Yamatogaku
大和楽
History
One of the newest and most popular additions to the world of Japanese traditional music, Yamatogaku was founded in 1933 by Baron Kishichiro Okura as an attempt to merge Western vocal aesthetics with traditional Japanese instruments. In the naming of this new style, Baron Okura purposefully employed the ancient name of Japan, Yamato, to emphasize that this was to be a new Japanese music for Japanese audiences.
Upon his return from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1907, Baron Okura lamented that, despite the strong presence of highly-trained female musicians in Japanese music, women were limited in their professional performance opportunities. In England, the Baron was exposed to the prime donne of the ballet and operatic worlds, quickly noting that no parallel for such fame existed for female performers in the world of Japanese traditional music. In many cases, women were limited to role of hobbyist or instructor, performing on occasion in solo recitals and in smaller-scale dance performances. (To this day, Yamatogaku remains a predominantly female genre, with men participating on shamisen, narimono/percussion, or on occasion, joining for the lowest vocal parts of choral moments.)
Collaborating with the leading musicians of the Kiyomoto, Nagauta, Shinnai, and Itchubushi schools, Baron Okura developed Yamatogaku with the help of the best traditional musicians in Japan. Understanding the need for a music that was relatable to a modern audience even when dealing with traditional themes, he called together playwrights, lyricists, and popular songwriters to ensure that the musical compositions were set to texts that were easily understood and memorable to a modern Japanese public. His goal was to create “a completely new Japanese music that had never before existed … by taking the essence of traditional music and dressing it in a new, modern vocal garment.”
Baron Okura Kishichiro playing the Okuraulo, an end-blown western flute he developed in collaboration with Rudall, Carte & Co. of London, Photo ca. 1933
