European Music in Meiji/Taisho/Showa Japan

Gunkan March

• Imperial Japanese Navy Band

• 1909 recording• Tokichi Setoguchi,

composer• Nipponophone; The

American Record labels

•Remastered by Masato Kubota, 2003

Hibiya ParkMilitary bands give free concerts

Department store bands

• Mitsukoshi (Nipponbashi) Youth Band, 1909– (1921 photo)

• E.g. “Carmen”

• Nagoya Itoya, 1911

• 1912 Osaka Mitsukoshi Girls Band

Asakusa road of cinemaTheater bands/orchestra

(e.g., Shochiku, Carmen, 1926)

Asakusa “opera” link

Takagi Tokuko (1890-1919)

• Married age 15, travelled to U.S.

• Ballet in U.S./London• 1914 starts variety

troupe• Asakusa opera:

musical and dances

Konoye Hidemaru (1898-1973)• Younger brother of

Fumimaro, P.M. late 1930s

• Peer’s School, Tokyo University of the Arts, studies in Paris, Berlin

• 1925 started 1st private orchestra, New Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo

• 1937, joins NBC Symphony Orchestra at its start

• Wartime in Berlin and Paris