Proof copy. The Kyushu biwa traditions. Hugh de Ferranti ASHGATE. 1. Introduction RESEARCH COMPANION

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1 5 ASHGATE RESEARCH COMPANION The Kyushu biwa traditions 1. Introduction Hugh de Ferranti This chapter is concerned with a regional music culture. The biwa music of Kyushu and the near reaches of southwestern Japan has a history that overlaps with that of the canonical heike-biwa tradition (Chapter 4) but differs in many respects, including the incorporation of biwa as a tool for Buddhist ritual, the relations of sung or recited text to written text sources, the kinds of narrative repertory performed, the contexts for performance, and the types of instruments played. The Kyushu biwa traditions can be seen as distinctive regional practices which at times have been formative influences upon the biwa narrative music favoured in Japan s historical centres of cultural and political power, while at other times being deeply influenced by those canonical styles. The claim that the origins of biwa-playing in Kyushu lie in the music of agrarian rituals for which the celebrants were blind males is still widely circulated. The locus for the practice of such rituals has been the institution of mōsō, blind Buddhist priests who formed affiliations of various kinds, in many cases under the aegis of the Tendai sect. The importance of blind males in ritual life fostered the existence not only of large numbers of mōsō, but also of zatō or biwa-hiki, blind men who lacked certification as priests, yet carried out similar rites in particular regions. Since at least the Edo period, and probably from well before, the Kyushu mōsō and zatō were bearers of a rich corpus of both liturgical texts and secular narratives Most practices described below have also existed in western Honshu (Yamaguchi and Shimane Prefectures) but are characterized as Kyushu biwa traditions because of their prevalence throughout that island. There is no consensus as to the extent to which the instruments, music or rites of the Kyushu blind biwa players were influenced by ancient and medieval practices in the capital region, although Komoda Haruko has in recent years developed a strikingly original interpretation of the historical evidence (see Footnote 4 below). With regard to instrument types and their relation to those of Heike performers, see further Chapter 4. Although blind female musicians, goze, have also played an important role in Kyushu music culture, there is no record of their having conducted religious rites there. ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:37 PM

2 the ashgate research companion to japanese music performed for entertainment. The latter were a principal source for early repertory of the biwa music most often performed in Japan since the Meiji period: the satsumabiwa and chikuzen-biwa styles. While both bear the names of the regions within Kyushu where they had origin among mōsō circles, satsuma-biwa and chikuzenbiwa are elaborate concert traditions that became popular throughout the country during the early twentieth century. Both are practised chiefly in the cities of central Japan, by perhaps ten thousand amateur performers and a handful of professionals. Unlike the blind traditions, narrative texts and musical schemes for satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa are fixed in written, and often printed, forms, which are strictly adhered to in performance. Whereas in 2001 no blind zatō continue to perform, and a single blind priest performs rituals for parishioners occasionally in southeastern Kyushu, satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa may be heard several times each month at concerts in Tokyo and Osaka, and are also relatively well represented in recordings. While their roots are in the biwa music of Kyushu s past, their modern practices were shaped in the Kanto and Kansai regions of central Japan, for the most part in the early twentieth century. As with heike-biwa, most genres described below are traditionally referred to with the word biwa preceded by a modifier. This chapter adopts the following convention for clarity: hyphenated forms such as mōsō-biwa and satsuma-biwa refer to the performance tradition and repertory, while the same forms presented as separate words indicate the relevant instrument types: mōsō biwa, satsuma biwa, and so on. Figures show several Kyushu biwa performers. 2. The blind traditions The most commonly used collective term for the biwa traditions maintained in southwestern Japan is mōsō-biwa (blind priest biwa). This is because the majority of biwa players in the region have been blind males active in rites of local religious practice, and since the early 1960s, when scholars of religious, musical and literary history first showed interest in the Kyushu traditions, most players have been certified as Buddhist priests. 4 Other terms that have been used by scholars to describe variant practices located within the broader category of mōsō-biwa include jijin-biwa, kōjinbiwa, kuzure-biwa and higo-biwa. (These terms are discussed below.) Moreover, the expression zatō-biwa has gained currency since 1990, as a term complementary to mōsō-biwa: mōsō were certified priests, while zatō had no such formal status and made a living by offering performances of various kinds on a day-to-day 4 Recent research by Komoda (2002) points toward the conclusion that mōsō as a term for blind priests and the Buddhist institutions of their affiliations (as distinct from a word for priests who are blind) may be of late-seventeenth-century origin, and that prior to that time all blind biwa players in Japan were biwa-hōshi, regardless of whether they were members of the Tōdō, after its founding in the late fourteenth century. It follows that as a genre it also dates from that time. 106 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:37 PM

3 the kyushu biwa traditions Figure 5.1 An ensemble performance by members of the Asahi school of chikuzen-biwa (Tokyo, early 1990s) Figure 5.2 Fumon Yoshinori, a performer of the Seiha school of satsuma-biwa (Tokyo) 107 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:38 PM

4 the ashgate research companion to japanese music Figure 5.3 Nagata Hōjun, a Jōrakuin sect mōsō of Nobeoka City, Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu (1992) basis. 5 Historically, zatō was the more commonly used term for blind musicians, with prefix terms such as bussetsu (expounding Buddhism) or heike no (performing the Heike narratives) added to specify the type of performance given. Musicians consciousness of affiliation with a tradition or community of practice has been either regionally based, as reflected in expressions such as amakusa no biwa (biwa of the Amakusa area), lineage-based, as among groups of zatō in central Kyushu, or institutionally based, in the case of member priests of the two Tendai hōryū (sects) of mōsō. 5 Zatō is a word used to refer to biwa players in several regions of Kyushu, and reflects an earlier, Edo-period usage denoting lowly, and in particular blind street performers. 6 Musicians such as Yamashika Yoshiyuki ( ) and Hashiguchi Keisuke (b. 1914) began to refer to themselves as performers of Higo biwa only after the term was suggested to them by scholars. The pre-meiji province of Higo covered a large area of central Kyushu, within which players were affiliated primarily as ha, groups that originated from individual teachers. 108 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:39 PM

5 the kyushu biwa traditions Figure 5.4 Murakami Mansaku (known as Manshan), blind biwa-hiki of the Tamana region of Kumamoto Prefecture, Kyushu, 1950s. Photo by Kimura Yūshō, used with permission of Kimura Rirō 2.1 Liturgical practice There is still no evidence of transmission to Japan of either sutra texts performed by mōsō or the practice of chanting with biwa, but sect tradition claims that the ritual practice was brought from Korea or China directly to Kyushu by the start of the eighth century at the latest. Accounts of origin and early history appear, with some variance, in documents held by the two mōsō sects; their common elements are Jijinkyō, sutras in praise of the earth deity Jijin, which were transmitted from India through China and Korea to eastern Kyushu in the reign of Emperor Kinmei (539 71) after their direct transmission from Sakyamuni to a blind follower. Groups of mōsō from Kyushu were summoned to perform the sutra in purification rites during the construction of major national institutions such as the imperial palace 7 Nagai Akiko s research (2002) has yielded data on so-called Korean mōsō, groups of Daoist blind priests who received state patronage for their rain-making and healing activities from the thirteenth century on. The earliest reliable sources are all of mid-edo origin, so the accounts are not verifiable. See Nishi Nihon Bunka Kyōkai 1993: 565ff. 109 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:40 PM

6 the ashgate research companion to japanese music at Nara and the Tendai sect head temple, Enryakuji. Thereafter, mōsō temples with Tendai affiliation are said to have been established near Nara and Kyoto, and in all regions of Kyushu. It is probable that ritual performance of biwa in association with a cult of the Bodhisattva miraculous sound, Myōon Bosatsu, and the corresponding Japanese patron deity of music, Benzaiten (a female deity who plays biwa), was introduced by musicians of court society who had studied in Tang China, for the principal mōsō temple of the Kyoto region, said to have been established in 808, was named Myōondera Jōrakuin. Semimaru, a quasi-historical blind poet and biwa player from Heian court circles, is claimed as the fourth head of the Myōondera Jōrakuin by the Satsuma mōsō sects (see Matisoff 1978, Fritsch 1996). The two Buddhist organizations that have administered the diverse regional practices of mōsō since the early twentieth century are based in the regions historically called Chikuzen and Satsuma. The Chikuzen mōsō group, Gensei Hōryū, is based at the Jōjuin temple in Fukuoka, and has authority over branch temples in Fukuoka, Oita, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Shimane and Yamaguchi Prefectures, while the Jōrakuin Hōryū of the Satsuma mōsō has been based at temples in Kagoshima and Miyazaki Prefectures. The Chikuzen mōsō group claims as founder Gensei ( ), a priest given the name Jōjuin by the initiator of Japanese Tendai Buddhism, Saichō, after aiding in construction of its headquarters on Mt Hiei. The Satsuma mōsō s founder is said to have been Hōzan Kengyō, nineteenth head of the so-called Kyoto mōsō tradition. He left Kyoto in 1196 to accompany Shimazu Tadahisa to his post as the first daimyō of Satsuma. A small gakubiwa, said to have been brought from Kyoto in the twelfth century by Hōzan Kengyō, is venerated as a relic by the Jōrakuin Hōryu. Close affiliation between the Satsuma mōsō temples and the Shimazu, the ruling house of Satsuma province, continued until the Meiji Restoration, and afforded the mōsō protection from sustained attacks levelled at other mōsō by the Tōdō-za guild. The existence of an organized body of Satsuma mōsō has been established for the late sixteenth century on, from documentary evidence pertaining to their relations with the Shimazu daimyō (see Nakano 1993, Murata 1994), but mōsō of central and northern Kyushu and westernmost Honshu had far looser organizational structures; they existed as multiple groups attached to powerful temples and shrines. It was only in response to the Meiji government s outlawing of mōsō ritual in 1871, on grounds that it involved syncretism of Buddhist and Shinto beliefs, that those mōsō actively sought to identify themselves as a unified organization within the Tendai sect. The northern and southern Kyushu mōsō organizations took on their current forms from 1907, when both were established as hōryū within the Tendai sect. 2.2 Ritual repertories In recent practice the primary rituals of both groups have been group ceremonies in honour of the founders of each organization (hōraku hōyō), held within their controlling temples, and seasonal rites (kaidan hōyō) centred on harai, the exorcism of various manifestations of the earth spirit, Jijin, and Kōjin, the spirit of the hearth or oven. The latter rites were held once in each season for parishioners of small mōsō temples throughout Kyushu. Other occasional exorcisms for which mōsō or 110 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:40 PM

7 the kyushu biwa traditions zatō were usually engaged included harai for wells, new houses and buildings, and prayers for rain. The texts and symbolic paraphernalia of these various rites include elements of the Buddhist canon in full and fragmentary forms, along with folk texts whose contents suggest the influence of Daoist and Yin-Yang (on yō-dō) divination ritual practices, as well as agrarian-based legends and beliefs. In formal group ceremonies of the Jōjuin and Jōrakuin groups, mōsō play biwa and chant sutras in ensemble with other instruments. The texts chanted in kaidan hōyō and group ceremonial contexts can be divided by both subject matter and recitation style. First, there are standard sutras common in Japanese Buddhist ritual, such as Kannon-kyō and Hannya Shingyō. Second, there are invocations of Jijin and Kōjin which form the central texts of harai ceremonies. A third group of sacred texts are shakumon, narratives woven from Buddhist and folk legends recited in full during the course of the formal group ceremonies. Texts may be in Chinese or Japanese. In remnant forms of this repertory, the biwa is usually played almost continuously and concurrently with the chant, rather than in a punctuating role. There is always a clear rhythmic relation between biwa and voice, with a pulse articulated by accented plucks, and most text moras are chanted in binary relation to the pulse. Pitch relations, by contrast, are not always clear; in some performances it seems that the biwa s primary role is a percussive one resembling that of the mokugyo woodblock in standard sutra recitation. Notwithstanding, the biwa s music usually comprises a chain of short phrases, each recurring many times with variants. The text is chanted within a narrow tonal framework. 2.3 Secular repertories When doing the seasonal rounds in a parish, mōsō stayed in parishioners houses, often doing evening performances of secular narratives (kuzure) and short songs (hauta) to entertain their hosts and people from nearby, and to supplement their incomes. Because of the popularity of such performances, mōsō came to be seen as professional rivals by the national Tōdō guild of blind professionals. From the seventeenth century, the guild repeatedly sought to have the Shogunate curtail the activities of mōsō and ban secular biwa performances by anyone other than heike no zatō, that is, Tōdō members. Satsuma mōsō remained secure under the dual patronage of the powerful Shimazu daimyō and the Kan eiji, a Tendai temple in Edo. By contrast, mōsō of other regions sought protection through consolidating their to-date informal affiliations with Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine complexes, and in 1783 by gaining the patronage of Shōren-in, an important Tendai temple in Kyoto. The Tōdō-za monopoly was difficult to enforce, but in Higo it apparently brought about the disappearance of mōsō, most of whom became Tōdō member zatō by the late eighteenth century. 9 After the government outlawed the mōsō profession 9 Yasuda maintains that the change in affiliation hardly affected actual performance activities (2001: 61). 111 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:41 PM

8 the ashgate research companion to japanese music in 1872, many mōsō sought other livelihoods or became full-time entertainers. The hōryū organizations of mōsō had disallowed secular performances after their inception in During the same period, zatō continued to earn much of their living as ritual celebrants, despite their lack of Buddhist certification. Most of the few zatō active until the mid-twentieth century had learned ritual exorcism texts. Yet from the evidence of zatō in the Kumamoto region, since at least the 1920s their major income came from engagement as entertainers on celebratory occasions (zashikibiwa) and from performing songs and short narrative excerpts door-to-door (kadobiki; see Yasuda 1991: 12). Biwa-playing zatō remained active as both ritualists and entertainers in several regions until the 1940s. In the Kumamoto region they were especially numerous, and a few zatō continued to perform for a living until the 1960s, when they became the subject of research reports on the so-called higobiwa tradition. Higo-biwa was a term given currency through the writings of Tanabe Hisao and others, and in turn legitimized through the national government s designation of higo-biwa as an Intangible Cultural Property in Higo-region biwa players circulated stories of the origin of their tradition emphasizing the role of a Tōdō-za musician of the exalted kengyō rank, who is said to have taught local blind musicians Heike episodes and ko-jōruri tales in the late seventeenth century. This account is evidence of the regional zatō s respect for the prestige of the Tōdō-za, which exercised a limited amount of authority in Kyushu after winning its dispute with the mōsō sects in But, with the exception of structural features of instruments played by some Higo musicians, claims for the uniqueness of biwa practice in and around Higo remain open to question. Blind traditions of biwa narrative performance certainly endured in the region longer than elsewhere, perhaps because of the historical marginality of mōsō sects within Higo and the nearby Amakusa islands region after the mid-edo period. 11 The principal secular repertory of zatō and mōsō is a body of narratives called danmono, kuzure or, in the case of certain battle tales, biwa gundan. These are performed as one or more distinct sections (dan), each usually lasting at least 30 minutes. Among the danmono are chronicles of Kyushu history, tales from the Heike narrative complex, and versions of well-known stories about legendary and historical heroes featured in other performance genres. Marked differences can exist between the performances of individual zatō (see Hyōdō 1993). Other secular categories include short pieces called hauta and comic pieces known as charimono. 10 Some biwa players used the term during the early Meiji period, but it was uncommon until the 1960s. Yamashika and two other biwa-hiki interviewed in the 1990s told me they first heard the term from scholars. 11 Mōsō activity had been circumscribed by the Meiji government s banning of the mōsō profession in 1871, and subsequent strictures imposed by the Tendai sect. As stated above, however, Yasuda s research has shown that mōsō had virtually disappeared from Higo by the early nineteenth century, as a result of the Tōdō-za s increased power. 112 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:41 PM

9 the kyushu biwa traditions 2.4 Oral composition in zatō-biwa performance practice Like all Japanese narrative music traditions (katarimono), the repertory maintained by Kyushu zatō can be understood through identification of performative segments and their role in the formation of primary units of performance structure comprising both textual and musical paragraphs. In oral composition by zatō, each such unit is based on the internal template of a regular sequence of two kinds of distinct segments (called senritsukei, melodic patterns, by scholars but fushi by most zatō). Each segment in turn comprises text whose content and formal properties are of a kind regularly associated with a distinctive vocal delivery style and a particular melodic and rhythmic profile. In other words, each fushi has both textual and musical properties that are formulaic, and which facilitate composition in performance. Hyōdō (1991: 32) has called the basic paragraph units in zatō-biwa performance shōdan. Using his terminology for fushi types, the internal template of segments within any given shōdan can be characterized as: an introductory kotoba-type (that is, plain or ordinary text) segment is followed by one or more chūshin-type (main or central) segments which are more prominent in performance style. Each shōdan is articulated, moreover, by an introductory biwa motive (te) and a concluding full- or half-close in the voice. The terms of distinction between fushi segments in the kotoba and chūshin positions of a paragraph unit are readily identifiable in performance. In addition to modal and rhythmic characteristics, fushi can be usefully distinguished by their use of one of three styles of vocal delivery formulated by Hirano as fundamental in Japanese vocal arts: declamation (ginshō), intoned recitation (rōshō) and song or aria (eishō). The formation of shōdan as a basic unit in the structure of oral narrative composition is evident from a consideration of performance units in the first part of Shiga Danshichi, a danmono in the repertory of the zatō Ōkawa Susumu ( ). In Ōkawa s practice, the kotoba chūshin sequence comprised a fushi segment delivered as rōshō (intoned recitation) followed by one or more eishō (aria) segments, or even a ginshō (declaimed) segment (see also Chapter 4, 3). By way of illustration, the fushi segmentation for three such shōdan sequences is as follows (these same three shōdan can be heard on track 7): shōdan 1: dashi otsu urei shōdan 2: katari (type A) katari (type B) kotoba shōdan 3: katari (type B) nagashi In each of these first three shōdan there is an initial segment (dashi or katari type A or B) in mostly syllabic delivery on a small number of reciting pitches, followed by one or more segments of either melismatic delivery (the segments called otsu urei and nagashi) or non-specifically pitched declamation (the segment called kotoba). The biwa and vocal elements are for the most part separate from one another, with some overlapping phrases during the nagashi and the rapid-paced nori segments later in the dan, which carry the most exciting and climactic events of the episode. 113 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:42 PM

10 the ashgate research companion to japanese music From comparison with a second recorded performance of the same dan by Ōkawa, as well as analysis of multiple performances of single repertory items by other zatō, it is evident that the narrative exists for the performer as a framework of content and performance structure which is fixed at many points but fluid at others. There is limited flexibility to omit events tangential to the principal narrative. Still, most shōdan maintain certain fushi that present key narrative elements, often through passages of fixed text. Textual stability is highest in sung (eishō) segments that have highly specific functions (such as the expression of grief in otsu or fushi urei segments) and are associated with elaborate musical forms that require the performer to concentrate attention on melodic style. Conversely, there is least textual stability in recited and declaimed segments, where the zatō is less constrained by musical complexity. 2.5 Instruments of the mōsō and zatō Until the twentieth century it seems that there was little or no standardization of instruments played by blind priests (mōsō) and blind professional narrative performers (zatō) in south-western Japan. Common to all biwa of the region, however, are four strings, relatively tall frets that allow manipulation of pitch over the span of a fourth at some frets, and strong sawari (a deep buzzing sound generated by the strings vibrating against the frets). 12 In all cases a portable instrument that can be dismantled has been required, for seasonal ritual work and itinerant secular performance. Two relatively small, light forms were used for these purposes: the sasa biwa, named for its slender bambooleaf shape (Figure 5.4), and a shorter, rounder-bodied instrument (Murayama 1978). A large form of sasa biwa with a relatively deep resonating chamber, used by some Higo zatō, is often referred to as the higo-biwa. Higo region players also commonly used several unique devices to secure strings at the base, and to transduce vibrations. Plectra and tunings vary by region, but there was general distinction between tunings used for Buddhist sutras (usually called rokuchōshi) and secular narrative repertory (honchōshi). Honchōshi is the same tuning as its shamisen namesake, with the third and fourth strings at a unison: do-fa-do -do. Rokuchōshi (called ō-sansagari by Ōkawa Susumu) is do-fa-sol-sol. From the early twentieth century, many mōsō and zatō started to use standard four-string chikuzen biwa and satsuma biwa. 2.6 Research on mōsō and zatō There has been a marked increase in published research on mōsō and zatō since the late 1980s, as scholars of folklore and ritual, Buddhist history, literature and music have each brought their concerns to bear. Mōsō research can be grouped into three areas: historical documentation of the regional traditions and their relations with regional and national religious institutions and political entities; the nature of texts for both group and householder ceremonies; and the social functions of mōsō 12 The Index will guide the reader to details of sawari in other genres. 114 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:42 PM

11 the kyushu biwa traditions as rural ritualists and occasional entertainers. Research on zatō-biwa (including higo-biwa) since the mid-1980s by Hyōdō, Yasuda Muneo and others has yielded considerable data on the training, repertories and professional experiences of individual musicians. Yasuda s work has yielded new perspectives on key historical issues such as the extent of Tōdō-za authority in Higo, and the construction of higobiwa as a regionally defined performance tradition. Hyōdō has approached Higo and Chikugo regional practice as a resource for theorization of the processes of oral composition in Heike and other Japanese historical narrative. My own research has dealt with aspects of the performance and oral composition process, including the significance of fushi as text music systems, and with modes of representation of Kyushu zatō in academic writing and popular media. More recent writings by Kawano Kusumi (2001, 2005) and Komoda Haruko (2002, 2003a, 2003b, 2004b) have documented, respectively, the practice of the Miyazaki region mōsō, Nagata Hojun (b. 1935), and proffered new explanations for the historical development of mōsō-biwa as a genre and the mōsō biwa instrument types. Interview work with former zatō still living is no longer possible, so further research on zatō-biwa must be based on other kinds of primary sources. These include many recorded excerpts from performances made during the 1960s and 70s. No highly skilled zatō survive, but as people who once enjoyed their music are still alive, data can yet be gathered on the reception of zatō-biwa within the rural communities where performances continued until the 1960s The sighted traditions Chikuzen- and satsuma-biwa, the two styles of biwa narrative which have been most widely practised throughout Japan since late Meiji, both bear the names of their respective regions of origin in northern and southern Kyushu. The most celebrated performers in these traditions have been based in the cities of central Japan, and the terms used to denote the two styles are themselves Meiji period coinings that reflect the introduction to Tokyo of new biwa music from the former Satsuma domain and the Chikuzen region. Scholars have moreover devised a collective term, kindai biwagaku (modern biwa music) to distinguish satsuma-biwa and chikuzen-biwa from styles of earlier origin. Satsuma-biwa was mostly a pursuit of males until the success of Suito Kinjō, founder of the nishikibiwa school in 1927, while chikuzen-biwa was popularized by men at the start of the twentieth century, but soon became an art chiefly practised by women. The repertory items of both traditions are referred to as biwa uta (uta = song), because the earliest repertory for satsuma-biwa were late-sixteenth-century lyrical poems with relatively short non-narrative texts. In the satsuma-biwa repertory, however, are several pieces of early and mid-edo period origin whose length in performance is comparable to that of danmono narratives of zatō-biwa. (These satsuma-biwa pieces are also called danmono; their possible links to the 13 Kimura 1994 has compiled the extensive oral memoirs of Yamashika Yoshiyuki. 115 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:43 PM

12 the ashgate research companion to japanese music corresponding category in zatō-biwa are discussed below.) With the exception of this oldest repertory stratum, biwa uta commonly focus upon one or a few events of outstanding significance, narrated in a distinctively poetic register, without the more extensive narrative sequences that typify heikyoku and zatō-biwa tales. The genres share a common body of tales about heroic figures and events in Japanese history, many of which are also the subject of Tale of the Heike chapters, nō plays and various forms of jōruri. Satsuma-biwa also maintains a number of biwa uta whose texts date from the eighteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries and concern the history and ideology of the Satsuma regime, as well as a number of narratives about modern military events between 1870 and In both chikuzen-biwa and satsuma-biwa, instrumental playing has been developed to a level of complexity beyond that found in the modern-day practice of other biwa styles. Since the 1960s new, purely instrumental compositions have been produced for five-stringed versions of both the Chikuzen and Satsuma instruments, which were developed in the early twentieth century. 3.1 Satsuma-biwa Knowledge of the history of biwa music in the pre-meiji province of Satsuma is somewhat less fragmentary than for other regions of Kyushu, since the Satsuma mōsō sect was patronized by the Shimazu daimyō from the late twelfth century, when the nineteenth Kyoto mōsō patriarch, Hōzan Kengyō, arrived in Satsuma in the service of Shimazu Tadahisa. 14 Muromachi and early Edo period references to the presence of heike performers in the region exist, but the primary documented forms of biwa music in Satsuma were the ritual repertory of mōsō and the biwa uta favoured by samurai, the latter of which comprised the earliest repertory of what came to be called satsuma-biwa. The music of Satsuma zatō is significant as one of several biwa styles from which samurai practice was distinguished historically, but there has been little investigation of documentation of zatō (as distinct from mōsō) performance activity in the Satsuma region. The following conventional account of satsuma-biwa s history is found in Meiji and Taishō period writings by biwa practitioners, and is largely reproduced in subsequent scholarly works (though challenged by, for example, Shimazu 1992 and Komoda 2004b): in the mid-sixteenth century a priest and philosopher of the ruling clan, Nisshinsai (Shimazu Tadanaga, also known as Tadayoshi, ), composed the Iroha Uta, a set of poems on themes of Buddhist and Confucian morality and virtue to serve as didactic material for samurai retainers. The poems are said to have first been chanted with biwa by senior mōsō of Jōrakuin temple. Although the Iroha Uta may not have entered the biwa repertory of Satsuma samurai, Nisshinsai is also recognized as the author of three longer poems that comprise the oldest texts in the hauta category; these express the same values as the Iroha Uta: the ideal virtues of men and women of the Satsuma warrior class. 14 Sect tradition, as yet unverified, has it that, for that reason, only samurai-class blind males were admitted. 116 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:43 PM

13 the kyushu biwa traditions Nisshinsai is also credited with remodelling the tenth-century mōsō instrument, perhaps a small form of gakubiwa, in collaboration with the thirty-first patriarch of the Jōrakuin Satsuma mōsō sect, Fuchiwaki Juchōin. The putative aim of their structural revisions was to make possible a forceful, masculine style of playing suitable for Shimazu clan warriors, who might thereafter perform biwa as a pastime authorized under the code of bushidō. The particular modifications that may have been carried out cannot be verified, as there are no examples of satsuma biwa until the late eighteenth century; moreover, the account of Nisshinsai s and Fuchiwaki s collaboration first appears in an early-twentieth-century work. They are said to have included enlargement of the body and plectrum, outward curvature of the soundboard (purportedly in imitation of European string instruments recently introduced to Satsuma by Jesuit priests), as well as heightening and an increase in the number of frets. These changes made possible two characteristic aspects of satsuma-biwa performance technique: beating and scraping of the plectrum tip against both strings and soundboard, and application of pressure by the left-hand fingers to produce melodic tones and microtonal embellishments by pulling strings down over the upper edge of individual frets. The earliest primary account of battle tales performed with biwa (other than heike-biwa) in Satsuma province is in the Tōzai Yūki, a travel diary of 1783, wherein the term kuzure is used to refer to narratives of the Satsuma rulers wars with other Kyushu overlords. This usage of kuzure to denote a category of battle tales (commonly called danmono by players since at least the Meiji period) is in keeping with that of blind musicians in some other regions of Kyushu, and indeed, the account is of a performance by a hōshi rather than a samurai. (In this instance, hōshi may have referred to either a professional zatō biwa player or even a mōsō priest.) This suggests that early kuzure pieces are likely to have been regional variants of a repertory of war tales known to blind musicians in several regions of Kyushu, rather than a new repertory developed by Satsuma samurai. Still, a number of danmono and hauta items were composed later during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by Shimazu rulers and high-ranking retainers, ostensibly for performance by Satsuma samurai and high-rank mōsō only. It is uncertain for how long recitation of such texts was confined to samurai and mōsō, for mid- and late-edo sources refer to three performance styles (fū) delineated by class: the shifū style of samurai and high-ranking mōsō; the zatō style of blind professional musicians; and the machifū style of merchant-class amateurs who took up biwa in the early nineteenth century. The extent to which these distinctions denoted actual styles and repertories, rather than simply the social status of performers, is unclear. At the end of the Edo period, the significance of the fū distinction in terms of performance style apparently was reduced by the ubiquitous influence of Myōju, a zatō who was both a virtuosic instrumentalist and bearer of a unique corpus of vocal and instrumental patterns. Two musicians active in propagating the Satsuma tradition in Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration, Nishi Kōkichi ( ) and Yoshimizu Tsunekazu ( ), came to the new capital in the 1ate 1870s and soon attracted numerous students. Both men were summoned to perform for the Meiji Emperor, who 117 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:43 PM

14 the ashgate research companion to japanese music expressed particular enthusiasm for Nishi s style. Although the recitation and instrumental tradition began to be referred to as satsuma-biwa, Yoshimizu proposed another term, Teikokubiwa (Imperial biwa), to express his vision of biwa music that would be appreciated nationwide and reflect values in keeping with the nationalist ideology of the era. From the 1890s on, newly composed biwa uta were created and commissioned by Yoshimizu, Nishi and others, and many remain in the repertory. The most common subjects of these new texts included well-known episodes from historical battle tales, events surrounding the Meiji Restoration, the Seinan civil war of 1877 and subsequent wars against China (1895) and Russia ( ), and general eulogies for the Emperor and national polity. The popularity of satsumabiwa (and in turn chikuzen-biwa) from the 1890s to 1930s must be interpreted in its contemporary context, in light of both an overriding prestige associated with Imperial history, and the overtly militarist sentiments generated in association with wars against China and Russia, and Japan s colonialist role in east Asia. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, indeed, both styles of kindai biwa like other popular genres of the time both in Japan and elsewhere produced new repertory whose content was flagrantly propagandistic. During satsuma-biwa was widely enjoyed by young men and a smaller number of women, and received as a popular narrative art rather than a classical tradition. Student biwa clubs were numerous at universities. Aficionados of biwa who did not themselves learn to play would often buy one of the many printed anthologies in circulation, so that they could read the narrative texts for themselves while hearing the melodic chant patterns in their minds, or while listening to excerpt recordings on wind-up record players. Another common context for hearing biwa was as one of the instruments played to accompany silent films a tremendously popular form of entertainment until the early 1930s; biwa was most often used at moments of tragedy, accompanying the narrator s rendering of the characters suffering. The Satsuma tradition was soon modified by some of its practitioners in Tokyo. The innovations of Nagata Kinshin ( ), whose vocal style was influenced by elements of Edo shamisen song, gained him nationwide fame. In 1915 he founded the Kinshin-ryū school of satsuma-biwa, and adherents of the older style soon began to distinguish their music from the Kinshin style by the term Seiha, or orthodox school. The elaborate instrumental patterns developed by Satsuma players were specially important as a marker of the Seiha school, as a high degree of skill in instrumental performance was not emphasized in Kinshinryū training. In terms of repertory, too, Seiha musicians training entailed mastery of the core of historical repertory transmitted from Satsuma, rather than narratives of contemporary experience. Kinshin-ryū performers were especially popular throughout the heyday of modern biwa music, c , as is evident from numerous extant recordings, and a number of accounts of the idol -like status of Nagata Kinshin suggest the gulf, in ideological terms, between Kinshin-ryū players and the severe, stoic values embodied in Seiha practice. Despite a schism among Kinshin s students after his death, Kinshin-ryū musicians continued to be active throughout the Shōwa era. 118 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:44 PM

15 the kyushu biwa traditions All forms of biwa music suffered relative neglect during the 1950s and 60s, in part due to their association with what was represented as feudal and militarist ideology. Some performers who had been trained during the golden age of the early twentieth century, however, remained active as teachers and players. The most acclaimed of such satsuma-biwa performers have been Suitō Kinjō ( ), the first renowned female satsuma-biwa player, and founder of the nishiki-biwa school in 1927; Tsuruta Kinshi ( ), founder of the Tsuruta-ryū in 1991; and the Seiha performer Fumon Yoshinori ( ). Tsuruta was trained in the 1920s and 30s, at first in the Kinshin-ryū, then by Suitō Kinjō (see entry on Suitō in Kikkawa 1984). Suitō had developed a five-stringed instrument, called the nishikibiwa, similar to the five-stringed version of the chikuzen biwa (see below). Tsuruta further remodelled the nishiki biwa, altering the fret shapes so as to enable performance of complex melodic passages and rapid octave figures. Although active as a performer during the 1930s 1950s, she gained fame in the late 1960s through her collaboration with the composer Takemitsu Tōru, in compositions such as November Steps and Eclipse (see de Ferranti 2002b). The practice of the Seiha musician, Fumon Yoshinori, has been conditioned by his teachers emphasis of Satsuma bushidō lineage (both teachers were originally from Kagoshima), a conviction that satsuma-biwa is a classical genre that reflects structural principles inherent in nō music and Buddhist chant, and interest in European historical music theory s application to Japanese traditions. Fumon s large repertory of elaborate instrumental interludes (danpō) draws upon an aspect of the Meiji period Satsuma performance tradition not to be heard in performances by satsuma-biwa players of other lineage (see further de Ferranti 1989 and 1991). He, too, was active internationally during the 1980s and 90s. 3.2 Forms of satsuma biwa instruments The foremost distinguishing features of the satsuma biwa s structure are its large, thin plectrum, tall frets and slightly convex soundboard. The size (up to 30cm broad) and shape of the plectrum is traditionally accounted for in terms of occasional need for it to be used as a weapon! It is often intentionally struck against the soundboard, either with or without concurrent plucking of a string. The four-stringed, fourfretted variety of satsuma biwa is now often called the Seiha instrument, for many Kinshin-ryū and all Nishiki and Tsuruta school players have adopted a five-stringed instrument, itself also called the nishiki biwa. 15 The two instruments respective tunings are (at relative pitch): g-d-g-a, and g-d-g-d-d. The unison of the first and third strings in both cases enables the player to produce a characteristic sonic effect in kuzure interludes for text passages descriptive of battle: as the first and third open strings are struck in quick succession, or sounded in rapid, powerful strokes across all strings, the reinforced unison tone swells to underpin the narrative excitement ( track 7). The Seiha instrument is distinguished by the placement of the left hand 15 This must be stressed, as in almost all European-language documentation of performances by Tsuruta Kinshi, her instrument and performance tradition are identified only as Satsuma biwa (see further de Ferranti 2002b). 119 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:44 PM

16 the ashgate research companion to japanese music in one of two positions, where it regulates pitch by as much as a major ninth by pulling the thinnest, highest-tuned string down over the top edge of the fret, using either one or two fingers. Ornamental figures produced by this technique can be especially elaborate during the decay period of plucked tones (a technique called yuri or yoin no henka). The nishiki biwa is often modified by Tsuruta-ryū players through the use of a set of frets slightly bent in the middle, so that rapid scale-based passages and octave patterns can be played without adjustment of left hand pressure. 3.3 Chikuzen-biwa Like satsuma-biwa, chikuzen-biwa s beginnings are in regional mōsō-biwa, but its history as a distinct practice dates only from the late nineteenth century. The founder of chikuzen-biwa, Tachibana Chijō (performer s name Kyokuō, ), was the grandson of a renowned mōsō in the Hakata (Fukuoka) region. Tachibana studied the Chikuzen mōsō repertory from the mid-1870s. In the 1890s Tachibana spent time in Kagoshima, where he made a supplementary study of satsuma-biwa instrumental techniques. From soon thereafter he actively sought to develop a new narrative style that would appeal to a contemporary urban audience. He worked to this end in collaboration with the geisha Yoshida Takeko, and Tsurusaki Kenjō, another sighted biwa player from a mōsō family. They devised new vocal melodies and sets of preludes and interludes for an enlarged version of a form of biwa played by Chikuzen mōsō, drawing upon elements of mōsō music, shamisen song styles from Edo, Kyoto and Osaka, and Satsuma practice. The resultant musical recitation could be performed as entertainment, and bore an elegance and subdued sensuality not unlike that of some Edo period shamisen music. The new style was introduced to Tokyo in 1896 as tsukushi-biwa, after an old name for the Chikuzen region. The name was altered to chikuzen-biwa from 1902, and the style thereafter rapidly gained popularity in Tokyo and elsewhere in central Japan. Chikuzen-biwa was received as a popular narrative form, but a more genteel one than shamisen songs associated with the geisha world. More lyrical in poetic and vocal style than any school of satsuma-biwa, the style drew both female and male students from the first, and its popularity soon spread to regional cities throughout Japan. By 1909 Tachibana Kyokuō had gained a following for this new music sufficient for him to formally establish a performance organization, which he called the Asahi-kai. Tachibana instituted an iemoto system of succession, trained both his son and adopted son-in-law as biwa players, and together with them developed a differently tuned, five-stringed form of the instrument, now called chikuzen biwa, which provided a much greater range of technical possibility. 16 Due to the existence of an iemoto system within the Asahi-kai, Kyokuō s son-in-law, Tachibana Kyokusō, founded a second school called the Tachibana-kai, in Because of Kyokusō s extraordinary performance skills, many of the style s finest players joined him, and the Tachibana-kai has since maintained extremely high standards for training and 16 The original four-stringed instrument continued to be common until the 1940s, but has since been relatively neglected. 120 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:45 PM

17 the kyushu biwa traditions performance. The Tachibana-kai grew especially strong in Osaka and the Kansai region, after the catastrophic Tokyo earthquake of 1923 caused Tachibana Kyokusō to take up residence in Osaka. There he trained many talented students, the most accomplished of whom is the Living National Treasure, Yamazaki Kyokusui ( ). Yamazaki began to learn chikuzen biwa when as young as seven or eight, like many young girls at the time, and soon became a child star, able to attract numerous students of her own by the age of 14 or 15. In the postwar period, she was soon recognized as the most talented of those who had studied under the Tachibana-kai founder, and her work as a teacher, composer and performer has shaped the nature of the postwar Tachibana-kai practice. In part with the intention of increasing numbers of chikuzen biwa students by eliciting the interest of performers of shigin (musical recitation of classical Chinese and Japanese poetry), in the 1950s Yamazaki created and developed the new compositional form of bigin, as a short biwa song that incorporates one or more poems of the kind recited by shigin performers. She was appointed as the artistic head of the school in 1965, and in 1995 became the first performer of any biwa school to be named a Living National Treasure by the Education Ministry s Bureau of Cultural Affairs. The first part of a bigin entitled Shizuka, composed by Yamazaki Kyokusui, is included as track 8 (performed by Itaya Kyokuyū). The text of the extract, by Amidani Issai, is as follows: tsukinu nagori no fukakereba My longing is so deep, without end ato o shitaite harubaru to I yearn for one so far away, and follow him tabi o kasaneshi kai mo naku On and on my journey goes, but in vain toraerareshi zo aware naru And in the end, only to be captured how pitiful! Hachiman no shaden shōshin no mai In the Hachiman Shrine, my dance of grief sode ōgi wa henhen to shite fue to Sleeves and fans flutter together tsutsumi ni awasu with flute and drums ken ni kussezu shisei o koyu Unafraid of the mighty, I think not of life nor death tenmentaru nishū tada kimi o omou For my lord, I shall sing two songs from my heart As composers, leading Asahi-kai musicians since 1945 have also broadened the expressive range of chikuzen-biwa. Of particular importance are the compositions of Tachibana Kyokuō III ( ), most of which take themes and even sections of text from nō. A modified traditional style of chikuzen-biwa has been popularized since 1980 by Uehara Mari (b. 1947), daughter of the prominent Asahi-kai player Shibata Kyokudō II. By incorporating her training in European song styles as a former Takarazuka Theatre actor of young women s roles, and presenting compositions based on well-known episodes of the Heike Monogatari in 121 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:45 PM

18 the ashgate research companion to japanese music recordings and theatrically staged solo concerts, Uehara has attracted a substantial audience that is largely independent of that for strictly traditional practitioners of biwa. 3.4 Forms of chikuzen biwa instruments Like satsuma biwa, the chikuzen biwa has been remodelled in various ways during the twentieth century. The four-string instrument s body is broader and deeper than that of sasa biwa commonly played by mōsō in the Chikuzen region. Its tuning is the same as the shamisen s basic tuning, honchōshi, g-c -g (relative pitch), which had also been used by mōsō and zatō for secular repertory. It inherited from the mōsō instrument a strong sawari, enhanced by the attachment of bamboo strips across the top of each of its five frets, and a flat sound board that contrasts with the convex satsuma biwa. The frets themselves are each named after a natural element from the uppermost fret, named wood, fire, earth, metal and water. These elements have symbolic significance in Daoist cosmology that contributed to the ritual practices of mōsō. Popular among many thousands of amateurs between c and 1920, the four-stringed chikuzen biwa was produced and sold cheaply a fact attested to by the numbers of such instruments taken overseas by working-class emigrants. From the 1920s the four-stringed instrument was gradually displaced by the newly developed five-stringed chikuzen biwa, which provided a larger range of melodic and technical possibilities. Instrumental patterns from both the satsuma biwa and four-stringed chikuzen biwa repertories, as well as certain shamisen styles could be adapted for the new instrument by setting its lowest four strings to the standard satsuma biwa tuning, g-d-g-a (at relative pitch), and adding d above to give a honchōshi relation between strings two, three and five. Both forms of chikuzen biwa are sounded with a hard wooden, in some cases ivory-tipped plectrum that is smaller and thicker than the large satsuma biwa plectrum. The elaborate instrumental patterns played on both varieties of chikuzen biwa require dexterous left hand movement across all five frets, as well as subtle microtonal inflection of pitches through finely controlled finger pressure. 3.5 Compositional and performance processes: fushizuke and its realization A satsuma-biwa or chikuzen-biwa repertory item is defined firstly by its text, and secondly by the particular configuration of vocal and instrumental patterns by which that text is delivered in performance. Textual identity is primary because large-scale musical structure, as well as the melodic content of many of the vocal patterns and instrumental interludes, are similar for any given recitation within a single tradition of performance. Recitations are set to sequences of pre-existent melodic patterns of the kind that have been called senritsukei by scholars (the term fushi remains prevalent among players), and the ordering of such patterns is governed by conventions manifest in every performance. For example, the senritsukei structure of the introductory section (maeuta) of most recitations in Seiha-school satsuma-biwa is as follows: 122 ARC to Japanese Music.indb /10/2007 3:09:45 PM