Art of the State: How Classical Music was Brought to Japan

Meiji Japan presents an extremely interesting case in the spread of Western art music: surprisingly, it was not initially thought of as a cultural institution at all. Instead, the adoption of Western music was strictly a practical matter, its scope limited to its first martial, then pedagogical utility.

Despite these humble beginnings, Western music in Japan quickly flourished. Irish composer John William Fenton and German composer Franz Eckert were key figures in the rapidly evolving military use of Western music, the latter particularly notable for bringing about the primacy of German classical music to the Western music culture of Japan. Meanwhile, Isawa Shūji and the American Luther Whiting Mason were instrumental in formalizing a national system of music education, modeled after the Boston public school system.

The course these men charted for Japan that eventually led to a far fuller embrace of Western art music on its own merits, as well as an important syncretic process that united traditional Japanese musical ideas and forms with Western influences.