Hashimoto’s works until 1935

Influences from traditional Japanese music are a notable element in Hashimoto’s work before 1935. Shibaike (1996, 259–260), for example, has identified Japanese scales in 18 of the 46 songs that he wrote before 1935. I would like to raise the number to 19 with Dance (Mai, 1929), a work discussed below.²²⁸ That is, nearly half of Hashimoto’s songs until 1935 adopted Japanese scales, which suggests that Japanese elements were a more important influence for Hashimoto than his writings reveal. His participation in the Shin Min’yō movement, for example, perfectly exemplifies both the tendency of writing “for the people” and reflecting contemporary trends.

Hashimoto’s shin min’yō songs contain several different musical approaches, ranging from imitating the performing techniques of folk songs to simply using the minor yonanuki scale to express melancholic nostalgia for one’s faraway home (Lehtonen 2015a, 62–63).²²⁹ Like many other composers of the time (Hughes 1991, 5), however, also Hashimoto changed his focus from shin min’yō to “folk songs for urban people,” in other words commercial popular music, by the 1930s.

Folk songs are the most apparent Japanese influence on Hashimoto’s early work, and are relatively easy to identify due to his participation in the Shin Min’yō movement. However, he also wrote songs adopting influences in more complex ways. One such example is Dance (Mai, 1929), set to Fukao Sumako’s poem Dance – On Musume dōjōji of Kikugorō VI (Mai – Rokudaime Kikugorō no Musume dōjōji ni yosete). Fukao wrote the poem after seeing Kikugorō VI’s performance of the kabuki play Musume dōjōji to reflect her impressions of the performance (Shibaike 1999, 241). Although Dance is more about a performance rather than about the play itself, the poem is nevertheless written from the viewpoint of the female main character, who performs a dance and turns into a snake in the play.

228 This number includes only those songs that were published as “art songs,” that is, songs with piano accompaniment. For the list of all 159 songs published as popular songs (including the songs Hashimoto wrote under pseudonyms), see Saegusa (2012).

229 See very similar approaches also in shin min’yō works by both Komatsu brothers, Heigorō and Kiyoshi, for example in the collection Sekai ongaku zenshū 3: Nihon min’yō kyokushū, edited by Fujii Kiyomi and Hirota Ryūtarō (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1930).

Like the poem, the music is also free in form. The only repeated element is the short motive in the piano part at the beginning of the piece (mm. 1–2, ex.

5.51), which however appears in the sung part only once (mm. 44–45). Dance includes many atonal passages and even Sprechstimme (ex. 5.52), both of which were unusual in Japanese music of the time and earned Hashimoto the reputation of a modernist (Hatanaka 2012, 77).

Example 5.51Dance, mm. 1–2 (Hashimoto 2009, 86).

© Zenon gakufu shuppansha

Example 5.52Dance, mm. 31–32; words omitted (Hashimoto 2009, 89).

© Zenon gakufu shuppansha

It is unlikely that Hashimoto would have encountered Sprechstimme as an element of Western art music as early as 1929. Rather, it is more likely an influence from the recitative in kabuki. In this sense, it bridges Hashimoto’s interest in traditional music and modern expression. It further suggests that Dance may have also been influenced by the music of the kabuki theatre in other ways. Closer examination, however, shows that this is not the case. Even though the opening (ex. 5.51) does resemble patterns played by the shamisens when accompanying the dance in Musume dōjōji, Hashimoto soon shows that the koto is the primary influence in the piano part. This is particularly evident in the tremolo (m. 6) and cadence (m. 8) resembling both the tunings and playing techniques of the instrument (mm. 5–8, ex. 5.53).²³⁰

230 Compare also with Mitsukuri’s Night Rhapsody (ex. 5.23).

Example 5.53Dance, mm. 5–8 (Hashimoto 2009, 86).

© Zenon gakufu shuppansha

The koto is not, however, used in the instrumental ensemble of kabuki, and as Hanaoka (2007, 16) points out, the sung part does not resemble typical kabuki singing either, aside from the sections including Sprechstimme. However, neither does the work resemble the vocal genres accompanied by the koto. This raises the question of why Hashimoto would imitate techniques and scales of the koto in a work based on kabuki theatre—particularly as he proved his knowledge of the genres of traditional music in his shin min’yō and writings (Lehtonen 2015a, 62–63).

Although this approach initially seems contradictory, the work succeeds well in its primary goal—that of conveying Fukao’s poem. The poem is written in the Japanese language but in a free rhythm and structure influenced by French modernists (Shibaike 1996, 243), and rather than the play itself, it depicts Fukao’s impressions after seeing a performance of the play. This is why it does not include any quotations of kabuki texts. In the same way, Hashimoto distances the listener from the world of kabuki by imitating the koto while at the same time maintaining a Japanese quality in the work. As Fukao’s poem was considered avant-garde in its time (Hatanaka 2012, 76), it is natural that the music is composed in a modern, partly atonal style as well; furthermore, using Sprechstimme bridges both Japanese and modernist qualities. In this sense, the elements from traditional music are both aesthetic and technical, and adopted in a manner that seeks to capture the spirit of the original poem.

Examples of instrumental works adopting Japanese elements are fewer in Hashimoto’s work, but they exist as well. The microtonal Study for violin and cello resembles Dance in that it seeks to expand expression in Western-style

composition with influences from traditional music.²³¹ The beginning measures of the work already contain several microintervals (ex. 5.54).

Example 5.54Study, mm. 1–4 (Hashimoto 1930h).

Unlike Dance, Study does not display an explicit Japanese quality on the surface—see, for example, measures 38–43, which do not resemble traditional music at all (ex. 5.55). However, as discussed earlier, Hashimoto associated the use of microintervals in Study with folk songs. Rather than being audibly

“Japanese,” Study adopts influences from traditional music as a compositional technique. The approach was extraordinary and radical during its time, and resembles the approaches by postwar composers rather than the national school of the 1930s.

Example 5.55Study, mm. 38–43 (Hashimoto 1930h).

Hashimoto also wrote works that evoke a Japanese atmosphere but do not contain distinctive influences from any genre of traditional music. One example is the piano piece Pluie dans la rue (Ame no michi, 1934), written only shortly before Hashimoto left for Europe. The work is the first in the collection of three piano pieces based on nihonga paintings by Kaburaki Kiyokata (鏑 木 清 方, 1878–1972), and it was originally performed with Japanese dance accompaniment (Hashimoto Qunihico 1934, 2). While

231 See discussion on Study in Chapter 4.3.

Hashimoto gave many of his works alternative titles in English or German, the French title in this case hints at the musical style, namely French Impressionism. Kaburaki’s painting Shintomiza, which Pluie dans la rue is based on, portrays a traditionally-dressed Japanese woman covering herself with a Japanese umbrella before the kabuki stage Shintomiza. Pluie dans la rue conveys these elements musically by depicting the rain with the patterns in left hand of the piano, whereas the right hand plays a melody in a scale resembling the miyakobushi scale from C♯ (C♯-D-F♯-G♯-A-C♯)—however not focusing on the melodic movements suggested in Koizumi’s theory (ex. 5.56).

Example 5.56Pluie dans la rue, mm. 5–20 (Hashimoto 1969, 2).

© Zenon gakufu shuppansha

Like in Dance, the melody and timbre of the right hand resemble the music for the koto. The miyakobushi scale, as well, is equivalent of the typical tunings of the koto in terms of interval structure (see Harich-Schneider 1973, 520 and Wade 1976 for koto tunings). However, the work does not imitate any playing techniques of the instrument as explicitly as Dance. Moreover, although the parallel fourths (beginning from m. 16) evoke a Japanese or Asian mood, they are also an element constantly encountered in Debussy’s music, for example.

Rather than imitating any specific genre of traditional music, it searches for

common ground between Japanese-style and French Impressionist-style composition and, by this approach, seeks to evoke the atmosphere of Kaburaki’s painting.

To summarize, Hashimoto’s works until 1935 adopt influences from traditional Japanese music in the following manners.

1) Shin min’yō seeking to capture the spirit of folk songs through the imitation of rhythmic and melodic patterns encountered in folk songs, while retaining a quality making the works recognizable in the context of Western-style composition.

2) Works such as Dance and Pluie dans la rue that seek to capture the spirit of the original program and adopting musical Japanese elements to emphasize an aspect of the work that the music is based on.

3) Works such as Study, seeking to broaden the possibilities of expression by adopting influences from traditional music in a work of absolute music.

In a sense, the solo piano work Japanese Rhapsody No. 1 (Nihon kyōsōkyoku dai-ichiban) is a synthesis of all these approaches.²³² The year of composition is unknown, but the musical language resembles that in most of Hashimoto’s prewar work. The beginning passages (ex. 5.57) already suggest allusions to Japanese folk dances, and also resemble other piano works by composers of the national school in the 1930s.²³³ The work also contains sections (ex. 5.58) resembling the imitation of playing techniques of the koto in Dance—even though not adopting the scales of koto music this time. At the same time, the work also presents a modernist element by containing bitonal passages, as can be observed in the simultaneous adoption of different key signatures (ex. 5.59).

In these aspects, Japanese Rhapsody is a perfect example of a work incorporating many of those elements typical of Hashimoto’s work before 1935.

Example 5.57Japanese Rhapsody, mm. 11–14 (Hashimoto 193?).

232 Hashimoto himself also gave the work the German title Japanishce Rhapsodie No. 1.

The work is, however, the only “Japanese rhapsody” by Hashimoto.

233 Compare the work with Ifukube’s Japanese Suite (Nihon kumikyoku, 1934), or Kiyose’s Countryside Dances and Dances of Home District.

Example 5.58Japanese Rhapsody, mm. 286–290 (Hashimoto 193?).

Example 5.59Japanese Rhapsody, mm. 69–73 (Hashimoto 193?).

Several of Hashimoto’s works incorporate aspects typically associated with the postwar generation. In some of his shin min’yō, the approach is close to Mamiya Michio’s. In his Japanese Folk Song Collection (Nihon min’yōshū, 1958–1999) for singer and piano, Mamiya seeks to capture the spirit of the songs he used as his material rather than simply imitating them with Western devices (Mamiya 2009, 140). He must have noticed the similarity between his approach and Hashimoto’s, as he arranged Hashimoto’s shin min’yō song Oroku musume (お六娘, 1929) for an ensemble of Japanese instruments in 1984.

Works such as Dance and Study, on the other hand, adopt aspects of traditional music as modern expression in Western art music. These approaches also connect Hashimoto with the postwar generation of composers, celebrated for their ways of adopting elements from the Japanese tradition to expand the expression of Western-style composition. During a time when Itō’s atonal work was assessed through its “failure” in the use of harmony (see Akiyama 1975b, 60–61), and Hashimoto’s quartertones were criticized (Matsubara 1930), this kind of music was aimed at, and understood by, an extremely limited audience. In this context, it is particularly interesting to note that Hashimoto dropped these radical aspects from his work at approximately the same time as he stopped composing shin min’yō.

Another significant characteristic is the type of genres of Japanese music that Hashimoto alludes to. All of them have to do with music enjoyed by the common people, as opposed to the nobility and those holding power. This is obvious in the case of folk songs—both rural and urban—but even the microintervals in Study are based on folk song influences, Japanese Rhapsody

evokes the mood of Japanese folk dances, and Dance is based on a form of theatre that represented popular culture in Edo-period Japan. No allusions, on the other hand, are made to upper-class musical genres such as gagaku, or the musical traditions favored by the ruling warrior class during the Edo period, such as the nō theatre or the musical narration in the warrior epic Tale of Heike (Heike monogatari, dating originally from the thirteenth century).

The Japanese elements in Hashimoto’s prewar work indeed underline his determination to write music “for the people.”

However, there is one exception to this rule: works containing influences from genres associated with the Japanese state. In the ballet The Heavenly Maiden and the Fisherman (Tennyo to gyofu, 1932), harmonic allusions to gagaku serve the function of conveying the program by accompanying the appearance of the noble “heavenly maiden” with the “heavenly music” of the court. The cantata Song in Celebration of the Birth of His Highness the Crown Prince (Kōtaishi denka goseitan hōshukuka, 1934), which Hashimoto composed under the pseudonym “Tokyo Academy of Music,” follows the same approach. It was written to celebrate the birth of the crown prince (Emperor Akihito, b. 1933), and the musical devices are in line with this: the cantata is in the German Romantic style and includes a fugue—one of the forms of music held in the highest regard in Japan at the time (Akiyama 1979, 11)—and, furthermore, quotes the Japanese national anthem Kimi ga yo as a type of cantus firmus toward the end. The style of music undeniably serves the compositional context well, but at the same time it is also the first work to represent what was to become Hashimoto’s compositional style during the war.