The piano as a symbol of modernity in prewar Kansai

This chapter focuses on the years of Japanese occupation, especially the three-year period from 1943 to 1945, the final years of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Although the Anglo-French population had imparted an elegant European flavour to the Settlement with their unique architecture, by then those communities had largely disappeared, leaving many European-style buildings, while the remaining population primarily consisted of White Russian and Jewish refugees. Osaka and Shanghai are recognised as musical centres associated with a wide variety of traditional musical and performance genres. Both Shanghai and Osaka, then, evolved from centres of tradition into multi-ethnic and multi-cultural metropolises. The chapter re-evaluates the connections between Osaka and the Shanghai Settlement in the 1940s and the impact this connection had on the growth of Western music in Japan. The reluctance of Japanese music schools to employ first-class foreign musicians continued after the war and remains even today.