ABSTRACT
This chapter considers music composed in the style of European art music in the early twentieth-century, through more contemporary art music from the late twentieth century, several popular music including enka, angura and aidoru, and finally the recent proliferation of music that combine elements of traditional Japanese music and popular music. In the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries, numerous Japanese composers began to engage with European art music, at times purposefully developing compositional techniques that integrated characteristics of Japanese music with European-based compositional practices, while at other times creating works devoid of any noticeable markers of Japaneseness. Popular musics in the modern era went through a similar process of negotiating Western influences as Japanese struggled to assert a unique voice. Many Japanese musicians have experimented with new forms of expression while playing traditional Japanese instruments, in addition to performing classic pieces.
