The Ninth and a Japanese POW Camp for German Soldiers: Nearing the Centennial of the First Performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in Japan

　　　　In Japan, performances of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony have become a regular annual end-of-year event, with many orchestras around the country featuring the work on their schedules as December draws to a close. The year 2018 will mark the centennial of the first performance in Japan of the Ninth--formally, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125--a piece that is now much-loved among the Japanese people. That performance took place on June 1, 1918, in a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp for German soldiers located in what was then Bandō Town (now a part of Naruto City), Tokushima Prefecture.

*Of interest to those who read Japanese, in the modern era a prisoner of war was referred to using the word furyo俘虜 in contrast to the word horyo捕虜 used conventionally today. The term furyo appears in many documents made available through JACAR, and that usage is retained throughout the original Japanese version of the present article.

　　　　When World War I began in July 1914, on the basis of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Japan entered the conflict as a member of the allied countries led by the U.K., France, and Russia. Japan’s army attacked Qingdao and other strategic locations on the Shandong Peninsula in China that one of the enemy powers, Germany, had leased. In the process, they took many soldiers and military personnel from Germany and its ally the Austro-Hungarian Empire as prisoners. Japan set up POW camps around Japan to confine them and created a Prisoner of War Information Bureau (Furyo jōhōkyoku) under the Minister of the Army to liaise with the International Red Cross. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also handled negotiations with the relevant foreign governments regarding such matters as the treatment of POWs through its diplomatic missions abroad.
　　　　By the end of 1914 just after it had occupied Qingdao, Japan had established 12 POW camps around the country. They were located in Tokyo (subsequently moved to Narashino), Shizuoka, Ōita, Matsuyama, Marugame, Tokushima, Kurume, Kumamoto, Osaka (subsequently moved to Ninoshima, Hiroshima Prefecture), Nagoya, and Fukuoka. The camps thereafter gradually went through a series of reorganizations and amalgamations, with the result that by the time they were finally closed in 1920 after peace had been concluded only six remained (in Narashino, Bandō, Kurume, Ninoshima, Aonohara, and Nagoya).
　　　　Starting in the Meiji period, Japan felt pressured by the need to demonstrate itself to be a “civilized country” in order to establish diplomatic relations that were modern and equal. As part of that diplomatic policy, the government worked hard to comply with provisions laid down in the Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (the Hague Convention on Land Warfare of 1899) that the great powers of the West had set down as the norms for the conduct of war. (*The original signed copy of the ratified Hague Convention can be seen at ref. A03020484400.）The Convention includes provisions regarding the humane treatment of POWs, and policies were established to comply with them at the POW camps set up during World War I. Consequently, with a few extraordinary exceptions POWs on the whole were treated humanely.

　　　　Generally speaking, the people who heard these concerts were the prisoners being held in the camps. However, the concerts held at some of these camps were also open to the general public. The first such performance of the Ninth (albeit of only the first three movements) for Japanese listeners was given by the orchestra at the Kurume POW camp.
　　　　Incidentally, in January 1924 the Kyūshū Imperial University Philharmonic (now the Kyūshū University Philharmonic) became the first Japanese to feature the Ninth (the fourth movement only) in concert. The first complete performance of the symphony by Japanese musicians came that November in a concert at the Tokyo Music School (a predecessor to today’s Tokyo University of the Arts).
　　　　Music was not the only avenue for POWs to interact with Japanese. For example, soccer brought abundant opportunities for contact. At the camps in Nagoya and Ninoshima, for example, POW teams were pitted against sides from local junior high and normal schools and the German players are said to have passed on their superior soccer skills to the student athletes.

　　　　As the foregoing indicates, Japanese policy on prisoners of war had been known for the humane treatment afforded to its captives. However, as Japan increasingly isolated itself internationally in the 1930s, its interest in abiding by international treaties grew weak. Particularly during the Pacific War, the cruel treatment dished out to soldiers of the Allied Powers who were taken prisoner became a major issue. Assigning responsibility for this behavior was a matter of persistent questioning in the trials for Class B and Class C war crimes after the conflict’s end.
　　　　Thus, hidden behind the tale of the first performance in Japan of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 lies this history of the country’s policy on prisoners of war. This is something to keep in mind the next time you attend an end-of-year performance of the Ninth.

　　　　The Japan Center for Asian Historial Resources has made available public documents regarded the prisoner of war camps established during World War I. These documents come from the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Center for Military History at the Ministry of Defense’s National Institute for Defense Studies.
　　　　(See here for registers related to German POWs held at the MOFA Diplomatic Archives)
　　　　(See here for registers related to German POWs held by NIDS)
　　　　(See here for a list of materials related to German POWs in the “欧受大日記” held by NIDS)
　　　　*Furthermore, a number of other documents can be found with a keyword search by using “俘虜” or “捕虜” as the search string.

Reference Materials

Tomita Hiroshi, Bandō furyo shūyōjo [The Bandō prisoner-of-war camp] (Hosei University Press, 1991).
Narashino City Board of Education, ed., Doitsu heishi no mita Nippon [The Japan that German soldiers saw] (Maruzen 　　　　Books, 2001).
Yokota Shūichirō, Dai-Ku “Hajimete” monogatari [The tale of the Ninth’s “beginning”] (Sakuhokusha, 2002).
Utsumi Aiko, Nihongun no horyo seisaku [The prisoner-of-war policies of the Japanese army] (Aoki Shoten Publishing, 　　　　2005).
Seto Takehiko, Chintao kara kita heishitachi [The soldiers who came from Qingdao] (Dōgakusha, 2006).
Ōtsuru Atsushi, Fujiwara Tatsuo, and Fukushima Yukihiko, Aonogahara furyo shūyōjo no sekai [The world of the 　　　　Aonogahara prisoner-of-war camp] (Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2007).
Beethoven-Haus (Bonn), ed., “Dai-ku” to Nihon: Deai no rekishi (Sairyusha, 2011), trans. of Die Macht der Musik: Das 　　　　kulturelle Leben im deutschen Kriegsgefan genenlager Bando in Japan 1917-1919 [The power of music: Cultural 　　　　life in the German prisoner-of-war camp Bando in Japan between 1917 and 1919] (Beethoven-Haus, 2009).

Musicians Who Can Be Encountered in JACAR Documents

　　　　During the Meiji period, one of the goals the Japanese government set for itself was to revise various unequal treaties that had been signed with the countries of the West. To build the equitable diplomatic ties its sought, the government promoted policies aimed at westernizing Japan. One of the policies was to introduce western music to the country. These policies were given concrete form in 1879 when the Ongaku Torishirabegakari (Music Investigation Committee) was created within the Ministry of Education.

　　　　JACAR has among its materials a document titled “Ongaku torishirabe seiseki shinpōsho” [Report on the result of the investigation concerning music] (Ref.A07062217800). The Torishirabegakari’s director Isawa Shūji submitted the document in 1884 to Education Minister Ōki Takatō. The report covers the committee’s activities over the previous four years. It notes that the Torishirabegakari had set down three broad principles for itself in “Ongaku torishirabe ni tsuki mikomisho” [Prospects regarding the investigation concerning music], which it had submitted in 1879. One of these principles was “to nurture the persons who will establish the nation’s music (kokugaku) of the future.” Accordingly, to train specialists in Western and Japanese music in 1880 the Torishirabegakari allowed 22 individuals to enroll as special students (denshūsei) in music. They were taught singing, piano, and so forth. In 1883, the Torishirabegakari enacted new “Regulations for the Ministry of Education’s Ongaku Torishirabegakari” and created a four-year curriculum (see Image 1).

　　　　In 1887, the Ongaku Torishirabe was rechristened and relaunched as the Tokyo Music School. This new institution would go on to produce musicians whose names remain well-known even today. One may wonder, then, who exactly were the people involved with these two institutions--both among the instructors and the graduates--and what exactly did they do in the world of music. Using materials from the JACAR files, we can answer such questions.

　　　　The American music educator Luther Whiting Mason played a crucial role as an instructor during the Torishirabegakari’s early years. In 1882, his term of employment came to an end and his position was taken over a German, Franz Eckert. Prior to this, Eckert had been employed as an instructor in martial music by the Ministry of the Navy. As a consequence, the Defense Ministry’s National Institute of Defense Studies today still has a large number of materials related to him in its collection. These include, for example, the contract covering Eckert’s employment at the Navy Ministry (Ref. C09101868800, images 7 through 14) and a document relating the back and forth over seeing whether Eckert would teach harmonics and orchestral music at the Torishirabegakari as well (Ref. C09103590000). Eckert is also known for composing in 1880 the harmony for Kimigayo, Japan’s national anthem; the score for this is likewise viewable here (see Image 2).

　　　　Noted musician Kōda Nobu was among the first group of students to study under these music professors. The younger sister of equally noted writer Kōda Rohan, Kōda graduated from the Torishirabegakari in 1885. She then went on to study music overseas in Boston and Vienna before returning to become a professor and train numerous future musicians at the Tokyo Music School.

　　　　Among Kōda’s students was the future composer and conductor Yamada Kōsaku, best-known in Japan perhaps for composing the popular children’s song in the modern, dōyō style, “Akatonbo” [Red dragonfly]. Yamada graduated from the school’s voice faculty in 1908 and would go on to collaborate with poet Kitahara Hakushū on numerous works of music. Several examples of martial music (gunka) the pair took part in creating can be found through the JACAR archives, including “The Song of the Great Japan Police” and “The Police March” (Image 3) as well as “The Song of the Army” (Image 4).

　　　　Another of Kōda’s students (who herself would also go on to instruct Yamada) was the opera singer Miura Tamaki. Miura graduated from the voice faculty in 1904 and became first an adjunct instructor and then an assistant professor at the School. She achieved international fame in 1915 at the London Opera House when she became the first Japanese prima donna to sing the part of Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly. JACAR’s catalogue includes a photo of Miura singing at a treatment facility for Hansen’s disease patients in a document published in 1940 (Ref. A17110111800, image 160).
　　　　Some rare items illustrating the connection between Miura and a certain foreign student who had come from Beijing can also be found today at the Diplomatic Archives of the Foreign Ministry. That student’s name was Shi Yongfen, better known by her stage name of Bai Guang (“White Light”). Bai came to Japan to study voice at Miura’s academy for opera singing. She made her film debut as one of the leads in “Tōyō heiwa no michi” [The road to peace in the Orient] (1938), a Tōwa Shōji Eiga-bu production involving both Japanese and Chinese filmmakers and crew (see Ref. B05016228900, images 2 through 12). Around this time, Bai Guang submitted an application addressed to the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Cultural Affairs Section for a scholarship, and Miura in her role as academy director provided a testimonial (see Image 5). Furthermore, in 1939 we can see that Bai enrolled as a special-course student in the Tokyo Music School and applied to continue receiving the scholarship (Ref. B05015504400).

　　　　Upon completing her studies, Bai Guang in 1942 went to Shanghai where she was active as an actress and singer. Her rich, low singing voice and Western singing style unusual for the time created a stir, and she came to be counted among a group of Chinese singers of the 1940s (such as Li Xianglan, “the Judy Garland of Japan”) known collectively as the Seven Great Singing Stars (Ch. “Qi da gexing”). In 1949, she went to Hong Kong. There, her performance in “A Strange Woman” (Ch. “Yi dai yaoji”)--a film-reworking of the Puccini opera Tosca--attracted attention, and she became synonymous with the part.

　　　　That same year, the Tokyo Music School was converted into the Department of Music for the newly created Tokyo University of the Arts (as it is known today). This institution still graduates numerous musicians every year even today. Anyone wishing to know more about the predecessors of these more recent graduates and their music such as we have seen above may find it profitable to look for information in the JACAR collection.

Works Consulted

Gotō Nobuko, Yamada Kōsaku: Tsukuru no de wa naku umu [Yamada Kōsaku: Not making, but bringing forth], Minerva 　　　　shobō, 2014.
Hirataka Noriko, “Kōda Nobu no Bosuton ryugaku” [Kōda Nobu’s study-abroad experience in Boston], Ronsō [Essays], 　　　　no. 54, 2013.
Nakamura Rihei, Yōgaku dōnyūsha no kiseki: Nihon kindai yōgakushi josetsu [On the trail of the people who introduced 　　　　Western music: An introduction to the history of modern Western music in Japan], Tōsui shobō, 1993.
Tanabe Hisayuki, Kōshō Miura Tamaki [Madame Miura Tamaki], Kindaibungesha, 1995.
Wang Yong and Bao Jing, “A Voice of a Different Sort, ‘A Strange Woman’: Bai Guang” (in Chinese), Yinyue
　　　　aihaozhe--Music Lover, no. 2, 2007.
Yau Shuk-ting, Honkon-Nihon eiga kōryūshi: Ajia eiga nettowāku no rūtsu [A history of interchanges between the 　　　　Japanese and Hong Kong film industries: An exploration into the roots of Asian film networks], University of 　　　　Tokyo Press, 2007.
Yoshida Takashi, Gōmo kotonaru tokoro nashi: Isawa Shūji no onritsuron [No spots of deviation whatsover: The rhythm 　　　　theories of Isawa Shūji], K. G. University Press, 2011.

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