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”

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It has hitherto been considered that “Haru no yo” was composed by Miyagi Michio (1894-1956) in 1913 as his Opus 2, preceded only by his maiden work, “Mizu no hentai”. The composer himself, however, asserts that his Opus 2 was “Kara-ginuta” of 1913, and that “Haru no yo” was his third piece. Since he also mentions that he was indebted to a work entitled “Sagano no shirabe” for inspiration in composing “Haru no yo”, confirming the existence of “Sagano no shirabe” and inquiring when Miyagi had the opportunity to become acquainted with the piece is of vital importance in elucidating the situation in which “Haru no yo” was composed. Recently the jiuta performer Nakai Takeshi confirmed that a transmitter of a work entitled “Saga no shirabe”, a koto player named Harada Etsuko, lives in Tokushima. This “Saga no shirabe” was tentatively identified as Miyagi's “Sagano no shirabe”. Subsequent investigation by the present author has made the following points clear.
1) “Saga no shirabe” was composed either by Tomizaki Kengyo (d. 1844) or Tomihara Kengyo (d. 1877), both of whom were from Tokushima.
2) Miyagi learned “Saga no shirabe” from Ota Wasaichi, a koto player from Tokushima, in January or February 1914.
3) The piece Miyagi calls “Sagano no shirabe” is actually “Saga no shirabe”, a koto work transmitted in Tokushima.
4) “Haru no yo” was composed in the spring of 1914 with inspiration from “Saga no shirabe”, thus confirming the composer's own statement that “Kara-ginuta” of 1913, and not “Haru no yo”, is his Opus 2.

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This article is a chronological record of the life of Nakahara Ariyasu, written in the form of Ariyasu's diary. This diary itself does not actually exist, and in this sense the account is fictional.
Nakahara Ariyasu was a musician who served under Kujo Kanezane (1149-1207) from the end of the Heian period to the beginning of the Kamakura period. He taught the biwa to Kanezane, as well as to Kamo no Chomei. A record of his statements and teaching about the biwa, organized and classified by one of his students, exists in the form of Kokin kyoroku. The present author has described its contents and expression in Vols. 1 and 3 of Jochi daigaku kokubunka kiyo (“Bulletin of the Japanese Literature Department of Sophia University”). This article follows on these previous articles as a chronological record of Ariyasu's life. The reasons why it has been written in the form of a diary are, firstly, to demonstrate the close connection between the range of Ariyasu's life and art, and the political stance as well as religious and cultural activities of the Kujo clan, and secondly, by superimposing the daily activities of Ariyasu and Kanezane, to contrast in concrete terms the difference in meaning that music and dance had to the two men, a musician and a noble respectively.
Kujo Kanezane was the son of the Kanpaku (Regent) Fujiwara no Tadamichi, and became Utaisho (Major Captain of the Right) in Oho 1st year (1161) at the age of thirteen, later ascending to Naidaijin (Great Minister of the Centre), Udaijin (Great Minister of the Right), Sessho (Regent for an Emperor who is still a minor) in Bunji 2nd year (1186) and finally Kanpaku (Regent) in Kenkyu 2nd year (1191). He fell from power in Kenkyu 7th year (1196), and died in Jogen 1st year (1207) at the age of 59.
Ariyasu served in the Kujo clan from the time when Kanezane was Utaisho, but at the same time held a number of official posts. According to surviving records, he held at various times the following posts: Minbu-no-jo, Minbu-no-daifu Hida-no-kami, Chikuzenno-kami, and Gakusho-no-azukari.
The time during which this master and servant lived was one of great disturbances. The Hogen and Heiji Insurrections (1156 and 1160 respectively) were followed by the Genpei War, the great war between the Minamoto and Taira clans of 1180-85 that resulted in the victory of the Minamoto. The capital Kyoto was ravaged by great fires, earthquakes, and famines, and political power was steadily passing from the hands of the nobles to those of the warrior class. Kanezane's diary, Gyokuyo, gives a detailed description of movements in the contemporary political scene, and is of immeasurable value as historical source material. There is no source more valuable than this, too, for investigating the state of cultural aspects of the time, such as ceremony, religion, waka poetry, and music.
Kanezane's concept of the ideal member of the noble class envisaged a person with grace who balanced equal ability in the fields of politics, ceremony, literature and the performing arts. Looking at examples from the latter field at the end of the Heian period, we can note the Cloistered Emperor Goshirakawa, who showed an almost deranged fascination for the popular vocal form imayo, while the famous musician Myonon-in Fujiwara no Moronaga devoted all of his energies to completing a comprehensive study and documentation of the gagaku, especially kangen, tradition. This attitude of becoming overly preoccupied with a single thing differed from Kanezane's ideal. This was rather a person who possessed the finest knowledge, understanding and discernment in a wide range of fields, from politics to literature and music, and who showed no special partiality towards any of them. He tried to educate his sons in this way. Kanazane himself pursued this image of the ideal Heian-period noble, and almost realized it; the one great difference between his

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The following materials have been included in this issue in photographic reproduction and typographical reprint. Page numbers refer to the page on which each item begins in the Japanese language section of the journal.

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This essay deals with the texts of several songs recorded in Ryojin hisho, a partially-surviving collection of imayo texts compiled in the mid-12th century by the Cloistered Emperor Goshirakawa (1127-1192). They deal with shrines and temples known for the power of the deity worshipped in them, and reflect the custom of the times of traveling to these places to pray for various kinds of worldly benefits.
The typical song of this type has a text that lists the names of places or scenery that a traveller would pass through on the visit described. This type of poem is known in Japanese as “michiyuki”. An interesting feature of the texts of this type in Ryojin hisho is that they begin the description with places such as Kamogawa or Nishi-no-kyo that clearly represented some sort of physical or psychological frontier for contemporary dwellers in the metropolis of Kyoto.
Another type of text similar in nature to this type is that which lists famous temples and shrines. Of the examples to be found in Ryojin hisho, the order in which the names are cited is based on their relative distance from the capital; in some texts the description begins with a temple in Kyoto and follows a route away and then back, while in others the description begins at the religious centre situated furthest away and gradually approaches the capital. This appears to suggest that the texts reflect the experience of having walked from one temple to the next, that is, of having made a type of pilgrimage.

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