Nationalism, Westernization, and Modernization in Japan

The modernization promoted by the Meizi government brought great changes to music as well as to other aspects of Japanese culture. During the Meizi period (1868–1912), two contrasting attitudes toward Western music developed: on one hand, advocacy of a wholesale adoption of Western music; on the other hand, advocacy of modernizing Japanese music by westernizing it while preserving its traditional essence. This article focuses mainly on the latter attitude. [See also Western Musics Introduced in Japan...