明治・大正期の演歌における洋楽受容

抄録

This article examines the way in which the music imported from the West during the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho (1912-1926) periods, as well as music that was formed in Japan under its influence, was incorporated into the enka of those periods. By viewing the change in this music during this long period of almost fifty years, it also seeks to clarify one aspect of the reception of Western music by the general populace of Japan.
The introduction of Western music, which began around the end of the Tokugawa and beginning of the Meiji periods, has since exerted a substantial influence on the musical culture of Japan. However, although considerable research has been undertaken with regard to the reception of Western music by official bodies such as the Ongaku Torishirabegakari (‘Institute for musical investigation’, affiliated to the Ministry of Education), the question of how the general public received this music is one that has gained little attention. Among reasons for this are, firstly, that there are limits in terms of research material since data of relevance are unlikely to be found in official records, and secondly, that the term “general populace” includes a variety of peoples of differing cultural and social backgrounds, thus making it difficult to deal with the reception of music by the general populace as a single category.
Accordingly, to bring about a detailed understanding of the various modes of reception of Western music, it is necessary to clarify each of them in turn by approaching it from a variety of angles. An attempt has been made in this article to survey one aspect of the reception of Western music by the general populace by means of examining changes in the music of the enka sung by enkashi (enka performers) during the Meiji and Taisho periods, which met with wide popularity at the time.
In its present usage, the word “enka” refers in general terms to popular songs of the kayokyoku genre that are said to have “Japanese” musical and spiritual characteristics. Originally, however, enka were used along with kodan (narrative) and shibai (theatre) as a means of transmitting the message of the Meiji-period democratic movement to the general populace in a readily understandable form. Songs sung by the proponents of this movement were known as “soshi-bushi”. Later, they were taken over by street performers who sang the songs while selling copies of their texts. This article takes as its subject popular songs beginning with soshi-bushi and continuing through to the beginning of the Showa period (late 1920's to early 1930's), when recordings of these songs began to be made commercially.
At first, enka played an extra-musical role in catching the attention of the populace to transmit to them the message of the democratic movement. For this reason it lacked any fixed musical form. It possessed, rather, a musical transcience and topicality, in that it freely set texts about any event that captured common attention to music that happened to be popular at the time, such as minshingaku (Chinese music of the Ming and Qing dynasties), shoka (songs in Western style used in education), Asakusa Opera and the like. Anticipating the preferences of the masses, enka reflected their contemporary attitudes towards music, and were widely appreciated by them.
In this research, 280 songs verified from among those actually identified as enka have been listed according to the chronological order in which they were popular, and each song has been transcribed and analysed. As a result, it has become possible to divide the period from 1888 to 1932 into three sections. These are: a) the first period, 1888-1903, centring on a group of related pieces using traditional techniques, based on “Dainamaitobushi”