Biwa as an Instrument of Nationalism

• In Event: Nationalism and Music in Pre-War Japan

Abstract

In the first four decades of the twentieth century ‘home islands’ Japanese and peoples of colonial Taiwan and in turn Chousen were all considered imperial subjects for whom historical events and episodes in Japan’s rise to the status of leading Asian power should be repeatedly emphasised and illustrated. In that effort many artforms were mobilized, but among the most prevalent were the narrative arts of katarimono, and of these, musical recitation accompanied by biwa was among the most commonly heard in the four decades between imperial Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905 and its demise. This paper will first present an analysis of contexts for performance of kindaibiwa (comprising Satsumabiwa and Chikuzenbiwa) in that period. While the content of narrative repertory and the circumstances in which certain strands of the repertory were performed are fundamental, the paper will also consider methods by which the short-necked lute biwa, its actual and mythologised histories, were presented and represented. These were markedly different to the treatment of shamisen, an instrument that Meiji period modernizers had sought to discredit for its associations with the licensed quarters and theatrical demimonde. Biwa’s purported origins in south and central Asia, and its elaborate early history in gagaku, moreover, provided an appropriate scaffold for writings in keeping with contemporary discourse about ‘East Asian’ culture and the unity of Touyou ongaku. The examination of such materials is relevant to broader theorisation of the ways instruments acquire symbolic associations and become embedded in distinct forms and systems of nationalism.

Author

• Hugh de Ferranti, Tokyo University of Technology