東京芸術大学大学美術館)
This historic Knabe upright piano (serial number 19750; made in 1879) was brought to Meiji-era Japan when Luther Whiting Mason, an American music educator, was invited by the Japanese Ministry of Education and came from Boston to Tokyo in 1880.
Luther Whiting Mason, born on April 3rd, 1818 and died on July 14th, 1896, was recommended by his former pupil, Shuji Izawa (伊澤修二). At the time, the Japanese government pursued rapid modernization programs and was looking for a foreign advisor in order to introduce Western music to Japan's education curriculum.
Mason stayed in Tokyo for two years and helped to create the Tokyo Ongaku Gako (東京音楽学校), which now is a part of the Tokyo University of the Arts. When he left Japan in 1882, Mason gave the piano to a woman who helped him, Sen Nakamura (中村専), who later married Hideo Takamine (高嶺秀夫). Her daughter, Keiko Takamine (敬子高嶺), married and left her piano to her son, Kuniyasu Tsuchida (土田国保), who then left it to his son, Eizaburo Tsuchida (土田栄三郎), who, coincidently, is now a professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Because it was a family heirloom, the piano never suffered a serious damage during its long life.
Japan's Meiji-era is quite fascinating, in part, because during this period many unique and decisive cultural exchanges between the traditional yet adaptive East nation and the West had occurred. Korea and China were not as open as Japan about adapting the cultures of the West during this time, including piano performance. Still, many contemporary Japanese must have been puzzled and awed by Mason's Knabe piano.
Probably one of the roots of today's East Asian piano manufacturers and pianists can be traced to this period in time.
I am happy to note that my piano and Mason's piano are made by Knabe.
Reference: http://www.jpta.org/top/topix/fair2001/index3.html
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