Corpus study
About
This corpus study scrutinises the ways in which German-Japanese musical exchanges had shaped the formal praxis in Japanese symphonies composed between 1912 and 1947. Given the cultural affinity between the two countries since the Meiji Restoration, it traces the German-Japanese cultural counterpoint in formal terms and considers the transcultural adaptation of the symphony in Japan. The study is divided into two parts. I first look into the activities and the repertoire played at the important Japanese musical institutions, such as Tokyo School of Music (東京音楽学校), Tokyo Philharmonic Society (東京フィルハーモニー会) and Japan Symphonic Society (日本交響楽協会), which served as the key platforms where Japanese and Austro-German musicians interacted. This then informs my corpus analysis, in which I probe and taxonomise the intercultural approaches to musical form in a total of 14 symphonies written by five Japanese symphonic composers. It is hoped that the result would amount to an intercultural theory of Japanese symphonic forms, which shall simultaneously provide a historical perspective on the country’s changing cultural dynamics with the West in the interwar period. It would also develop an understanding of the role interculturality played in the development of modern Japanese musical language and in turn shed light on the role of German-Japanese musical relations played in the making of early Japanese musical modernism.
This study is part of the project ‘Rethinking Peripheral Symphonism: Transcultural Form and Glocal Modernism at the Fin de Siècle’, funded by Research Foundation Flanders (reference no: 12ZO222N).
Corpus
Hashimoto, Qunihiko (橋本國彦): Symphony No. 1 and Symphony No. 2
Moroi, Saburō (諸井三郎): Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3
Ōsawa, Hisato (大澤壽人): Sinfonietta, Symphony No. 1, Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 3
Sugata, Isotaro (須賀田礒太郎): Symphony No. 1
Yamada, Kōsaku (山田耕筰): Symphony ‘Triumph and Peace’, Choreographic Symphony ‘Maria Magdalena’, Sinfonia ‘Inno Meiji’ and Nagauta Symphony