Carmen in Japan

Western Music Comes to Japan...

The Meiji government, with the intention of modernizing Japanese music, introduced the Western music instruction in schools, and in 1879, Izawa Shuji, a government bureaucrat who had studied in the United States, commissioned songs which were written using a pentatonic melody derived by exclusion of a major fourth and seventh. He compiled these songs, along with Western airs of a similar tonal structure, such as "Auld Lang Syne," in a textbook, which was used in schools throughout the country. With the gradual entrenchment of this pentatonic scale, it became the basis for a genre of commercial music.

Another type of Western music with broad appeal was the military march, which was introduced by the Meiji government as an element in its modernization of the Japanese armed forces. An early example of this effort was "Miyasan, Miyasan" {Lord Miya, Lord Miya), a traditional tune set in march rhythm. This same melody was later echoed in Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly and Sullivan's operetta The Mikado. Another instance of direct influence was "Battotai" (bared sword brigade), a song glorifying the exploits of an elite government corps, which borrowed a melody from Bizet's Carmen.