Kōsaku Yamada

was a Japanese composer and conductor. Name In older Western reference sources, his name is given as Kôsçak Yamada. Biography Born in Tokyo, Yamada started his music education at Tokyo Music School in 1904, studying there under German composers and Heinrich Werkmeister. In 1910, he left Japan for Germany where he enrolled at the Prussian Academy of Arts and learnt composition under Max Bruch and Karl Leopold Wolf before returning to Japan in late 1913. He travelled to the United States in 1918 for two years. During his stay in Manhattan, New York City, he conducted a temporarily organized orchestra composed of members of New York Philharmonic and New York Symphony, short before their amalgamation. The beginning of his Symphony in F major, “Triumph and Peace” (1912) has a pentatonic theme G-A-D-E which reflects the Japanese national anthem based on Gagaku. This symphony was the first complete symphony with four movements in Japan. His Sinfonia “Inno Meiji” (1921) includes Japanese instruments such as the , an ancient Japanese double reed wind instrument, and other Asian instruments. Yamada composed about 1,600 pieces of musical works, in which art songs (Lieder) amount to 700 even e