Mitsukuri as a Japanese-style composer

Mitsukuri was a versatile composer who wrote in several different idioms, including German Romantic, French Impressionist, and Japanese. But what role does his harmony theory occupy in this context? In his original treatise, Mitsukuri stated that he wanted to create a theory which would enable him to combine East Asian melodies with a harmony. It is, indeed, true that most of his compositions adopting his theory evoke an East Asian mood, in that they follow pentatonic scales. However, this also occurs in his other works, and raises the question of what is different between the approaches. To understand Mitsukuri as a Japanese-style composer in a wider perspective, we need to examine these works as well.

Most of Mitsukuri’s Japanese-style works imitate or quote traditional music. His approach to quoting melodies is best illustrated in the use of the melody “Sakura sakura” (“Cherry Blossoms”) (ex. 5.19). For example, the piano piece Sakura sakura (1940) is a fugue based on the song (ex. 5.20).

Mitsukuri also quotes the melody in the beginning of the song Death (Shi, 1933–1935; ex. 5.21)—where the quotation is virtually identical with that of the theme in the beginning of the fugue Sakura sakura—as he does also in Concertino for Piano and Orchestra (1953). There are also other examples of quotations: Pigeon (Hato, 1932) quotes the children’s song “Kagome kagome,”

and Violin Sonata (1935) quotes the melody “Edo Lullaby” (“Edo komoriuta”).²⁰² Apart from these quotations, Mitsukuri frequently reused materials from his previous works. For instance, the overture Walking the Earth became the first movement of Mitsukuri’s first symphony in F (1950).²⁰³ The solo piano piece Night Rhapsody became the second movement of Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, and melodies from Bashō’s Travels were reused in several works, including Violin Sonata and Concertino for Piano and Orchestra.

Example 5.19 Melody of “Sakura, sakura” (excerpt).

Example 5.20Piano piece Sakura sakura, mm. 20–24 (Mitsukuri 1957a, 10). © Ongaku no tomo sha

202 “Edo Lullaby” is discussed in Chapter 5.5 with Yamamoto Naotada’s work.

203 This was apparently intended from the beginning, as Mitsukuri (as Akiyoshi 1940, 68) explained soon after finishing the work.

Example 5.21Death, mm. 1–4 (Mitsukuri 1971d, 103).

© Zenon gakufu shuppansha

Mitsukuri’s other techniques for alluding to traditional music are illustrated in his pentatonic works. The second piece in Two Poems adopts a pentatonic melody and inspired Mitsukuri to theorize on Japanese harmony, but a particularly fitting example is the piano piece Night Rhapsody (1935). It is based on pentatonic scales and composed in an idiom resembling French Impressionism, as can be seen already in the beginning measures (ex. 5.22).

Night Rhapsody, however, also introduces an approach seldom met in Mitsukuri’s work: the imitation of Japanese instruments. The tremolos and arpeggios in measures 36–38 are imitations of the playing practices of the koto (ex. 5.23).

Example 5.22 Night Rhapsody, mm. 1–4 (Mitsukuri 1957b, 4).

© Ongaku no tomo sha

Example 5.23Night Rhapsody, mm. 36–38 (Mitsukuri 1957b, 6).

© Ongaku no tomo sha

Mitsukuri’s Japanese-style works, particularly those based on pentatonic scales, raise a question about the use of harmony. He did not recognize any of them as works adopting his theory. Closer examination reveals, however, that all of them are perfectly explainable through the logic of Mitsukuri’s theory.

Let us examine the examples presented above. Sakura sakura (ex. 5.20) returns from negative F♯ to negative B upon the entrance of the third voice in measure 23. Death (ex. 5.21) follows negative B consistently; it contains only one passage (mm. 11–12) when the sixth degree (C) is sharpened to modulate to the relative key. The opening of Night Rhapsody (ex. 5.22) follows negative B consistently. It goes through several modulations during measures 11–24 until settling from negative D to the relative key, positive G—a typical modulation also in those works that Mitsukuri recognized adopting the theory—in measures 21–24 (ex. 5.24). Measures 36–38 (ex. 5.23), on the other hand, are in positive D.

Example 5.24Night Rhapsody, mm. 21–24 (Mitsukuri 1957b, 5).

© Ongaku no tomo sha

One cannot avoid noticing the similar use of harmony in Mitsukuri’s other works.²⁰⁴ They do contain occasional inconsistencies—but so do those works that Mitsukuri himself recognized as following his theory. Fallen Leaves, in particular, is already a rather far-stretched extension of the theory, as are the songs of Type C in Bashō’s Travels. As in the works adopting the harmony, many passages in other works could be explained logically by simply noting that they undergo several modulations.

These examinations show that far more of Mitsukuri’s works are based on his theory than the composer himself recognized. But how should we interpret this observation? To find an answer, let us return to Mitsukuri’s writings once more. On several occasions, he stressed how Japanese harmony was something that his “ears demanded hearing” with certain types of melodies (Mitsukuri 1930a, 5; as Akiyoshi 1937b, 28; 1941, 22–23). Does this not suggest that the theory itself is actually based on an “idiomatic” hearing of Japanese melodies? Ultimately, it seems that Mitsukuri’s system was not a theory for music, but a theory of music: that of his own, intuitional musical language for Japanese melodies, which he then processed into the form of a music theory. As Mitsukuri (1930a, 4) stated, his approach was not, indeed, about creating, but about discovering Japanese harmony.

204 For other examples of consistent adoption of the harmony, see the songs Cat on a Moonlit Night (Tsukiyo no neko, 1932) and Fragment (Tanshō, 1931). The first contains slight deviations, but alternates consistently between two relative keys, negative G and positive C, at the end. Fragment is nearly wholly in negative A, until it modulates to the parallel key positive A in the very last measures.

In this aspect, Mitsukuri was actually not that far from Kiyose. Both composers were fundamentally intuitional, but whereas Mitsukuri approached his ideas from an analytical viewpoint, seeking to grasp the elements of his musical language, Kiyose remained more ambiguous about his—although, as we will see, he also followed a relatively consistent approach.

The intuitional aspect would also explain certain inconsistencies between Mitsukuri’s written accounts and his musical work: he simply had not completed the theory so that it could sufficiently cover all uses of his harmony.

What it does not explain adequately, however, is why Mitsukuri recognized the use of his system in only three works. To understand this, the most natural approach is to observe what these three works share in common: in all of them, the use of harmony serves a higher purpose than just accompanying a Japanese melody. In Sarabanda, the use of harmony is explained by the binary form in the context of a composition based on classical forms of Western art music, and in Fallen Leaves, the unsettling alternation between Western and Japanese harmonies brings instability to the song, which conveys the agonic atmosphere of the poem. Although the issue of Japanese harmony was a question of national identity for Mitsukuri, its use exemplifies what Mitsukuri himself stated in his original treatise: that all truly national music is international by nature (Mitsukuri 1929, 3).

It is, however, the first composition, Bashō’s Travels, that most magnificently demonstrates the context where Mitsukuri’s theory triumphs. It is the most fitting musical language for a work based on Japanese poetry before the influx of Western culture: while fundamentally representing Western art music, it also simultaneously substitutes its most typical conventions with ones reinterpreted from a Japanese point of view. Rather than exotic, the music is original—indeed becoming a meaningful synthesis of East and West, introducing both aspects in balance. In this aspect, it is no wonder that it still remains Mitsukuri’s most well-known composition.

5.2 Kiyose Yasuji: Japanese-style composition as artistic philosophy

Kiyose Yasuji’s writings on Japanese-style composition do not reveal as much methodological viewpoints as they echo confusion in the modernizing society.

But how does one express such ideas musically? Kiyose himself regarded pentatonic scales and a “simple” or “monotonic” compositional style as important aspects of Japanese-style composition, and as an alternative to Western music theory. Based this, the use of these elements could be an expression—or, at least reflection—of his thought. For example, Hayasaka (1942b, 48) argues that Kiyose adopted pentatonic scales when he wanted to express ideas that were “impossible to convey otherwise.” Based on extra-musical contexts—meaning, mostly, titles—of Kiyose’s works, Hayasaka (ibid.

49) identified two major styles that Kiyose followed: “lyricism” and

“Japanese-style realism.”²⁰⁵ In this context, it is interesting to observe what types of works Kiyose wrote.

Piano pieces and songs constitute the majority of Kiyose’s prewar work, and most of his compositions are programmatic until 1937. From 1937 onward, however, he also wrote for larger ensembles and debuted in the field of absolute music with works such as Lento and Allegro for Flute and Piano (1937), Piano Trio (1938), and Woodwind Trio (1938). The year 1937 thus appears to be a turning point for Kiyose; Togashi (1956, 141) has even argued that Piano Piece Collection Vol. 2 (1937–1940) “closes the prewar period” in his work. Because of these notable trends in Kiyose’s work, I will focus on three types of composition in this chapter: piano pieces, vocal works, and orchestral compositions.