History of a Cultural Conquest: The Piano in Japan

Any short review of the penetration of European music into Japan and its enthusiastic appropriation calls for a different approach to the controversial question of acculturation. The rapid growth in the pianois popularity in Japan, together with the implicit musical revolution, could also occasion a parallel with the similar process of acculturation which occurred in Eastern Europe (for instance the Romanian Principalities). Musical Westernization (including the institutional and educational reform) might, in contradicting the traditional local musical concepts, mirror a different perspective on intercultural communication and contemporary cultural education.