Songs for Modern Japan

$40.00 at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The years between 1900 and 1950 were a whirlwind of change in Japan, with increasing modernism, consumerism, and influence from the West, alongside a revolution in sound and mass-produced images via movies and radio. Like no other objects, sheet music covers graphically embody this vortex of sights, sounds, events, and ideas. Music scores presented songs ranging from traditional Japanese folk tunes to movie scores, Western jazz, opera, and patriotic marches. Publishers of music churned out sheets bound in…