Koda Nobu

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Koda Nobu

Kōda Nobu ( Japanese 幸 田 延 ; born April 19, 1870 in Tokyo Prefecture , † June 14, 1946 ) was a Japanese violinist, pianist and composer. Her oldest brother was the writer Kōda Rohan , another brother was the explorer Gunji Shigetada (1860-1924), the youngest brother was the historian Kōda Shigetomo (1873-1954). Together with her younger sister Andō Kō , Nobu Kōda did a pioneering work that has now almost been forgotten in the introduction of Western music, especially violin playing in Japan.

Life

Nobu Kōda came from the family of the official Kōda Shigenobu and his wife Yu, a samurai noble line that became impoverished as a result of the Meiji Restoration . The Kōda family saw the newly founded state schools as an opportunity to educate their children without large financial means. One such new institution was the Music Research Center , a forerunner organization of the "Tokyo Conservatory" ( 東京 音 楽 学校 Tōkyō Ongaku-gakkō , today: Tokyo University of the Arts ), which Nobu attended with her sister Kō and which she graduated in 1884 in violin. Up until the Meiji Restoration, Western classical music was practically ignored in Japan, and violin lessons, especially in childhood, were extremely rare. The two sisters were therefore the first two Japanese women to be officially sent to America and Europe for further training on the violin. Nobu left Japan in May 1889 from the port of Yokohama to study violin for a year with Emil Mahr (1851-1914), a student of Joseph Joachim , and piano with Carl Faelton at the New England School of Music in Boston. The mandate from the Music Research Center stipulated that she should only be trained in the violin and continue studying in Germany for two years after her stay in Boston. It is assumed that the studies were then continued in Vienna on the advice of Rudolf Dittrich instead of in Germany . Nobu's travel diary shows that she left America from New York by ship on July 19, 1890 and that she landed in Bremen ten days later. She attended a performance of Gounod's Faust opera and met Hiruma Kenpachi , who two years before Nobu had been sent abroad by the Music Research Center to train on the cello.

In August 1890 Nobu traveled on to Vienna to continue her studies with Josef Hellmesberger junior . She met the music theorist and inventor Tanaka Shōhei , visited the envoy Toda Ujitaka , who was in contact with the Viennese salon of the travel writer Rosa von Gerold , and she learned the German language in order to be admitted for further studies at the music college. In 1891 she was admitted and continued her education at the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna . The Conservatory's records show that Nobu was engaged in scale exercises such as works by Louis Spohr and Joseph Mayseder during this period . In addition to Hellmesberger, Nobu was also taught composition and harmony by Robert Fuchs and piano by Frederike Singer and Anton Door at the Conservatory . Nobu's diary entries also suggest that during her time at the Conservatory she also met the Romanian violinist George Enescu , who was also studying there at the time.

After her return to Japan, she first publicly demonstrated her skills in a concert in 1896. A violin concerto by Mendelsohn and the first part of a violin quartet by Haydn were performed for the first time in Japan. She also sang Schubert and Brahms and performed her own arrangement of a Bach fugue. Nobu Kōda is considered the first Japanese woman to compose a violin sonata. Mostly, however, one falsely remembers Nobu's student Taki Rentarō as the first Japanese composer of western classical music, who wrote two piano pieces, including the still very popular piece Kōjō no Tsuki ("The moon over the castle ruins").

In the following years Nobu taught violin, piano, composition and singing at the Tokyo Conservatory as a professor. Among her students was Miura Tamaki , who became internationally known for her title role in the opera Madama Butterfly . At the turn of the century, Nobu Kōda was at the height of her career. The press began making allegations against her. She was publicly questioned and assumed a relationship with the German musician August Junker , who was teaching at the Tokyo Conservatory at the time. Although these allegations could not be substantiated, the pressure of public abuse in 1909 resulted in Nobu resigning from her professorship and leaving the conservatory.

Immediately thereafter, Nobu traveled through Europe for a year until 1910. She visited Vienna, took singing and piano lessons in Berlin, took violin lessons from Karl Markees , visited Paris and traveled back to Japan via London and Southampton. Back in Japan, she began to teach piano primarily to girls from the upper class. Her service was honored in 1937 when she was the first woman to be admitted to the Japanese Academy of Arts . Her sister Kō Andō, who was appointed to Nobu at the Conservatory and was abruptly dismissed, was also admitted to the Academy in 1943.

Nobu Kōda died in 1946 at the age of 76 as a result of heart disease.

Works

  • Sonata for violin and piano in D minor
  • Sonata for violin and piano in E flat major

literature

  • Keiko Takii: 幸 田 露 伴 と 音 楽 、 そ し て 妹 の 延 (The Image of KODA Nobu at KODA Rohan: An Inquiry into Modern Japanese Music History) . In: Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music (Ed.): Bulletin, Faculty of Music, Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku . No. 26 , 2000, pp. 87-107 (Japanese, nii.ac.jp [accessed April 14, 2015]).
  • Noriko Hirataka: 幸 田 延 の ウ ィ ー ン 留学 (studied in Vienna by Nobu Koda) . In: 玉川 大学 文学 部 紀要 (Ed.): 論叢 . No. 53 , 2012, p. 101–121 (Japanese, tamagawa.ac.jp [PDF; accessed April 13, 2015]).
  • Noriko Hirataka: 幸 田 延 の ボ ス ト ン 留学 (studied in Boston by Nobu Koda) . In: 玉川 大学 文学 部 紀要 (Ed.): 論叢 . No. 54 , 2013, p. 191–211 (Japanese, tamagawa.ac.jp [PDF; accessed April 13, 2015]).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Noriko Hirataka describes in her essay 幸 田 延 の ウ ィ ー ン 留学 ( Kōda Nobu no Wīn-ryūgaku , Nobu Koda's study in Vienna), pp. 105-107, that Nobu Kōda has to be suspended from classes for a while due to mental stress and illness left and stayed in Milan . However, the exact circumstances and causes of this disease are not yet clearly understood.
  2. ↑ Kō Andō was also the first woman to be honored in 1958 as a person with special cultural merits .
  3. ↑ Recorded by the small Tokyo company Mittenwald (MTWD 99038).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 幸 田 延 . In: 朝日 日本 歴 史 人物 事 典 at kotobank.jp. Retrieved April 13, 2015 (Japanese).
  2. ^ A b Luciana Galliano: Yogaku: Japanese Music in the 20th Century . Scarecrow Press, 2002, pp. 19 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed April 15, 2015]).
  3. ↑ a b c d Yuko Tamagawa: Four female musicians: The gender structure of musical culture in modern Japan . In: Marion Gerards, Rebecca Grotjahn (eds.): Music and Emancipation. Oldenburg contributions to gender research . tape 12 . BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8142-2196-0 , p. 177–178 ( uni-oldenburg.de [PDF; 19.0 MB ; accessed on April 15, 2015]).
Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus, Kōda is the family name, Nobu the first name.
personal data
SURNAME Koda, Nobu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 幸 田 延 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese violinist, pianist and composer
DATE OF BIRTH April 19, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Tokyo prefecture
DATE OF DEATH June 14, 1946