Japanese Western Classical Music from the
Meiji to the Modern Era-Lecture Document-

Michael J. Holderer
D.M.A. Voice with Opera Emphasis___
The University of Texas at Austin
Spring 2009

Michael J. Holderer2

The adjective “Japanese” is a broad and encompassing term. It can be used todescribe race, nationality, and culture. The adjective elicits a range of images from fierce
warriors to cherry blossoms. What defines “Japanese” is largely dependent on one’s
perspective of the whole of Japanese culture, language, history, and society. One area
where the term has relative ambiguity is in the field of Japanese classical music.
The phrase “German classical music” describes a particular tradition, and evokes
images of Mozart and Haydn. Strictly speaking “classical music” encompasses the period
from the death of Handel in 1759 to the death of Haydn in 1809. However, “classicalmusic” in the broader sense as labeled in music libraries, music stores and online
references runs the gamut from the 17th century through the 21st century. The broader
use of the term has many definitions and is not restricted to an era, a genre or style.
Classical refers to music that is enduring, is taught as part of a basic education, in“classes” from which the term “classical” is derived. In the minds of some Westerners,
the term “Japanese Classical Music” creates sounds of Koto music played by geishas,accompaniment to Noh plays, pentatonic music that one could play using only the black
keys on the piano; in short anything and everything stereotypically associated withJapanese music. The fact is that while Japanese have kept alive the country’s musicaltraditions, they have simultaneously embraced Western musical forms andinstrumentation.
The contemporary Westerner is not alone in this stereotyping. In the opening to
his book A Diplomat in Japan (written between 1885 and 1921), celebrated Japaneseexpert Ernest Satow reveals the misconceptions about Japan he had before becoming a
British Council to the Japanese Meiji government:

Michael J. Holderer

3

My thoughts were first drawn to Japan by a mere accident. In my eighteenth year an elder brotherbrought home from Mudie’s Library the interesting account of Lord Elgin’s Mission to China andJapan by Lawrence Oliphant, and the book having fallen to me in turn, inflamed my imagination
with pictures verbal and coloured of a country where the sky was always blue, where the sun
shone perpetually, and where the whole duty of man seemed to consist of lying on a matted floor
with the windows open to the ground towards a miniature rockwork garden, in the company ofrosy-lipped black-eyed and attentive damsels- in short, a realized fairyland.1

Even in the modern era, with all of its amazing technology and prodigious
methods of rapid communication, some Westerners’ knowledge of Japan ends with bluehaired cartoon characters and fusion cuisine. Interest in Japanese music is usually limited
to fads in J-Pop (Japanese “pop” music) and soundtracks to Japanese cartoons. It would
probably shock some Westerners to know that the Japanese produced music in the styleof Debussy and Wolf during those composers’ lifetime. Moreover, this music was not
merely a copy of the Western composers’ style, but was in fact musically and poeticallyoriginal and thus worth studying in comparison to its Western counterparts.
Three Japanese composers whose compositions and style I believe have had agreat effect on Japanese Western Classical Music and who could be considered
prominent examples of particular generations of Japanese musical composition are, inchronological order: Kosaku Yamada, Yoshinao Nakada, and Toru Takemitsu. Because
language and culture play such an important role in Japanese life and because the scopeof Japanese Western Classical Music is vocal, the focus of this document will be on thismusical aspect.
Japanese Western Classical Music has its origins in the Meiji Era (1868-1912).
The Meiji Era was significant for the Japanese because it was the first time in the1Ernest Satow, A Diplomat in Japan: An inner history of the Japanese Reformation (Tokyo, Japan: Charles
E. Tuttle and Co.: Publishers, 1983), 17.

Michael J. Holderer

4

country’s history that Japan would be fully open to the cultural influence of the West.
Just prior to this era, the Japanese citizenry was under the rule of the late Tokugawa
Shogunate which was a feudal society governed by a military head, known as the Shogun.
The entry of Western ideas into Japan threw the country into immediate chaos as a waveof “Western-Chic” swept the countryside.
While popular art was thus being transformed by foreign influence, the classical schoolsof painting, of their nature unable to adjust themselves to new conditions, suffered from neglect
and even contempt as the movement favored ‘modern’… This description of the condition ofJapanese art in the early years of the Meiji will give some measure of the violence of foreign feverthat then raged in Japan, for it attacked the very essence of Japanese culture, its deeply routed
aesthetic tradition.2

After the opening of Japan through a large, multinational military force, the daimyo (landowners subject to the dictates of the Shogun) and Shogunate were essentially forced toaccept Western influence as inevitable. To further foment discord among the people,
many daimyos had weak allegiances to each other and to the country as a whole. Somedaimyos, having better tactical foresight than their peers or perhaps seeking revenge
against them, allied themselves with the Western Powers.3 The Western Powers in turn,allied themselves with the Emperor.4 This alliance bolstered the power of the Emperor
who brought about stable rule to Japan by means of nationalization of daimyo lands.
The biggest worry for the new Japanese government was general superstition
surrounding many Western ideas and inventions. Among the less educated rural classes,
new technologies, such as the telegraph, were considered to have almost supernatural
powers. 5 For the most part, this could be corrected by education. A slightly larger
problem was the more conservative elements of Japanese society that resisted the West
2

G.B. Samson, The Western World and Japan (New York: Vintage Books a Division of Random House,1949), 382-83.
3James L. McClain, Japan: A Modern History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), 137
4
The Japanese Emperor of this period is sometimes referred to as the Mikado.
5
Samson, Western World, 392-394.

Michael J. Holderer5entirely. There were a few individuals who felt it was their nationalistic duty to stop, by
any means necessary, those who acted in ways contrary to Japanese tradition.6 These
were, of course, more the exception than the rule.
Such close contacts with Westerners led many Japanese to the stark realizationthat their thousands of years of cultural isolation, which provided them with a unique
identity, also had the effect of severely impeding their overall cultural development. A
key ingredient to all human development is the cross-cultural synthesis of ideas. Until the1860s most Japanese had never met a foreigner. By 1800, Edo7 (later Tokyo) had one
million residents, larger than London or Paris at the time.8 Artistic influence andcompetition with other countries was absent due to lack of contact with cultures outsideof their own. This became a source of embarrassment to the Japanese because they did
not want to seem primitive to the West. The Japanese remedy to this problem was to set
themselves on course for a rapid Westernization and modernization of their culture. The
Westernization was not merely a choice, but a national duty, as prescribed by the fifth
article of the Charter Oath, a document of national policy proclaimed by the Emperor to
Japan and its officials:

Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world, and thus shall be strengthened thefoundation of Imperial polity.9

6

McClain, Japan, 140.
Sometimes seen as “Yedo”.
8
Milton J. Belasco, Basic Review of World History (Bronxville, NY: Cambridge Book Company, 1959),
318.
9
McClain, Japan, 155.
7

Michael J. Holderer

6

Concurrent with this statement, the Japanese Emperor took the official name “Meiji,”meaning “Enlightened Rule.”
Western influence entered Japan through Christian missionaries and travel to andstudy in the West. An instrumental figure in the creation of Western-styled Japanesemusic was Shuji Isawa (1851-1917). Isawa was one of a number of Japanese sent abroad
to learn about Western culture. Isawa studied voice and music education with themusicologist Luther Whiting Mason (1828-1896) in Massachusetts at both the
Bridgewater Normal School (now Bridgewater State College) and Harvard University.
Upon his return to Japan in 1879, Isawa would form the Ongaku-Torishirabe-Gakari(Music Investigation Agency), a national research center for Western music, with theintended goal of modernizing Japanese music composition, performance, and educational
techniques. A year after Isawa’s return, his American friend and teacher, Luther Whiting
Mason, accepted a two-year invitation to further develop the music curriculum ofJapanese schools.10
Mason helped form the basis of what the Japanese call shoka. Shoka is best
described as musical works that the Japanese national board of education determines areindispensable to a student’s understanding of musical culture. Shoka may include both
Japanese and Western music. For instance, the first book or volume of shoka from 1881
includes a wealth of both Eastern and Western music. The Western repertoire contains
many familiar works, such as the traditional English tune Auld Lang Sine and the
traditional American song Old Folks at Home by Stephen Foster.11

10

Tomoko Kanamaru, The Pedagogical Implications of Yoshinao Nakada’s “Japanese Festival” (DMA
diss., University of Cincinnati, 2006), 15-16.
11“List of Shoka” trans. Tomoko Kashiwagi (accessed [16 March 2009])
http://www.d1.dion.ne.jp/~kazubo_1/02-05.htm

Michael J. Holderer

7

Shoka comprises both yaguku, the broad term for all Western music and hogaku,
the broad term for all Japanese music. Furthermore, there was an emphasis placed onmusic for children, referred to as doyo. The characteristics of doyo music are that it
contains elements that are deemed appropriate for children, such as a moral message, afocus on animals or insects, or makes reference to other topics that children may findpleasing.
Kosaku Yamada, Yoshinao Nakada, and Toru Takemitsu, composers ofkakyoku,12 are representative of distinct Japanese musical eras. They are artists whosemusic represents a departure from what came before it and influenced the music thatcame after it. Each of these men contributed in a large fashion to shoka and their works
are very familiar to most Japanese. Familiarity with these composers as well as thehistorical and cultural milieu in which they wrote will contribute to the better
understanding of Japanese Classical Music in the Western style. In essence, I hope to add
these composers’ repertoire to the “American Shoka”.
One of the principal composers of doyo was Kosaku Yamada (1886-1965).
Yamada was born to a father who was a low-ranking samurai and a mother who was a
devout Protestant. Yamada’s upbringing was in every way a complete product of the new
Meiji era. With the fall of the Shogunate and dissolution of the samurai, Yamada’s father
was forced to find traditional employment. He eventually settled on opening a bookstore
in Yokosuka, a seaport. It was there that the young Yamada would be introduced to
gunka or Japanese military band music.
Military music was the first genre of Western music formally taught to theJapanese. In 1869, a British conductor of the Satsuma Army band by the name of Fenton
12

Trans. “melody” or “song”.

Michael J. Holderer

8taught the first formalized Western lessons to thirty young band members in
Yokohama.13 Subsequently composed gunka had their rhythms appropriated from
Western military marches, but the music often included harmonies in Japanese scales,
which will be addressed later. Concurrently with his exposure to military music, Yamada
was also influenced by music in the Protestant hymnals of his mother’s church.
In 1900 Yamada was sent to live with his sister in Okayama. His sister had
married an Englishman by the name of Edward Gauntlet who, having an interest inJapanese culture, had set himself up as an English teacher at the prestigious Sixth HighSchool of Okayama. Gauntlet was also an amateur musician and organist for the
Anglican Church. Being surrounded by so much music inspired Yamada to become acomposer.14
In 1904 Yamada entered the Tokyo Music School, where he began studying celloand composition under the German expatriate Heinrich Werkmeister, a former student of
the Berlin Hochschule. Under Werkmeister’s tutelage, Yamada began composing in
numerous genres, including choral pieces and chamber music. During his studies, hebecame acquainted with fellow student Koyata Iwasaki, who was one of the leaders of
the Mitsubishi Foundation, a Zaibatsu.15 Seeing such promise in Yamada, Iwasaki
personally paid for Yamada to further his musical studies in Berlin beginning in April of1910 and ending at the outbreak of World War I.16

13

Kensho Takeshi : “Music Education in Japan” (accessed [16 March 2009]), http://www.ugakugei.ac.jp/~takeshik/mused1868j.html.
14
Morihide Katayama, “Yamada, Koscak Biography.” Naxos Music Label, (accessed [2 March 2009]),
http://www.naxos.com/composerinfo/Koscak_Yamada/20962.htm.
15
Zaibatsu refers to business conglomerates in Japan which wield extensive financial and political power.
Originally, it only referred to Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo and Yasuda Corporations. Today it refers to
big Japanese businesses in general.
16
Katayama, “Yamada, Koscak Biography.”Michael J. Holderer

9

In December 1917, Yamada embarked on his first tour of the United States.
Yamada spent most of his time in New York City. He worked with both the avant-gardein Greenwich Village as well as the traditional, conducting Wagnerian selections at
Carnegie Hall. He also signed a contract with G. Schirmer to publish his music. While in
New York, he befriended tenor George Reimherr. Yamada would serve as Reimherr’s
accompanist during a number of recitals of Japanese folk songs. During this period in
American history, Japonaise or Japan-Chic was a stylistic rage. Consequently, thecountry sought after the latest novelties from Japan and to some, Yamada was just such anovelty.
Although Yamada saw himself as part of the Western tradition, his allure for American audiences
stemmed, conversely, from the vogue for [all things Japanese] that permeated the era. Japan was
the ‘land of cherry blossoms’: woodblock prints, traditional Japanese poetry, and oriental
calligraphy all figured prominently in popular culture. A publicity photograph in Musical America
even showed Yamada conducting in front of an oriental screen. Few seemed aware that Japanpossessed its own vibrant musical culture.17

Yamada continued to tour the world and throughout the 1920s and 30s would travel
throughout continental Europe. He managed to make one more trip back to the UnitedStates as well, but it proved uneventful. Ultimately, the desire to preserve Japan-Chic anda lack of interest in anything but the stereotypical superceded the ability of Kosaku
Yamada to convince his audiences that the Japanese could produce musical compositions
comparable to that of their European and American counterparts. Yamada eventually
moved back to Japan where he would work until the end of his life on various
compositions, including his opera Kurofune or “The Black Ships,” an opera based on theJapanese experience of Western colonization.

17

David Pacun, “ ‘Thus We Cultivate Our Own World and Thus We Share It with Others’: Kósçak
Yamada’s Visit to the United States in 1918-1919.” American Music Vol. 14 No. 1 (Spring 2006), 71.

Michael J. Holderer

10

Yamada’s compositions sound like a combination of his Western contemporaries,
especially those of the German Romantic School of composition and ironically, Debussy.
The German romantic sound is easily explained; Yamada studied in Germany briefly, so
it comes as no surprise that his music bears a semblance to romantic lieder. Somewhat
more interesting is the hint of Debussy that we see in these works.
Debussy had three principal musical influences in his life: Wagner (or greater
German Romanticism), Eastern Music heard at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris,and the Symbolists. Both Yamada and Debussy have very similar backgrounds in musicalinfluence. Yamada studied in Germany but composed against a background of Asian
tonalities. Debussy studied the German School of Music and composed against thebackground of Asian tonalities that he heard at the Exposition. Both composers were
influenced by the Symbolist movements of their respective countries.18
The father of the Japanese Symbolist movement was Ueda Bin (1874-1916). Bin
was the third generation in his family to receive a formal English education. His father
and grandfather had both traveled to and studied in Europe. Bin was extensively educatedin multiple Western languages including English and French. Much of Bin’s time wasspent translating Western poetic works by Byron and Shelley. He eventually came acrossthe works of the French Symbolists, which greatly influenced him as well as otherJapanese poets, including Kitahara Hakushu (1885-1942) and Miki Rofu (1889-1964),
preeminent Japanese poets whose poems composer Kosaku Yamada would use as basis
for his doyo.

18

Alec Harman and Wilfrid Mellers, Man and His Music: The Story of the Musical Experience in the West,(London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1962), 936-37.

Michael J. Holderer

11

Symbolism was largely a reaction against Naturalism and Realism. Symbolism isthe representation of the abstract or intangible by means of imagery (symbols). In the
Romantic era, the referent is usually a thing or place that is an embodiment of somegreater truth; the meaning of the symbol is usually unambiguous.19
Bin described it the following way:…the use of symbols in poetry is by no means a modern invention; no doubt it is as old as the hills.
However, the conscious use of symbols as the central feature of poetic composition probably firstbegan some twenty years ago in the new French poetry… The function of symbols is to help
create in the reader a mental state similar to that in the poet’s mind. Symbols do not necessarily
communicate the same meanings to everyone. The reader who quietly savors symbolist poetry isenabled by it to enjoy an indescribable pleasure, in accordance with his own sensibilities, which
the poet has not specifically indicated. As a result, the interpretation of a given poem will vary
according to the period. The essential thing is that a similar mental state is evoked.20

Yamada’s music was based on the Japanese scale systems, which are essentiallypentatonic scales with variable notes.21 Yamada is not completely bound to these scales,
however, as his music incorporates diatonic chords, thus varying from traditional
Japanese forms.
A prime example of Yamada’s work is the piece Akatonbo or Red Dragonfly.
Probably one the best known doyo in Japanese culture, Akatonbo is a strophic melody
composed in 1927 with text from a poem by famed Japanese Symbolist Miki Rofu. The
piece is in a Ritsu scale (scored as F-major)22 for voice with piano accompaniment andcontains four verses.

19

Marshall C. Olds, “Literary Symbolism,” in A Companion to Modernist Literature and Culture, ed.
David Bradshaw and Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 155-56.
20
Donald Keene, Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era, (New York: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston, 1984), 228.
21
For a list of Japanese scales, please see appendix.
22
Though originally scored in F-major, the piece is often transposed to E-flat major.

Michael J. Holderer

12First four measures of the principal melody of Akatonbo.

The text of the piece exhibits elements of the Symbolist movement.
Red dragonflies at sunset, red in the afterglow
Could it be the last time I saw their flight I was a child
On my Nanny's back?
Dark purple mulberries in the hillside fields
I gathered them into my little basket
Was that a dream or real?
Just fifteen, dear Nanny traveled far away, became a bride
Since then not one word comes
From my sister dear
Red dragonfly at sunset, red in the afterglow
There on the bamboo fishing pole it rests
As I remember23

The poetry is textually vague. The text opens with a question in the first verse and thesecond verse is vague to the point of asking, “was that a dream or was it real?” Theoverall theme of the piece is remembrance and specific things from one’s past that arerecalled. This is a central theme in many hogaku and doyo. This thematic element is thedual result of Symbolism and the Japanese tradition of leaving literary works open-ended,causing the reader to think about the meaning behind a piece. This same literary device is

23

Yamagishi Katsuei, tr. “Red Dragonflies”, http://jiten.cside3.jp/Akatombo.html , (accessed 10 March2009).

Michael J. Holderer13

also present in Japanese cinema and explains the non-traditional endings that many
Westerners attribute to Japanese movies.
At first glance, Akatonbo appears to be composed in a standard manner for the
mid-late 19th Century. The work follows the expected tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic
pattern of much Western music and remains entirely in the key of F major. Like mostRomantic era music however, it makes use of tonal mixture, borrowed chords, and nonchordal dissonance. In this case, the mixture is the result of contrasting a “Japanese”
melody against a “Western” accompaniment.
The melody is based on a modified Ritsu scale, which leaves out the fourth andleading tone scale steps. The piano accompaniment, however, diffuses the Japanesesound by use of the subdominant chord and leading tones. This has the effect of adding
the fourth and seventh scales degrees lacking in
the melody.
A second work by Yamada which ischaracteristic of his compositional style is
Machibouke or Waiting in Vain, written in 1923.
Mixture of Eastern and Western harmonies. The
melody is based on a Japanese scale, theharmonies are Western diatonic.

Though the text of the poem is by Kitahara
Hakushu, it is based on an old Chinese fable.

Machibouke is a moral story that is told in the guise of a comedy. In the story, a farmer
tending to his sugar cane field sees a rabbit run headfirst into a tree stump, break its neck,and die. The farmer, thinking that the stump is enchanted gives up farming and takes up“hunting;” waiting for more rabbits to run headfirst into the stump. Ultimately, no moreMichael J. Holderer14

rabbits come and the farmer is left with a sugar cane field that is overgrown with weeds.24
The story is told from the perspective of the farmer:
Waiting in vain, waiting in vain,
One day in the cane, a rabbit jumped out,
Turned and fell into a tree stump.
(Waiting in vain, waiting in vain),Yes! From here, I’ll sleep and wait,
If I wait the prey is going to come to me!
Rabbit, run into the tree stump!
(Waiting in vain, waiting in vain),
Yesterday, I was working in the field with the hoe,
Today, napping, sitting in the sunshine,
What a great tree stump!
(Waiting in vain, waiting in vain),
Today, Today, I’m waiting again,
Tomorrow, Tomorrow, again outside the forest.
Waiting, Waiting, for the rabbit.
(Waiting in vain, waiting in vain),
The field used to be cool sugar cane
Now, it is like a broom and overgrown
You cold, cold, tree stump!25

The piece is written in modified D-major Ro Scale. As with Akatonbo, the fourthand seventh scale degrees are generally left out.
The exceptions to this are in Mm. 6 and 8 where
diatonicism is used. Machibouke makes use of
unison octaves, parallel harmonies, andarpeggiating bass accompaniment. There is also
The opening two measures of Machibouke.

musical word painting after the phrase“Machibouke”. The opening of the piece occurs in unison octaves and is only two
measures long, ending with a perfect authentic cadence. The opening represents the little

24

Tomoko Kashiwagi, interview by Michael J. Holderer, 22 March 2009, University of Texas at Austin,
Austin, TX.
25
Kosaku Yamada, Ongaku-no-Tomo Edition (Tokyo: Ongaku no Tomo Sha Corp, 2002), 25.

Michael J. Holderer15

rabbit hopping and then crashing its head into the tree stump. There is an arpeggiating
bass pattern that follows, which symbolizes the bobbing around of the frustrated farmer
as he looks for another rabbit to run itself into the stump. His frustrations are highlighted
by high A-naturals which are accented by G-sharp grace notes and follow the phrase“machibouke”- “waiting in vain.” These accents recur three bars later in harmony,proving that the character in the story is still frustrated- to the point that he cannot wait astandard four bars. The piece closes with the same opening motif, this time ending on aperfect authentic
cadence,highlighted by gracenotes, accenting an
upper-octave highD unison.
Yamada’s

Larger detail of Machibouke, showing bass arpeggiating and grace-note accented“frustrations”.

life experiences were not greatly different from those of his European contemporaries. Hegrew up in a musical family, practiced fervently, and became a musician. Yamada wasalso one of the first Japanese to begin composition of his own accord. His motivations
were his own, not those of the government. Yamada worked in concert with otherJapanese artists to develop his music. Yamada cultivated his own musical world so thathe could share it with others26 and became one of the first Japanese composers to do so.
A second prominent composer of Japanese Western Classical Music is Yoshinao
Nakada (1923-2000). Nakada is known as a composer of vocal music (both choral and26

Pacun, “ ‘Thus We Cultivate…’”, 86.

Michael J. Holderer

16solo) and of piano works. In addition to doyo, Nakada is well known in Japan for his
piano work Collection of Piano Pieces for Children (1956).
Yoshinao Nakada was born into a musical family. His father was an organist anddoyo composer of some renown. Nakada began his music education at the age of eight bystudying the Beyer method, a German piano teaching technique brought over from
Germany by Luther Whiting Mason (the friend and music teacher of Kosaku Yamada’s
musical forefather Shuji Isawa). As a result of his strong musical surroundings anddiligent work habits, Nakada was able to advance through his studies rather quickly. By
age eleven, he became enamored with Chopin but was often frustrated while playing thecomposer’s works, because Chopin’s pieces required large hands, which the young
Nakada did not possess. Nakada continually tried to perfect his playing, and in 1940 he
was accepted into the Tokyo National University as a piano major. A couple of years
later, Nakada was drafted into the army to aid with the Japanese war effort.27
After the war, Nakada began focusing on composing music for children. The
music, though composed for children, was not necessarily to be performed by children.
Some pieces though, such as his Piano Pieces for Little Hands (1976) were written withlittle ones in mind. Little Hands restricted the use of intervals to under an octave so it waseasily played by children.28
Nakada’s musical style was heavily influenced by the twentieth century“Romantic” composers such as Richard Strauss and Prokofiev. Nakada’s music pushed
the boundaries of tonality, while never being explicitly atonal. One area where Nakada
chose not to tread was the realm of serialism and experimental music. Though the large
27

Kanamaru, Pedagogical Implications, 2-9.
This could perhaps, be seen as a Japanese version of Kinderszenen- the famous Opus 13, by Schumann,
which reminisces about aspects of childhood through piano works.

28

Michael J. Holderer

17majority of Nakada’s music was composed from the 1950s - 1970s, in an era when avantgarde music was at its peak, Nakada eschewed it and even wrote publicly against it inOngaku Geijutsu (Music Art), a scholarly journal.
The journal article was titled, “The Degeneration of Contemporary Music – Art
and the Professional Living with the Rules.” A general summation of Nakada’s argument
is that experimentation in music is acceptable, assuming that the composer or artist playsby the “rules” of music. According to Nakada, the musical composition process, like
professional sports, has rules that must be followed. Deviating from these violates therules of play. For instance, a piano can be played in any style, provided it is actually
played on the keys as opposed to using just the wood of the piano as a percussive
instrument or some other non-traditional method of playing. Not surprisingly, Nakada
was heavily criticized by the contemporary music world, which felt that, not only did he
not understand music, but he also had trouble grasping the essence of sports as well.29
One piece that exemplifies Nakada’s style is Ureshii Zosan or The Happy
Elephant (1958). This doyo comes from the song cycle 8 Songs for Children composed
between 1957 and 1962 and features text by Tamiko Shimzu. The piece opens withplodding chromatic notes in the bass of the piano. The dynamic marking is expressed as“with weight and heavy humor.” The opening text is not even spoken words, it isJapanese onomatopoetic form for the sound of an elephant’s laughter; “u-fu-fu-fu-fu”.
The remaining text is relatively simple; keeping in mind that the song is written forchildren:

29

Joji Yuasa, “The Degeneration of Music- What Does it Mean?” Perspectives of New Music Vol. 13 No. 2(Summer 1993): 210-13.

Michael J. Holderer18(u-fu-fu-fu-fu)
In the joyful morning the Elephant by himself is smiling(u-fu-fu-fu-fu)
In a very good mood the Elephant is smiling.
(u-fu-fu-fu-fu)
Why are you so happy Elephant who is smiling?
(u-fu-fu-fu-fu)30

Throughout, the piece remains chromatic, yet tonally centered around D. Therefore, thepiece retains a sense of tonality despite of the preponderance of dissonances. Chromaticand cluster chords give the piece a sense of bumbling around like a large animal. The
pounding rhythm reinforces the overall feeling of an elephant walking.
Ureshii also contains hints of an elephant “winking” in the right hand of the piano.
The wink executed by means of gracenote appoggiatura descending from E
above bass-clef to the D immediately
below it. The tessitura of the piece israther low as well.
Another piece which exemplifies

The elephant laughing, followed by a “wink” in the pianoin Ureshii.

Nakada’s style is Kiri to Hanashita or I
Talked with the Fog. Based on a poem by Tadayoshi Kamata, Kiri to Hanashita was set
to music in 1960. The song bears no marks of the chromaticism present in The Happy
Elephant. In fact, most of the piece takes place in F minor with a brief modulation to therelative major (A-flat).

30

Yoshinao Nakada, Yoshinao Nakada Song Album (Tokyo: Ongaku No Tomo Sha Corp, 2008), 10-11.

Michael J. Holderer

19

Kiri starts with a piano introduction that sounds like raindrops falling. This isachieved by means of alternating eighth-note dyads in the right hand. The introduction
ends with a half cadence. After a slight pause, the piece begins its melancholy melody.
My cheek gets wet easily.
My cheek gets cold.
That day you wrote- that character- what was it?
I don’t know.
There, still, now, it hurts.
There still it hurts.
The mist has wet my little cheek.
There a little cold.
A couple always in the mist,
In the mist together, in love.
In the mist together, in love.
I can’t see you to behold you,
But when I try to hold you,
You are not really there,
After all, I cry. 31

The melody is the same for verses one and two and remains in minor. The overall feelingof the song is
extreme sadness. A
glimmer of hope isrealized in the third

verse, and the piecemoves into the relative

The opening to Kiri to Hanashita. The piano’s right hand representing thesinger’s tears.

major. Sadly, the singer realizes his love is not there as he cries out for her, his voiceclimaxing on a high A-flat—the lovers he saw walking in the mist were an illusion. The
opening verse then reprises, slightly slower than before, and eventually the piece
concludes in A-flat minor, the singer still longing for his beloved. The work is poetically31

Nakada, Song Album, 60-63.

Michael J. Holderer

20

open-ended and leaves much to the imagination, such as the question of whether the
opening notes were raindrops or the poet’s tears.
Yoshinao Nakada’s music was a great leap forward from that of his predecessors.
Whereas Yamada and his disciples would primarily stick to the harmonies of the lateRomantic period, Nakada experimented with chromaticism. Although his music issometimes atonal, he never verges on experimentalism or serialism. Nakada sets clear
boundaries on what he believes is acceptable within musical composition.
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was a Japanese composer of international stature
who based his life work on the notion that chauvinistic nationalism such as that ofImperial Japan only impedes cultural literacy and understanding. Takemitsu devoted hislife to breaking down the barriers between Western and Eastern music through cultural
exchange. Takemitsu felt that by sharing culture through means of media—in his case,radio and movie musical as well as stand-alone compositions—society could hatch acultural egg32. From this egg would be born a cross-cultural synthesis of music that wasneither wholly Eastern nor Western, but a representation of human tendencies as a whole.
As Takemitsu states in writing:
I believe that cultures do converge and gradually form themselves into a cluster.
Furthermore, that very often what occurs in the fusion of cultures goes beyond what canbe predicted from cultural influences flowing back and forth. What we see today is aJapan deeply influenced by the West, by Europe and the United States, and we see
increasing numbers of Westerners who are deeply impressed by Eastern cultures. Moreand more, East and West are being evaluated on equal terms. But we’re not there yet:fundamental differences still remain. 33

Takemitsu goes on further to use the example of John Cage and how Cage was
influenced by the Zen master Daisetsu Suzuki. Takemitsu found this interesting as he
32

Toru Takemitsu, “Contemporary Music in Japan: in Tradition and Renewal in the Music of Japan,”
Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 27, No. 2. (Summer, 1989), pp. 198-204.
33
Takemitsu, “Contemporary Music in Japan.”Michael J. Holderer

21(Takemitsu) was influenced by Western art. Takemitsu has himself stated that he was
influenced by the works of Debussy and Messiaen, though in hearing his famous Waltz
from Face of Another, one could argue that the man has a bit of the influence of Johann
Strauss in him as well.
During his youth in occupied Japan, Takemitsu also fell under the spell of popular
Western music on the U.S. Armed Forces Network. Being confined to a hospital bed for ayear due to sickness (presumably from forced labor in a Japanese labor camp), the young
composer had extensive time to absorb the trappings of this new foreign sound on thehospital radio. Embittered by his treatment during the war at the hands of his fellow
countrymen, Takemitsu vowed to forsake the music of his native country and to shed all
vestiges of Japan in his own music. This was indeed a mighty task for a young man, who
as he matured as a composer, maintained a life largely absent of any formal musicaltraining.34
Takemitsu’s composition style eventually came to include many genres. As
mentioned previously, he was heavily influenced by John Cage. He would soon befriend
German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen as well. Consequently, many of Takemitsu’s
works (and his most often remembered) bear the mark of atonality and experimental
music. When asking an average musician to name a work by Takemitsu, one will usually
get, Flock Descending into a Pentagonal Garden or Rain Tree; in the case ofcontemporary guitarists, they will usually cite one of Takemitsu’s transcriptions of a
Beatles’ tune, such as Yesterday.

34

Kanazawa, Masakata and Narazaki, Yoko: ‘Toru Takemitsu, Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed[09 October 2007]), http://www.grovemusic.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu

Michael J. Holderer

22

Takemitsu’s film music is also prominent among his accomplishments especiallyin reference to work on Akira Kurosawa’s famous film Ran (1985), an adaptation of King
Lear, which won international acclaim. More often than not, knowledge of Takemitsu’s
film music is usually linked to the fact that a particular film (generally Ran) scored wellat the first Tokyo International Film Festival in 1985.
What is often overlooked are Takemitsu’s vocal music contributions to Japanesefilm, television, and radio dramas. For instance, while some are familiar with the waltz
from the film Face of Another, many are unaware of the fact that it is a musicalforeshadowing of a pivotal meeting between two of the movie’s main characters. The
main theme from the waltz is actually part of a broader chanson “Wo bist du”, sung Edith
Piaf-style by Beverly Maeda.35 For Takemitsu, influence is not as important as musicalcomprehension.
Similarly, many choirs perform duos or trios of Takemitsu choral arrangements—
presumably to “diversify” their repertoire—without reference to the original context ofthe piece. Many choirs have performed Song of ’s and ’s ()36 without
knowing that it is sung by a little boy in the 1961 movie Furyo Shonen. Another workcommonly arranged for choir, Chiisana Sora, is often performed for its beauty andobvious similarity to the black spiritual. While certainly the song is beautiful on its own
merit, it should be noted that it comes from an NHK Radio drama—a western in fact—
called Gun King.

35
36

A popular Japanese lounge singer from the 1960s.

The symbols for circles and triangles ( ’s and ’s ) are used in both the English and Japanesetranslations of the song. The song’s title is pronounced “Song of Circles and Triangles”.

Michael J. Holderer

23

During the Second World War, the heyday of Japanese Nationalist music,37
Takemitsu worked as a conscript at a mountain base. At that time, all Western music wasprohibited from being played in Japan. Consequently, when Takemitsu was secretly
played a copy of a French chanson, “Parlez-moi de l’amour,” he became entranced with
its Western exoticism and began to reject “Japanese” music. 38
After the war, Takemitsu associated with modernist composer Hiroyoshi Suzuki.
The two were good friends and spent much of their time poring over music scores at thehome of an amateur choir director, Tokuaki Hamada. When not in the home of Hamada,they would make use of a US Army mess-hall piano to practice their technique. Sometime later, at a chance encounter with a publishing-house representative, Takemitsu andSuzuki were offered the opportunity to work with Japanese nationalist composer Yasuji
Kiyose. The two were so eager to work with the composer that they immediately rushed
to his house. Despite the fact that they looked like vagrants, Kiyose let them in and even
let them play on his piano. Kiyose was so impressed that he took both Suzuki and
Takemitsu on as pupils. Having gathered the compositional courage, Takemitsu
auditioned to be admitted to the Shinsakkyokuha or “New Composition Group.”
Unfortunately, Takemitsu was received so poorly that he almost gave up composition
entirely. 39
It is at this point in his life that Takemitsu’s career and personality basically split
into two directions. The first is the Takemitsu, highly admired by twentieth century

37

The proper Japanese term for this “nationalism” is Minzokushugi, which is related to the words for “folk”
or “race”. For this reason, the Japanese national music was seen much like the Aryan music of Nazi
Germany. It represented a call towards an ideal or an awakening of that which was truly “Japanese.”
38
Takemitsu, “Contemporary Music in Japan,” 199
39
Peter Burt, The Music of Toru Takemitsu, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 26

Michael J. Holderer

24

theorists, the composer who wrote serial pieces. The second is the Japanese composer
who wrote ear-catching “pop” tunes that have a decidedly classical ring to them.
Takemitsu’s career as a popular composer began in the late 1950s with his works
for radio dramas such as Sayonara, Chiisana Heya de, and Utau Dake. These works
helped bring Takemitsu’s music into the Japanese mainstream. It was an opening song toa 1962 cowboy radio serial Gun King, however, that made Takemitsu a household name.
The song in question is Chiisana Sora or Small Sky. The “small sky” is a concept inChinese and Japanese culture that refers to the imagination. The imagination can rise
above personal consciousness and transcend the physical world.
The text of Chiisana Sora illustrates this concept perfectly. The song describes in
the first person a man who looks up at the sky in its varying phases (morning, noon, andnight) and each time is reminded of his childhood when he was scolded and cried. The
blue sky and white clouds in the morning look like cotton and bring sorrow; the afternoon
clouds look like stained glass40 and burn a deep crimson; and the night sky seems to crywith stars, with one shooting star representing the protagonist’s tear and his bygone
childhood.

40

Printed in Anglicized Japanese as “Sutenndo Gurasuga.”Michael J. Holderer

25

Opening to Chiisana Sora.

Chiisana Sora is written in simple ternary form (ABA1). The first section is in EbMajor and the second in the dominant. The work is transcribed in a couple of forms. The
most prominent and available are a four-part SATB choir version and the solo-vocal
version with piano accompaniment. Overall, both versions exhibit the melodic andharmonic feel of a black spiritual, but the choral version focuses more on thestereotypical spiritual “wailing.”
Reminiscing about lost youth is a universal concept. The act of looking up to thesky incites the memory. The sunset is generally observed for its beauty, not as the studyof a scientific phenomenon. Beautiful views offer an escape from the mundane.
Hollywood movies use the sky as allegory. Often a movie will use a camera
panning to a blue, morning sky as a beginning point in a movie that is told from the pointof reminiscence. Similarly, a night sky is used to close a narrative. The “big sky”
simultaneously takes us to and triggers our “small sky.”Around the same time as Chiisana Sora, Takemitsu was working on the title
song to a prominent Japanese film Furyo Shonen (Bad Boy), Song of ’s and ’s (1963),

Michael J. Holderer26

pronounced, “Song of Circles and Triangles” but always spelled with pictograms. The
film was a pseudo-documentary of juvenile delinquents and featured actual gangmembers as actors. One of these actors sang the song Song of ’s and ’s in the movie.
The song is in binary form.
The melody of the A section sounds remarkably like I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa
Claus, which was recorded in 1952. The text of the piece concerns itself with thedelinquent in question singing about simple facts: “The earth is round, apples are red,
pyramids are triangles, and so are balalaikas.” Though life goes through phases andcircumstances change, the truth remains.
Now that Takemitsu was a household name in Japan, he was regularly called upon
to write film and radio scores. In 1966 he was approached by Japanese director Hiroshi
Teshigahara and his private studio to write the score to his now world-renowned film,
The Face of Another. The score consists of a waltz as the main theme and sporadic
instrumental experimentalist music throughout the film.
The Face of Another is about a chemist who burns off his face in a freak accident.
He seeks out the best plastic surgeon in Japan, who gives him a new face, based on a
good-looking man they both meet in a coffee shop. With the handsome “face of another”
the chemist develops into a playboy. The plastic surgeon is so happy with the results that
he says that he will not charge the chemist for the surgery, provided that the chemist tells
the plastic surgeon about all of his sexual conquests. This culminates in a meeting
between the two in a German beer-garden, where the plastic surgeon bets the chemist that
he cannot seduce his (the chemist’s) estranged wife.

Michael J. Holderer27

It is inthis beer garden
that Takemitsu’s
famous waltz,
which occurs
initially in the
opening of the

Excerpt from the Waltz from The Face of Another.

film (as an
overture) returns as a vocal piece, sung by Japanese songstress Beverly Maeda.
Accompanied by a cabaret band, she intones Wo Bist Du?—the vocal version of the
Waltz from The Face of Another. The entire song is sung in German, with accents often
placed on the wrong syllable. Because of the free nature of the music though, the syllabic
placement could be modified to proper German if desired. Aside from these accents, itwould be very easy to mistake this modern piece for a 19th-century German one.
The text of the piece reflects the overall theme of the film: What makes us who
we are? Is it our inner character or are we all really destined to be products ofsuperficiality?
The prelude:
Ich schaue dir, ins Gesicht, das vor mir steht.
Doch erkenn ich dich nicht mehr.
Wo bist du, du gestern du?41[I see you in (your face), there standing in front of me
But I do not recognize you any longer.
Where are you, you “yesterday” you?]

41

Toru Takemitsu, Songs, (New York: Schott Japan Co. LTD., 2000), 66-69

Michael J. Holderer

28

An example of the first verse:
Einst im Nebel, sah ich dich so,
Wie hinter milch’gen Glass, gestellt
Du warst mir nah. Und doch weit entfernt.
Einst im Mondschein, sahst du grad aus,
Wie in gläserne Haut gesteckt,
du warst mir gut, doch entfremdet.42[Once in spring time, I saw you so,
How with the hint of a milky glass
Placed, you were to me near, yet far removed
Once in moonlight, I saw you to a grade
You had glazed skin you were to me good , yet foreign.]“Wo bist du” begins with an adagio introduction or prelude in G-minor. The main bodyof the work is a tempo di waltz (quarter note = 176, but obviously played in one) in the
key of G minor, with a modulation to the dominant minor in the B section. The A section
returns again in G minor, concluding with a reprise of the introduction. The closure of apiece with its beginning theme is considered one of Takemitsu’s most common musicaldevices.
In 1978, American playwright Arthur Kopit completed the work on his play,
Wings. The play Wings is the story of an elderly woman named Emily Stilson who suffersa stroke. The play focuses on the immediate impacts of the stroke and Emily’s earlyrecovery. The name “Wings” is attributed to the fact that Emily used to be a wing-walker
in the 1920s. Throughout the entire play, Emily is unaware that she had suffered a stroke
and continually goes back and forth between the confusion of reality and her own private
thoughts.
In 1982, Kopit’s play had its Japanese premiere at the Seibu Theater in Tokyo.
Takemitsu was commissioned to compose music for the production. The music was to be
performed within the play itself. Kopit gives instructions in Wings as to where music is

42

Takemitsu, Songs, 66-69

Michael J. Holderer

29

supposed to occur43. The play frequently calls for background noise and tape-recorderplay-back44 which serves as background music played in the hospital where Emily isstaying (music played over the hospital’s P.A. system). The text of the song Wings, much
like Emily’s experiences within the play, is disjointed and random:
Oh wind, oh clouds, oh sunlight! You’re the wings that carry my dreams, You write across a
distant sky, words of inspiration. So did people once travel in dreams, floating out across the sky.45

At the same time, the text reflects hopes and dreams which, in spite of tragedy, neverreally seem to die.
The overall sound of the song Wings is very much in the style of Josephine
Baker46. Written in F major, the piece is to be performed using semi-tone vocal slurs anda type of through-composed rubato. Ultimately the work serves not only as a beautiful
piece on its own, but also is functional in the context of the play. The tempo marking,“slow and nostalgic” helps put the playgoer into the mindset of Emily after she has
suffered the stroke.
Takemitsu’s compositions belong to a new era of Japanese composers. Prior to
Takemitsu, few Japanese composers experimented with serialism. While other Japanesecomposers composed for cinema, none was as eclectic in their choice in styles as
Takemitsu. Takemitsu’s style ranged from popular to the avant-garde. Like otherprominent composers of Japanese Western Classical Music he represented a change fromwhat came before him and has since deeply influenced modern Japanese compositional
style.

43

Takemitsu, Songs, 131
Arthur L. Kopit, Wings: A Play, New York : Hill and Wang, 1978.
45
Takemitsu, Songs, 84-85
46
Franco-American Jazz Singer.
44

Michael J. Holderer

30Japanese Western Classical Music is a cross-cultural experience. It is both exotic,
due to its Japanese roots, and familiar due to its Western compositional style. The
musical and poetic styles reflect concepts that are universal in their application: humor,
symbolism, and moral tales. Reminiscence, imagination, and the search for beauty andtruth express the universality of the human experience. In the Japanese arts, suggestion isoften used instead of a direct statement. Hints and allusions, rather than definite
conclusions, are employed. This is evident in the cited musical compositions. Balanceand symmetry, contrasted with exuberance and boldness, are also elements in JapaneseWestern Classical Music. The composers of this genre combined discipline andrefinement with creativity and individuality.
It is only through continued exposure to Japanese Western Classical Music and its
eventual acceptance by the West that it will appear in the annals of music alongside its
Western counterparts.
There is no greater indication of the familiarity of a concept than that the word expressing it enters
a foreign language with no need of translation. Japan has furnished the English language withseveral of these words such as geisha, ninja, kamikaze, samurai, kimono which need notranslation.47

Perhaps one day, shoka will need no translation and names such as Yamada, Nakada andTakemitsu will sound as familiar as Debussy and Wagner.

47

Stephen Turnbull, Ninja: The Story of Japan’s Secret Warrior Cult (Dorset, England: Firebird Books
LTD, 1992), 7.

Michael J. Holderer

31

Michael J. Holderer

32

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Michael J. Holderer

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Michael J. Holderer

34

Appendix:
Japanese Scales:

Ro scaleRitsu scale

Minyou Scale

Miyako-bushi Scale

Ryukyu Scale
From: Elizabeth May, “Japanese Children’s Music Before and After Contact with the West,” (Ph. D. diss.,
University of California, Los Angeles, 1958), 34; quoted in Kanamaru, Tomoko. The Pedagogical
Implications of Yoshinao Nakada’s “Japanese Festival”. DMA diss., University of Cincinnati, 2006.