Kōmei Abe

was a neo-classical Japanese composer who specialized in string quartets. He performed both as cellist and clarinetist. Biography He was born in Hiroshima in a military family, and became interested in the violin during a stay in Tokyo. From 1929 he attended Tokyo Music School, where he studied cello under Heinrich Werkmeister (1883–1936), who had moved to Japan in 1907, and studied composition under the conductor Klaus Pringsheim Sr. (a former pupil of Gustav Mahler) who had been invited to Tokyo in 1931 to become a professor of music at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. From 1937 he studied with Joseph Rosenstock. In 1942, he had his first success with the premiere of the Cello Concerto, which he had completed five years before. However, in 1944 he was conscripted into the Navy. After the war, he became involved in broadcasting and co-founded the five-member Chijinkai (Earth-Human Association), which gave six concerts between 1949 and 1955. Between 1948 and 1954, he was the director of the Imperial orchestra. Although this orchestra usually performed Western music, many of its members had played traditional court music and thus, Abe learnt in detail about the