Hogaku

To speak of a ‘modern tradition’ only seems paradoxical at first sight. In Japan, cultural globalisation took place not under foreign colonial rule but through the cultural policies of a sovereign nation state. Hogaku, Japan’s traditional music was at this time integrated into the state cultural sector, underwent a transformation from home music-making to concert music, was raised to the status of intangible cultural heritage and was subjected to the cultural-political directives of changing regimes. The change in traditional music and perceptions of music brought about by these factors is the focus of this book, which can also be read as an introduction to the (more recent) traditional musical culture of Japan. As well as hokagu in the more narrow sense, the study also examines the intensive engagement of (western-trained) Japanese composers with the musical traditions of their homeland, and shows that traditional and western music can often be understood not as disparate phenomena but as having developed from the same cultural and socio-historical horizon.