Nobu Koda (1870-1946) - the first Japanese music student to study abroad

[Wheesht]

The first Japanese music student to study abroad was a woman, Nobu Koda, who in 1889 left the port of Yokohama to study in Boston and Vienna before returning to Japan in 1895. She became a teacher and composed two violin sonatas.

A three-part article 'Earthquakes and Pioneering Sisters' by Margaret Mehl in the blog on Violinist.com has detailed information and fascinating details. 

Here is  a performance of the first Sonata with Yasuko OHTANI, violin, and Takashi SATO, piano.

The automatic translation (with DeepL) of the Youtube comment reads as follows (I only changed 'he' to 'she' and 'his' to 'her' throughout):
Yasuko Otani's 45th Anniversary Special Streaming Series, Part 2: 'Japanese Violin Music'
Nobuyuki Koda: Violin Sonata No. 1 in E-flat major (1895)


Renowned Japanese violinist Yasuko Ohtani collaborates with pianist Takashi Sato in a series exploring violin music composed by Japanese composers. This historically significant series features works composed before the war by composers such as Yukio Koda, Kozo Yamada, Michio Miyagi, and Kunihiko Hashimoto, focusing on pieces that hold a significant place in the violin repertoire.
Yoshinobu Koda was a composer, pianist, and violinist during the dawn of modern classical music in Japan.
 With her older brother being the Meiji-era writer Ryunosuke Koda and her younger sister being violinist Yukiko Ando, Yoshinobu Koda began studying piano at the age of 10 under Luther Whiting Mason, the teacher who introduced the piano and the Bayer method to Japan. After graduating from elementary school, Kōda enrolled in the Ministry of Education's Music Research Department in 1882. There, she began studying violin and graduated in 1885. In 1889, she became the first Japanese music student to study abroad, enrolling at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In 1890, she moved to Austria and studied at the Vienna Musikverein in 1891, spending five years in Vienna. She returned to Japan in 1895 and became an assistant professor at the Tokyo Music School, becoming a professor in 1899 at the age of 29. Her students included Rentaro Taki, Tamaki Miura, Nagayo Motoki, and Kosaku Yamada. This violin sonata, composed in 1895, is the first classical instrumental work by a Japanese composer.


Movement 1: E-flat major
Movement 2: G major / Adagio
Third Movement: E-flat major / Allegro (Rondo)
(The first five measures of the recapitulation are preserved, with the remainder lost. The work has been edited and completed by composer Shinichiro Ikebe.)


Composer: Nobu Koda (1870–1946)
Violin: Yasuko Otani
Piano: Takashi Sato


Instruments used: Stradivarius 'Wilhelmi' (made in 1725), loaned by the Japan Music Foundation
Recorded at Matsumoto Memorial Music Guest House


*Continuation Support Project for Cultural Arts and Sports Activities in 2020


Producer & Director: Yuta Ito
Video filming: Wataru Tanaka
Video editing: Tadashi Hosomi
Recording editing: Hiroki Ohnuma

[Alan Howe]

This is absolutely fascinating. I am thoroughly enjoying listening to the Violin Sonata which, if no masterpiece, shows clear absorption of the European classical tradition. Worthy of a commercial recording? Well, why not? Perhaps there are other Japanese composers who trod the same compositional path. The playing, by the way, is excellent. Thank you!

[eschiss1]

Glad btw to see Ikebe's name mentioned even as an arranger; his own compositions aren't in our remit, but are -really- good and inventive Thank you for pointing this sonata out.

[Ilja]

Fascinating indeed. Of course, we have Naxos's Japanese Classics series, which in general affirms the impression of Japanese non-native art music taking some time to develop its own voice, and mostly starting in the Germanic vein in which many composers had been trained. Kosaku Yamada's First Symphony (1912) for instance, sounds not unlike a Schumannesque German symphony of the 1870s, but his second (1921) is very different, far more advanced, and effectively incorporates Japanese harmonic traditions and instrumentation. By comparison, Qunihico Hashimoto's Symphony No. 1 (1940), basically a propaganda piece written to celebrate the 2600th year of the Emperor, sounds more old-fashioned, although it's still a very effective piece of music (two things it has in common with Shostakovich's 5th). The series is very much worth checking out.

[Wheesht]

Thanks for pointing out the Naxos series, I had missed that before.

Meanwhile, I have received a commercial recording of the sonatas by Nobu Koda and music by other female Japanese composers on a CD I found on Ebay. It looks as though it is still available from the Camerata label if one can manage to get the necessary parts translated from Japanese.