著者

秋岡 陽

出版者

フェリス女学院大学

雑誌

フェリス女学院大学音楽学部紀要 (ISSN:13410601)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.2, pp.70-90, 1997-03

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Koscak Yamada (1886-1965), a Japanese composer and conductor, was once called "Theodore Thomas in Japan" (The Evening Post, January 24,1919). Yamada was the first Japanese composer/conductor that knew orchestra and its music, and like Theodore Thomas, was a brilliant and enthusiastic organizer of symphonic orchestra. The later great popularity of symphonic music in Japan is much indebted to his indefatigable work as a pioneer. This paper intends to reevaluate this outstanding composer/conductor in the context of early orchestra movement in Japan. Yamada studied composition in Berlin (1910-13) and became the first Japanese composer of symphonic music and operas, as well as chamber and vocal music. In 1914 he planned a short return to Tokyo, but the outbreak of World War I prevented him from going back to Berlin : he had to stay in Tokyo. Tokyo in those days was not the best place for a young talented musician, but even in such circumstances with many difficulties, Yamada never gave up his pursuit of dream, and launched a series of orchestral concerts at Imperial Theater in 1915. Though this series continued only for a short period, the impact these concerts gave to Japanese musical scene then was enormous. During a limited short period, he organized his own orchestra (Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra), managed its business matters, invented a new subscription system for ticket sales, conducted and introduced great works of Western masters, premiered his own symphonic works, gave a lighter summer program held at a open-air park, and had to endure society's lack of understanding and scandalous gossips and short of money and support. The culmination of such early activities of Yamada was a series of two orchestral concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York (October 16,1918 and January 24,1919). The "young maestro of Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra" visited the United States in 1917,and was at the podium and conducted 95 members of Philharmonic Orchestra of New York and 150 members of New Choral Society of New York, in the program of his own composition. These Carnegie concerts were just monumental not only for Yamada himself but also for all Japanese musicians of the day. Yamada was, thus, the most crucial person that contributed more than any other Japanese musicians of his day to promote and encourage the movement of symphonic orchestras in Japan.