The first western music sung by the Japanese were hymns that were sung in foreign concessions in Yokohama and Kobe, etc. The fact that there were many Christians amongst Japanese song writers such as Rentaro Taki, Teiichi Okano, Kosaku Yamada and Toraji Ohnaka was due to such a background.
Moreover, an American music teacher Mason who was invited by the Meiji government, incorporated many hymn melodies into songs for schoolchildren.
This was how the Japanese gradually became familiar with Western music. Even with lyrics, fine poets appeared one after another from the middle part of the Meiji Era, and more sophisticated music were created. This became the source of the rise of post-war choir culture.
They are Western music and at the same time the spiritual home of the Japanese. They are a rare piece of art created by the wondrous marriage of verse and melody in the Orient.