Beethoven or Debussy? The reception of German and French music in Japan from 1924 to 1945 – Studies on Cultural Transfer
Final Report Abstract
The project focussed on the reception of European music in Japan and was based on the assumption that every musical concept from Europe undergoes a detachment from its original context of origin and a modification for Japanese society's own purposes when adopted by the Japanese. Following the definition of the cultural transfer theory, this project understands such modifications as “creative misunderstandings” that are “intentionally” brought about by adapting European music to the needs or interests of the Japanese. The focus of this project was on the attribution of identity to German, French and Japanese music in Japanese music discourse from 1924 to 1945. The project was limited to these three countries mainly because of the following facts: After the opening of the country in the mid-1850s, Japan's cultural rapprochement with Germany took place at an early stage, with the result that Viennese Classicism and Romanticism were cultivated as the epitome of European art music in all state music institutions in the following decades; after the First World War, the new style of Claude Debussy, which was seen as the epitome of French music, attracted increasing interest among composers due to its relative “closeness” to traditional Japanese music; this gave rise to 16 young composers who organised themselves into the “New Composers’ Association” in 1930, which played a central role in the founding of a Japanese “national music” and at the same time intensified its links with Paris. The inclusion of German music in state affairs is constantly recognisable throughout the first half of the 20th century. While the Japanese state had used Beethoven's music in the 1880s to spread its own doctrine and accelerate the restructuring of the country into an imperial state, it continued to use it in propaganda for its war against the USA in the Pacific (1941- 1945). Even the “proximity” of French music to Japanese music could not counter the supremacy of German music in national affairs. However, it was capable of triggering compositional currents against Germanophilia and raising discussions about it. After the capitulation of France as a result of the Western Campaign (1940), these anti-Germanic currents were joined by the musical folklorism of Bèla Bartòk, coupled in realpolitik terms with Hungary's accession to the “Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis” (1940). The turn to Bartòk's style was also legitimised in an ethnic sense on the basis of Turanism - an idea of the Pan movement that originated in Hungary. While the persistence of this constellation remained clearly recognisable in the post-war years, this research result serves to examine more closely the “breaks” that had previously been uncritically emphasised as a political turning point.
Publications
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Die Bartók-Rezeption in Japan bis 1945. Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, 78(4), 296.
Bochmann, Minari
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Die Mahler-Rezeption in der japanischen Musikpublizistik bis 1945, in: Musik und Ästhetik, Jg. 28, H. 1, S. 47–61, ISSN: 2510-4217
Bochmann, Minari
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Schönberg-Rezeption in Japan vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: eine Diskursanalyse um Schönbergs Harmonielehre. Die Musikforschung, 77(1), 56-71.
Bochmann, Minari
