hansen as pianist. According to one of the school’s female teachers, the report went on, students should be expected to be able to play a sonata by the time they graduated; a tall order for a school that did not specialize in music training. Other teachers at the school included J. Monroe Stick (cornet),206 Florence Seiple (singer), Satō Kazuko (piano), and Uda Masuko (piano), all of whom were enthusiastic promoters of Western music. In addition, Tohoku College had E. H. Zaugg as a music teacher, who, besides playing the banjo, likewise worked hard to proliferate Western music.

In fact, rather than Miller (who only acted as the school’s principal from March 1908 to March 1909), Kate Hansen was the driving force behind the establishment and development of a music department that was one of very few in early twentieth-century Japan offering conservatoire-level training.207

  1. 1 From a monument to Shikama Jinji, erected in 1957 at Kōmyōji temple. Hōsawa Shōsō School was established by Hōzawa Miyoji as a private academy (juku) for sewing in 1879, and became one of the most respected schools for girls. It still exists today as the (co-educational) high school Meisei Kōtō Gakkō: www.hgm.ed.jp/info/history

  2. 2 For a discussion of the concert as a creative space, see Chapter 11.

  3. 3 Miyagi shogeijin shōgi ichiran (Overview of performance artists and geisha in Miyagi), cited in Shin’ya Watanabe, ‘Sendai yōgaku no sakigake’, Sendai bunka, no. 11 (2009): 5. According to Watanabe, he received a copy of the overview from the Shiroishi Doll Warehouse in Miyagi prefecture.

  4. 4 Jōruri is a generic term for narrative shamisen music, which, apart from the specific genres named after their founders, including shinnai, tokiwazu, and kiyomoto, also comprised heikyoku (narrative vocal genres based on the Tale of the Heike), yōkyoku (singing in noh), and others.

  5. 5 Watanabe’s explanation. For a brief overview of the vocal narrative genres, which continued to be popular well into the twentieth century, see also Kerim Yasar, Electrified Voices: How the Telephone, Phonograph, and Radio Shaped Modern Japan, 1868–1945 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 26–29, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7312/yasa18712/html

  6. 6 Shōgorō Ono, ‘Ongyoku no fusei wa jinmin no hinkō o midaru’, Kōshū joshi 15–17 (1877): Documents relating to the Ono family in the Sendai City Museum; reprinted in: Kanako Kitahara and Sumire Yamashita, ‘Kyū Sendai hanshi Ono Shōgorō no ongakuron, Ongyoku no fusei wa jinmin no hinkō o midaru’, Hirosaki Daigaku kokushi kenkyū 143 (October 2017), https://cir.nii.ac.jp/crid/1010282256804517896

  7. 7 Shin’ya Watanabe, ‘Sendai yōgaku no sakigake’, Sendai bunka, no. 11 (2009).

  8. 8 Masami Yamazumi, Shōka kyōiku seiritsu katei no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1967), 157–58.

  9. 9 The diary of Bishop Nikolaj has several references to Maedako. In July 1902, after several admonitions and a reduction of his pay, he was dismissed from his post: Kumi Mōri and Takeshi Saitō, Bannai, Tomoko, eds., Senkyōshi Nikorai no zen’nikki, 9 vols., vol. 7 (Tokyo: Kyōbunkan, 2007), 82, 159.

  10. 10 Reports about this clearly significant institution are conflicting, with both Shikama Totsuji and Madeko named as founders. See the following section on Shikama Totsuji’s activities in Sendai.

  11. 11 I have found very few sources on Maedako, including a short dictionary entry in Sendai Jinmei Daijisho Kankōkai, ed., Sendai jinmei daijisho (2000 (1933)). The dates of his death are from the register at the Russian Orthodox Church in Sendai and from the family grave at Dōrinji temple in Sendai. According to the inscription, Wataru died in Tokyo in 1932 at the age of thirty-seven and Haruko in 1975 (no age recorded).

  12. 12 Biographical details in Shin’ya Watanabe, ‘Sendai sho no shōka kyōshi Shikama Jinji’, Sendai bunka, no. 11 (2009); Miyagiken Kyōiku Iinkai, ed., Miyagiken kyōiku hyakunenshi Vol 4 (Sendai: Gyōsei, 1977), 429; Sakae Ōmura, Yōkendō kara no shuppatsu: kyōiku hyakunenshi yowa, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Gyōsei, 1986), 175.

  13. 13 Kenneth Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan: Problems of Cultural Identity, 1885–1895 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969).

  14. 14 Yamazumi, Shōka kyōiku seiritsu katei no kenkyū, 168–69.

  15. 15 A report in Ongaku zasshi in April 1896 carried a short note stating that Jinji had been ordered to conduct investigations into music (ongaku torishirabe) in Tokyo and stayed there from 2 February to the middle of the month: see Ongaku zasshi no. 57 (1896): 30.

  16. 16 ‘Miyagi-ken no ongaku’, Ongaku zasshi, no. 2 (25 October 1890).

  17. 17 Regulations in Miyagiken Kyōiku Iinkai, Miyagiken kyōiku hyakunenshi Vol 4, 527–29.

  18. 18 ‘Sendai chihō ongaku’, Ongaku zasshi 13 (1891): 16.

  19. 19 Dai Ni Kōtō Chūgakkō rakusei shiki, Ongaku zasshi 14, M24.11, p 13; the event was announced in the preceding issue (13: 16).

  20. 20 The announcement in the previous issue of Ongaku zasshi included the information that a military band from the army would perform. Presumably, this would have been a band from the local garrison.

  21. 21 Kaikō o shuku suru uta. The song is published in the same issue of Ongaku zasshi (pp. 5–6)

  22. 22 Sansa Shigure is a local folk song, still well known today.

  23. 23 Nanishiro Ōshūgaku to shingaku korekore no gotoshi.

  24. 24 ‘Sendai jizen ongaku kai’, Ongaku zasshi 18 (1892): 19–20.

  25. 25 Five of them are named: Kamata Fusan, Yamashita Shōkin, Umehara Eizō, Itō Shōko, and Ichikawa Hiroko.

  26. 26 In 1887 the starting salary for a primary school teacher was eight yen a month; ten kilograms of polished rice cost sixty-seven sen in Tokyo in 1892. See Shūkan Asahi, ed., Nedanshi nempyō: Meiji, Taishō, Shōwa (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1988), 92, 161.

  27. 27 ‘Jizen ongakukai no bikyo’, Ongaku zasshi 19 (1892): 21.

  28. 28 Wagakuni jurai no ongaku o hattatsu seshimuru mokuteki.

  29. 29 ‘Sendai jizen ongaku kai’, Ongaku zasshi 31 (1893): 19. I could find no report of the second concert.

  30. 30 ‘Sendai jizen ongaku kai’, Ongaku zasshi 36 (1893): 23. The same page has a note about a Society for researching Qing music (Shingaku Kenkyūkai) established by the students of Yamashita Shōkin, who were organizing their tenth regular meeting in Sendai.

  31. 31 ‘Sendai jizenkai no rinjikai’, Ongaku zasshi 38 (1893): 20–21.

  32. 32 ‘Hōmeikai’, Ongaku zasshi 33 (1893): 21.

  33. 33 Ibid.

  34. 34 Other reports about the activities of the Hōmeikai in Ongaku zasshi 35 (1893): 15–16; 37 (1893): 19; 38 (1893): 16–17; 41 (1894): 23; 42 (1894): 26; 45 (1894): 31–33.

  35. 35 ‘Hōmeikai’, Ongaku zasshi 35 (1893): 15–16. I found no report of the second meeting.

  36. 36 ‘Hōmeikai’, Ongaku zasshi 38. (1893): 16–17. The previous issue contained a short note about a lecture organized by the Hōmeikai (p. 19), but there was no mention of a concert.

  37. 37 ‘Hōmeikai daisankai taishūkai gaijō’, Ongaku zasshi, no. 45 (25 June 1894). The concert was announced in its previous issue. On Tsunekawa, see Chapter 3.

  38. 38 Yamashita Shōkin (1848–1918) was a jiuta performer and composer.

  39. 39 The highlighted wagaku pieces are: Isochidori, Yaegoromo, and Tsuru no sugomori.

  40. 40 Rokudan is the title of a famous koto piece attributed to Yatsuhashi Kengyō (1614–84). Ukigumo (floating or drifting clouds) is the title of a shakuhachi piece (a so-called classical piece or koten honkyoku); however, here it is more likely to be a song with the same title composed by the Tokyo Academy graduate Suzuki Yonejirō with lyrics by Ochiai Naobumi and published by Kyōeki Shōsha in 1892. I have not been able to identify the other pieces, Shizuku no chikara (strength or power of drops/dripping), Shinkōkyoku (march) and Roei (bivouac, camping out).

  41. 41 ‘Hōmeikai daisankai taishūkai gaijō’, Ongaku zasshi 45 (1894): 31–33.

  42. 42 ‘Sendai tsūshin, Hōmeikai’, Ongaku zasshi 57 (1895: 22–28 (25).

  43. 43 He composed songs for at least six primary schools soon after his return from Tokyo: Miyagiken Shōgakkōchō Kai, ed., Hossoku yonjū shūnen kinen shi: yonjū nen no ayumi (Sendai: Miyagiken Shōgakkōchō Kai, 1987), 144, 228, 259, 333, 578, 594. The catalogue of Miyagi Prefecture Library records two song collections published locally: Jinji Shikama, Seishin no uta: dai isshū (Sendai: Takatō Shoten, 1894); Jinji Shikama and Makino Kōji, Manshū tetsudō shōka (Sendai: Fusandō, 1905).

  44. 44 Jinji Shikama, ed., Miyagi-ken kyōdo shōka: dai isshū (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Hanshichi, 1901).

  45. 45 Miyagiken Kyōiku Iinkai, ed., Miyagiken kyōiku hyakunenshi Vol 2 (Sendai: Gyōsei, 1977), 512. Jinji is mentioned a few times in same work: in vol 2, p. 177, he is listed among those honoured for their contribution to education at the time of the fortieth anniversary of the Imperial Rescript on Education, and also as the composer of the school song for the Normal School.

  46. 46 ‘Sendai tsūshin [April 1896]’, Ongaku zasshi/Omukaku, no. 57 (28 April 1896): 25 (‘Sendai Jizen Kai’).

  47. 47 ‘Sendai tsūshin [April 1896]’, 23.

  48. 48 Ibid., 24–25.

  49. 49 Ibid., 2–7.

  50. 50 ‘Sendai tsūshin [April 1896]’, 27–29.

  51. 51 Ibid., 28.

  52. 52 ‘Sendai tsūshin [October 1896]’, Ongaku zasshi/Omukaku, no. 62 (25 October 1896): 39–40.

  53. 53 ‘Miyagi-ken Sendai tsūshin [April 1897]’, Ongaku zasshi/Omukaku, no. 68 (25 April 1897). It is not clear who wrote the report: the pseudonym is not typical of those Totsuji used. On the bands, see also Hide Henmi, Sendai hajimete monogatari (Sendai: Sōdōsha, 1995), 211–15.

  54. 54 ‘Sendai tsūshin [April 1896]’, 26.

  55. 55 ‘Sendai tsūshin [October 1896]’, 38–39.

  56. 56 ‘Sendai tsūshin [October 1896]’, 39. The history of Tōhoku Ongakuin is elusive: Shikama Totsuji and Maedako are variously described as its founders. The Kakyōindōri area (today in Miyagino ward, just north-west of Sendai Station) is also where the Shikama residence was located. Possibly the names have been confused: according to a report in April 1897, Shikama Totsuji’s establishment was named Tōhoku Ongaku Kai and offered fast-track qualification to teach shōka in primary schools. It had forty to fifty members. See ‘Miyagi-ken Sendai tsūshin [April 1897]’, 36. Meanwhile, a report in 1907 stated that Maedako had recently expanded his school, here referred to has Miyagi Ongaku Kōshūkai, and renamed it Tōhoku Ongakuin. Conceivably, he took over from Shikama Totsuji, who left the city around that time. See ‘Miyagi Ongaku Kōshūkai’, Ongaku 12, no. 2 (1907).

  57. 57 ‘Sendai tsūshin [October 1896]’, 40.

  58. 58 Ibid., 41.

  59. 59 Literary journals reported on music, but not regularly. Local newspapers, including Kahoku Shinpō, established in 1897, published information about concerts.

  60. 60 Jinji Shikama and Totsuji Shikama, Chiiku tetsudō shōka (Sendai: Yūsenkaku (Yamamoto Otoshirō, 1900)). The Shikamas’ song was one of several published about the Tohoku railway lines that year.

  61. 61 Totsuji Shikama, Tokkyō shōka (Tokyo and Sendai: Gakuyūkan and Yūsenkaku, 1902). Although only Totsuji is named as the author, the introduction was written by Jinji, who is also named as the composer of some of the songs.

  62. 62 Ichizō Sano, ed., Sangyō shōka: Sano Seishijō yō (Miyagi-ken Igu-gun Kanayama-machi: Sano Ichizō, 1901). Sano Rihachi (?–1915) was an important figure in the history of the silk industry in Meiji Japan. About the silk filature, which exported to the United States, see Rihachi (jun.) Sano, Sano Silk Filature in North-Eastern Japan (Tokyo: By the author, 1919).

  63. 63 Examples quoted in Patricia Tsurumi, Factory Girls: Women in the Thread Mills of Meiji Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

  64. 64 Sano, Sangyō shōka.

  65. 65 This was presumably Uchida Kumetarō (1861–1941), who had graduated from the Tokyo Academy of Music in 1887 (he taught at the Academy from 1902 to 1909).

  66. 66 ‘Hikone no ongaku’, Ongaku zasshi 37 (1893).

  67. 67 Details in Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, ed., Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi (Tokyo: Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shōshi Dōsōkai, 1979), 107–13. Shōshi appears in the work of Mencius, Jin Xin I, and means ‘exalted aim’ (Legge translation).

  68. 68 Walter Dening, (1846–1913), an English missionary, first came to Japan in 1873. From 1895 he taught English at the Second High School. See Hiroshi Takeuchi, Rainichi Seiyō jinmei jiten (Tokyo: Nichigai Associates, 1983), 242–43.

  69. 69 Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi, 952.

  70. 70 Shinano Kyōiku Kai, ed., Kyōiku kōrōsha retsuden (Nagano: Shinano Kyōiku Kai, 1935), 392–93; Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei Chōi Kai, ed., Butsugai Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei (Tokyo: Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei Chōi Kai, 1931), 47. The latter includes a photo of the piano in the photograph section after p. 246. See also Nagano Prefectural Senior High School, ‘Message from the Principal’ (Miyamoto Takashi), https://www.nagano-c.ed.jp/naganohs/english/profile/index.html; https://www.nagano-c.ed.jp/naganohs/profile/index.html (accessed 26 July 2021: in July 2020, the English version still carried the ‘Message’ of the previous principal, who was pictured seated by the ‘sacred piano’; the text referring to the piano is the same in both messages).

  71. 71 Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei Chōi Kai, Butsugai Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei, 16, 21 (second part, after p. 150). This would have been the wife of James Summers (1828–91). The couple, both teachers, came to Japan in 1873.

  72. 72 Heijirō Iwaki, ‘Sensei to Ongaku’, in Butsugai Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei, ed. Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei Chōi Kai (Tokyo: Miyoshi Aikichi Sensei Chōi Kai, 1931).　

  73. 73 Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi, 952. There may well have been an unofficial part, such as the ‘aftermeeting’ described by Kate Hansen in one of her letters: see the following chapter.

  74. 74 Cited in Shōshikai zasshi, no. 55 (Meiji 36.6.20): 77; the programme is in English: I have kept the original spelling, since it may offer clues for the identification where this is unclear. English translations of Japanese titles are provided by me.

  75. 75 Presumably Hotaru no hikari (Light of the fireflies, sung to the melody of Auld Lang Syne).

  76. 76 Probably Kubo, as in the programme for the third concert, where he is listed as performing Edward Rohlin’s Galop.

  77. 77 Possibly, Louisville March and Quick Step, composed for and dedicated to Mrs. A. Bowen by W. C. P. Philada.: Klemm & Brother [between 1831 and 1839].

  78. 78 Possibly The Grand Russian March by C. P. Francis. Published George Willig, Philadelphia, 1835.

  79. 79 Possibly, Tre giorni son que Nina, widely ascribed to the composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–36). The song was (and is) highly popular, and there are several Japanese-language versions: the earliest, by Yoshimaru Kazumasa, was published in 1912, but that does not preclude the Italian version being known and performed earlier.

  80. 80 Dai Nihon bōchō no uta / Song about the Growth of Great Japan. According to an article in Yomiuri Newspaper in November 1903, the song was being used as a school song by Gumma Prefectural School of Agriculture (Gunma-ken Nōgyō Gakkō). See Yuriko Takashima, ‘Kōka o meguru hyōshō bunka kenkyū: kindai kokka seiritsu ni okeru kōka no seitei katei to gendai no sh jōkyō o tekagari ni’ (Ph.D. 2013), 25.

  81. 81 Lyrics by Thomas Power, various arrangements, c. 1840; published in several collections of songs.

  82. 82 Home Sweet Home, lyrics by John Howard Payne, music by Henry Bishop.

  83. 83 Robert Schumann, Op. 68.10, from his Album für die Jugend (Album for the Young)

  84. 84 This appears to be Cyrillic, or at least an attempt to print Cyrillic. The most likely transcription is, Украинская ночь (Ukrainskaja notj) meaning ‘Ukrainian Night’. Two Russian operas include an aria of that title: (1) Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, May Night (1879), ‘Ukrainian Night and Levko’s Song’ in Act 3; (2) Tchaikovsky, Mazepa (Мазепа), also known as Mazeppa (1881–83), based on a poem by Aleksander Pushkin, Mazepa’s Monologue in Act 2, Scene 1, Тиха украинская ночь (Tikha ukraynskaya noch; ‘Quiet is the Ukrainian Night’). Given the frequently imprecise titles in programmes, another possible candidate might be the famous Ukrainian folk song What a Moonlit Night (Ніч яка місячна, Nich yaka misiachna), Composed by Mykola Vitaliyovych Lysenko (1842–1912) to lyrics by Mykhailo Petrovych Starytsky (1840–1904). Incidentally Iakov Tichai, who taught music, including violin, first in Hakodate (from 1873) and then in Tokyo at the Russian Orthodox seminary, came from the area of present-day Ukraine, as did Dimitrii Livosvski, who taught violin. See Rihei Nakamura, Kirisuto-kyō to Nihon no yōgaku (Tokyo: Ōzorasha, 1996).

  85. 85 A shōka, sung to the melody of Long, Long Ago: publications it appears in include a collection edited by Ōwada Tateki and Oku Yoshiisa: Meiji shōka bassui shōgaku shōka (Chūōdō 1895). Translation added by myself, the original English-language programme has no translations. See note 74.

  86. 86 From Heinrich Ernst Kayser (1815–88), 36 Violin Studies, Op. 20.

  87. 87 Lyrics by Max Schneckenburger (1849), most commonly sung to a melody by Carl Wilhelm (1854), the song functioned as an unofficial national anthem in the German Empire from 1871. The melody was used in college songs for Yale and Dōshisha, the latter in an arrangement by Yamada Kōsaku. An English version was published in Japan in 1903. See Katsuisa Sakai, ed., Eigo shōka, 3 vols., vol. 1 (Tokyo: Uedaya, 1903), 10–12.

  88. 88 Most likely, General Washington’s March, also known as ’Washington’s march’, original score for piano, supposed composer Francis Hopkinson (1737–91). The score in the Library of Congress (Printed and sold by G. Graupner at his musical academy, no. 6 Franklin Street, [1800]) The work includes the melody of the song Yankee Doodle.

  89. 89 Schubert composed several waltzes.

  90. 90 Presumably the highly popular Victorian ballad (1892) by Stephen Adams (pseudonym for Michael Maybrick, 1841–1913), lyrics by Frederic Weatherly (1848–1929).

  91. 91 Popular American song (1901); music by Robert A. King (1862–1932), lyrics by Henry V. Neal; possibly Henry Vinton Neal (1848–1931). See http://www.hymntime.com/tch//bio/n/e/a/l/neal_hv.htm

  92. 92 Chopin composed several polonaises.

  93. 93 My Ain Countrie: A sad late Jacobite song of exile; lyrics by Allan Cunningham (1784–1882), who presented several of his own compositions as Jacobite originals. See Scots Language Centre, https://www.scotslanguage.com/articles/node/id/379/type/referance

  94. 94 Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi, 952–53.

  95. 95 The Cyrillic transcription of ’fu’ is generally фу (Polivanov system). Note that the initial ‘H’ before ‘Maidako’ corresponds to ‘N’ in English, which would be the first letter of ‘Nobuchika’, another reading for the characters for ‘Shinkin’.

  96. 96 I thank Tsukahara Yasuko for confirming this.

  97. 97 If he did indeed study in Tokyo, it may have been at the Seminary, or else privately with one of its teachers, such as the violinist Kisu Yoshinoshin, introduced later in this chapter. However, I have found no clear evidence of a Russian connection.

  98. 98 I have found no information about ‘Mr. Ernst’; he may well have been a teacher at the school.

  99. 99 Gi Ishino, Vaiorin renshūkyoku (Tokyo: Kōseikan, 1907).

  100. 100 Ōta plays the piano on a recording of Aki no irogusa held in the National Diet Library.

  101. 101 Shōshikai zasshi, no. 55 (June 1903): 77–78. The programme, like most, is in Japanese.

  102. 102 The first is presumably the famous chorus from Carl Maria von Weber’s Opera, Der Freischütz; the second is presumably Butterfly Scottish by James E. Magruder, 1869 (pf. music). See Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection, Johns Hopkins University Library: https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/040/031

  103. 103 Not identified.

  104. 104 The transcription is inconclusive. Possibilities include ‘veil’ and ‘vale’; the latter appears more common in titles of popular music.

  105. 105 Hana: there are several songs of that title; including the well-known shōka by Taki Rentarō. Suma no kyoku is the title of a koto piece, but here it is more likely to refer to Kitamura’s opera of that title.

  106. 106 There is a koto piece of that title, as well as a kouta; probably they performed a transcription of the koto version.

  107. 107 Possibly a spelling error: Yasumasa (spelt with a different second character) is the title of a Japanese song based on the melody of ‘Das klinget so herrlich’ from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. See Yasuto Okunaka, Wayō setchū ongakushi (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2014), 11–13.

  108. 108 Almost certainly one of several published arrangements of the koto piece of that name.

  109. 109 More than one possibility: perhaps the song by Ōwada Tateki, to a melody by Lowell Mason.

  110. 110 The first is presumably part of Rossini’s opera Wilhelm Tell (perhaps the overture). The second title, assuming it refers to a specific piece rather than a generic slow waltz, might be the The Swinging Waltz Song by Charles A. Davies (Groene, J. C. & Co., Cincinnati, 1885), although it is scored for voice and piano.

  111. 111 Happy New Year March by J. J. Watson. C. A. Fuller (published Shaw, W. F. & Col, 1884); Jolly Sisters Galop: Library of Congress has sheet music for two different pieces of that title: (1) By F. L. Blancjour (Philadelphia, Lewis Meyers, 1871); (2) Composed and published by J. N. O. P. Dougherty (Chester, P.A., 1882)

  112. 112 See Chapter 8.

  113. 113 A well-known celebratory gagaku piece.

  114. 114 Shōshikai zasshi no. 55 (June 1903): 78–79. This programme is in English.

  115. 115 I have not been able to identify the piece.

  116. 116 Most probably Robin Redbreast by Anne Wilhelmina Pelzer (1833-97). She was born into a family of musicians in London and was a successful composer, pianist, concertina player, and teacher there. Her sister, Catherina Pelzer (1821-95), was a celebrated guitar virtuosa. Lyrics by W. Allingham. First published, London 1857. See https://archive.org/details/Robin55298 Another possibility would be the children’s song Little Robin Redbreast or Song of the Robin Redbreast, a popular Victorian Christmas song by Leslie Herbert.

  117. 117 Beautiful Isle of Somewhere (1897) by John Sylvester Fearis, lyrics by Jessie Brown Pounds (aka ‘Somewhere the sun is shining’).

  118. 118 Possibly, I Am Dreaming of Thee, Mother by William R. Scott (1875).

  119. 119 Possibly For Thee, Oh Dear, Dear Country, popular hymn, sung to several different tunes. Text by Bernard of Cluny (1145), translated by John Mason Neale (1858).

  120. 120 Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846–1916): Italian-born composer and music teacher; moved to Britain in 1875.

  121. 121 I have only been able to find a piano and harp piece of that name; possibly the item should read ‘Galop – Allemande’.

  122. 122 In Old Madrid; Music by Henry Tortere; lyrics by Clifton Bingham; published 1890.

  123. 123 The Dragon Fighter: Polonaise by B. Hoffmann, Op. 1.

  124. 124 Yume: lyrics by Satō Jōjitsu (1839–1908), set to Robert Schumann, Der Traum, Op. 146 No. 3.

  125. 125 Not identified. Possibly all three come from a single collection of children’s songs.

  126. 126 Friedrich Kuhlau (1786–1832).

  127. 127 Possibly from the musical The Princess Bonnie, words and music by William Spenser, premiered in 1894 at the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia, 1895 Broadway. Extracts were published as The Princess Bonnie Waltzes, arranged and composed by Willard Spenser. Published by Wm. H. Keyser & Co., Philadelphia [1894].

  128. 128 In the Starlight, by Stephen Glover. Lyrics by J. E. Carpenter. Library of Congress has an edition published by Wyman & Davis, Chicago, 1878. The song features in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ‘Little House’ books.

  129. 129 Presumably a transcription of the duet, Ah perdona al primo affetto from Mozart’s opera, La Clemenza di Tito.

  130. 130 Good Bye to All, Good Bye (1901) by the American composer J. Reginald MacEachron.

  131. 131 Franz Behr, Witches’ Frolic, Caprice, Op. 252 No. 6.

  132. 132 Most likely Sweetly, Sweetly Sang the Bird (‘Sang das Vöglein’, or The Bird (Das Vögelein) from a collection of vocal duets by Anton Rubinstein (1829–94), 18 Vocal Duets with Pianoforte Accompaniment, Op. 48. First German edition listed in Hofmeister 1856; ‘12 zweistimmige Lieder’, Op. 45 and Zweistimm. Lieder m. Pfte. Neue Ausg 67, 1881.

  133. 133 Reginald De Koven (1859–1920). Abide with Me. Sacred Song for Alto. New York: G. Schirmer (date unknown).

  134. 134 Henry Ketten, b. Baja, Hungary 1848, d. Paris 1883, La Castagnette, Op. 94 (1879).

  135. 135 Joseph Mazzinghi (1765–1844), composer, active in London; a pastoral glee scored for three voices and piano.

  136. 136 There seems to be no obvious candidate for this.

  137. 137 Composed by Michael Maybrick (1841–1913), alias Stephen Adams, lyrics by Frederic Edward Weatherly (1848–1929), in 1892, highly popular religious song.

  138. 138 Shōshikai zasshi no. 55 (June 1903): 79.

  139. 139 See Hoyle Carpenter, ‘Salon Music in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’, Civil War History 4, no. 3 (1958): 291, https://doi.org/10.1353/cwh.1958.0032 The mid-nineteenth century collection of piano music examined by Carpenter includes the kind of repertoire performed in Sendai.

  140. 140 Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi, 953-54. Apparently, there are no reports of the fourth and fifth concerts (I have only been able to check selected issues of Shōshikai zasshi myself). Charles Stewart Davison (1877–1920) served as a Presiding Elder in Sendai before moving to Aoyama Gakuin in Tokyo, where Edwin Iglehart (1878–1964) also taught. Edwin Iglehart’s brother Charles Wheeler Iglehart (1882–1969) followed him to Japan, and was active in Sendai from 1909 until the First World War). As well as teaching theology at Aoyama Gakuin, Edwin Iglehart presided over the college’s first Glee Club and sang himself. He later co-published a short book on music in Japan: Katsumi Sunaga, Edwin Taylor Iglehart, Japanese Music (Board of tourist industry, Japanese government railways, 1936).

  141. 141 The Institute March was dedicated to the faculty and pupils of his alma mater, Dana’s Musical Institute, Warren, Ohio.

  142. 142 Jim McClure, ‘Glen Rock’s Roland F. Seitz: “By his genius ... he has earned the title of ’Parade Music Prince’”’, https://eu.ydr.com/story/news/history/blogs/york-town-square/2013/05/18/glen-rocks-roland-f-seitz-by-his-genius-he-has-earned-the-title-of-parade-music-prince/31589503/

  143. 143 Details in Kyūsei Kōtō Gakkō Shiryō Hozon Kai, ed., Shiryō shūsei kyūsei kōtō gakkō zensho dai 7 kan: seikatsu/kyōyō hen (2) (Tokyo: Kyūsei Kōtō Gakkō Shiryō Hozon Kai Kankō Bu, 1984), 548–52. Originally published in Shōshikai zasshi 65 (1905).

  144. 144 Melody by Robert Schumann: see Chapter 6.

  145. 145 There are several possible candidates for Hachidan. J. Hermann’s Overture; Enchantment was apparently first published in the collection by J. S. Cox, J. W. Pepper’s Classic Cornet Solos with Piano Accompaniment. J. W. Pepper, Philadelphia, 1880, https://www.loc.gov/item/sm1880.12569/

  146. 146 The programme reads, ’Selection (Palm Branches)’, which may refer to The Boston Music Company Selection of Popular Salon Music, although I have not been able to verify an edition before 1909.

  147. 147 Kyūsei Kōtō Gakkō Shiryō Hozon Kai, Kyūsei kōtō gakkō zensho 7, 552.

  148. 148 Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi, 955–56. There is no record of the tenth concert, and after the eleventh concert, on 20 January 1906, the concerts were not numbered in the records.

  149. 149 Irene Suchy, ‘Versunken und vergessen: zwei österreichische Musiker in Japan vor 1945’, in Mehr als Maschinen für Musik, ed. Sepp Linhart and Kurt Schmid (Wien: Literas Universitätsverlag, 1990); Suchy, ‘Deutschsprachige Musiker’, 187.

  150. 150 Former surname, Nakagawa, Christian name Innocenti. See Nakamura, Kirisuto-kyō to Nihon no yōgaku, 96–99, 568.8

  151. 151 Kisu’s return was announced in Ongaku Zasshi 50 (January 1895), p. 34. The claim that he had graduated from the conservatoire was probably exaggerated.

  152. 152 Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō Shi Henshū Iinkai, Dai Ni Kōtō Gakkō shi, 955.

  153. 153 Ibid., 56.

  154. 154 ‘Ongakukai hokujō kiji’, Shōshikai zasshi 76 (1907): 143–44.

  155. 155 Name of a piece by A. Mahler, published J. L. Peters, Cincinnati, 1867.

  156. 156 Possibly: The Words by Hamilton Aide. The Music Composed by Stephen Adams. The Anglo-Canadian Music Publishers’ Association, Limited, 38 Church Street, Toronto, 1885. See https://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/collection/137/084

  157. 157 Most likely Mendelssohn’s.

  158. 158 Shinkyoku piece, music by Maeda Kyūhachi, published 1906.

  159. 159 In katakana script. I have not been able to identify this.

  160. 160 By Kitamura Sueharu: see Chapter 8.

  161. 161 No obvious candidate for the first title; Hanare kojima, like Roei no yume, is one of Kitamura Sueharu’s ‘narrative songs’ (joji shōka), published in 1904.

  162. 162 ‘Ongakukai hokujō kiji’, Shōshikai zasshi 76 (1907): 143–44.

  163. 163 ‘Kyōsaku kyūjo jizen ongakukai’, Tōhoku bungaku 38 (1905).

  164. 164 August Junker (1868–1944) studied in Cologne, then in Berlin (with Joseph Joachim), and, after a brief spell with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as performing as a soloist and with a string quartet. He came to Tokyo in 1898 and was appointed by the Tokyo Academy of Music the following year. Margaret Mehl, Not by Love Alone: The Violin in Japan, 1850–2010 (Copenhagen: The Sound Book Press, 2014), 54–59.

  165. 165 Florence Seiple (1877–1970) came to Japan in 1905 with her husband Reverend William George Seiple (1877–1965), who taught at Tohoku College from 1905 to 1936. She had trained at the Peabody Institute and in Germany. In 1908 she was appointed by Miyagi College, where she taught until 1931. See Chapter 11.

  166. 166 ‘Miyagi Ongaku Kōshūkai genjō’, Ongaku 11, no. 6 (1907); ‘Miyagi Ongaku Kōshūkai’, Ongaku 12, no. 2 (1907): 34–35.

  167. 167 Hakusuirō [pseud.], ‘Sendai-shi no gakukyō (February 1908)’, Ongakukai 1, no. 2 (1908): 45–46.

  168. 168 ‘Sendai-shi no gakukai’, Ongakukai 1, no. 4 (1908); Jigensei [pseud.], ‘Sendai-shi no gakukyō (June 1908)’, Ongakukai 1, no. 6 (1908).

  169. 169 Tōka Kōtō Jogakkō, a private school founded in 1904.

  170. 170 ‘Tōhoku Ongakuin Ongakukai’, Ongakukai 1, no. 6 (1908): 49–50.

  171. 171 The meanings of kokufū include the manners and customs, or, more specifically, the songs and ballads that form part of a country’s or a region’s traditions.

  172. 172 Jigensei [pseud.], ‘Sendai-shi no gakukyō (June 1908)’.

  173. 173 Ibid.

  174. 174 Hakusuirō [pseud.], ‘Sendai-shi no gakukyō (February 1908)’.

  175. 175 Ibid.

  176. 176 See Chapter 11 for more details about concert programmes.

  177. 177 Hakusuirō [pseud.], ‘Sendai-shi no gakukyō (February 1908)’, 47. The exact venue is not specified.

  178. 178 A holder of the highest rank of blind musicians organized in guilds in pre-Meiji Japan.

  179. 179 Song of the Evening Star from R. Wagner’s opera Tannhäuser.

  180. 180 Takeuchi (or Takenouchi) Imako graduated from the voice department of Tokyo Academy of Music in spring 1907 and had been appointed to teach at the Prefectural Girls’ High School. ‘Boat Song’ may be from Carl Maria von Weber’s opera Oberon; either Rezia’s Ocean Aria, or the Mermaid’s song Oh wie wogt es sich schön auf der Flut, or, possibly the folk song based on a melody from Oberon, Es murmeln die Wellen, es säuselt der Wind (lyrics by Guido Gössen, 1805–52). See also Item 8, in Part 2.

  181. 181 Reverend E. H. Zaugg, a missionary of the Reformed Church in the United States, taught at Tohoku College.

  182. 182 Probably König Karl-Marsch, composed in 1868 by Carl Ludwig Unrath (1828–1908), which was in the repertoire of the military bands and can be found in a collection of tunes for harmonica first published in 1906.

  183. 183 A mellophone is a type of horn, invented in the nineteenth century and played in bands as well as solo; the modern version of the instrument, developed in 1890, became popular in the United States. See Alan D. Perkins, Al’s Mellophone Page, http://www.alsmiddlebrasspages.com/mellophone/

  184. 184 Presumably, the arrangement of a piece from the opera Martha by Friedrich von Flotow (1812–83), possibly Die letzte Rose (The Last Rose of Summer).

  185. 185 The title is inconclusive: tenjin (heavenly deity) most often refers to the ninth-century scholar and statesman Sugawara no Michizane, who was deified after his death, but there is no obvious candidate for this title, and Okamoto is on record as playing Western pieces, so the title might conceivably refer to a Western piece, such as Anton Rubinstein’s Rêve Angélique (Op. 10/2), although ’angel’ is usually translated as tenshi.

  186. 186 Hakusuirō [pseud.], ‘Sendai-shi no gakukyō (February 1908)’, 47–48.

  187. 187 By Kitamura Sueharu, published by Kyōeki Shōsha, 1904.

  188. 188 Presumably the hymn of that name: lyrics by Robert Morris (1818–88), music by Horatio R. Palmer (1834–1907).

  189. 189 Most likely from the 18 Violin Duos, Op. 38 by Jacques Féréol Mazas (1782–1849).

  190. 190 There are several works with this Japanese title, including a part song by Franz Abt; see item 2 in the Second Part. The composer ‘Maran’ is probably Henri Abraham César Malan (1787–1864), who wrote and composed several hymns.

  191. 191 Possibly ‘Beon’ is a corruption of Beethoven, and the piece is from Christus am Oelberg (Christ in the Mount of Olives, Op. 85), such as the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.

  192. 192 The Japanese version of Dreaming of Home and Mother, by John Pond Ordway (1824–80). The Japanese lyrics are by Indō Kyūkei (1879–1943), and were first published in a collection of songs for schools in 1907.

  193. 193 Published in 1906 in a compilation of songs for female voices Tateki Ōwada, ed., Joshi Nisshin shōka (Tokyo: Dai Nihon Tosho, 1906).

  194. 194 Possibly John Philip Sousa, Stars and Stripes Forever (1897); Miriam Schwartz was the daughter of Methodist missionaries.

  195. 195 Possibly Ōunahara (from edition in NDL: Tsubouchi Shōyō, Togi Tetteki): loosely based on Franz Schubert, Schwanengesang (Swan Song), D 957, Nr. 12, Am Meer, lyrics by Heinrich Heine.

  196. 196 Possibly the hymn entitled March of Victory, with the first line ‘We have lifted our banners’ (by E. H. Shannon, published 1883).

  197. 197 Probably The Great Divide: March and Two-Step composed by Louis Maurice, arranged by Maurice F. Smith, (1872–1925), published by Leo Feist, 1907.

  198. 198 Possibly the composer Franz Wilhelm Abt (1819–85), whose works include many part songs, some of which were performed at the Tokyo Academy of Music.

  199. 199 See note relating to previous programme, Part 1, item 7.

  200. 200 Another song by Kitamura Sueharu (Tokyo: Kyōeki Shōsha, 1904).

  201. 201 No obvious candidate; the Japanese children’s song, titled Hototogisu is of a later date; possibly the English folk song, The Cuckoo (‘The cuckoo is a pretty bird’, or ‘Sumer Is Icumen In’, also known as ‘The Cuckoo Song’).

  202. 202 Probably That Beautiful Land; lyrics by F. A. F. Wood White, music by Mark M. Jones (1834–c. 1905). In 1909 a Japanese version with the title Nozomi no shima (Island of hope) was published, with lyrics by Komatsu Gyokugan (Kōsuke, 1884–1966). The performance in this Sendai concert appears to be the first documented one in Japan. See Yoshii Kiyoshi, ‘“Nozomi no shima” no rūtsu o saguru (Kaiteihan)’ (2017), http://www.saeranosushi.sakura.ne.jp/yoshii/nozomi/ThatBeautifulLand_Sum4.pdf

  203. 203 Aria from the Oratorio Paulus.

  204. 204 See Toru Takenaka, ‘Wagner-Boom in Meiji-Japan’, Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 62, no. 1 (2005). We cannot know for sure which transcription the two pianists performed, but most piano transcriptions of major orchestral works demand a considerable level of proficiency.

  205. 205 ‘Sendai gakukyō (December 1908)’, Ongakukai 1, no. 12 (1908).

  206. 206 Stick’s main appointment was at Tohoku College, but he taught at Miyagi College from 1908 to 1910.

  207. 207 She acted as deputy principal three times during her pre-war tenure at the college (1916–18; 1924–26, 1934–35), which also suggests that she was perceived as a leader.

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