People

Toyohisa Matsue

Many Beethoven’s ninth symphony concerts are performed at the end of every year. Do you know when and where the first concert of the ninth symphony was performed in Japan?

And did you know the producer of the first concert was a Fukushima person? The first concert was closely related with a military officer from Aizu-Wakamatu. He was Toyohisa Matsue

A Japanese movie company made a new film in June 2006. The title is “Baruto no Gakuen” which means “The paradise for mustached prisoners.” The leading star is Toyohisa Matsue, who was from Fukushima prefecture. I’d like to introduce you this man.

 Toyohisa Matsue was born in Aizu-Wakamatsu in 1872. His father was one of the Aizu warriors who were exiled from Aizu to Tonami by the Meiji　government after the Boshin War. Tonami was the northernmost part of Honshu. The family had a difficult time in the barren wasteland. They lived from hand to mouth. Toyohisa was born after his father came back to Aizu. Toyohisa often heard about the hard lives in Tonami from his father. Toyohisa grew up to be a military officer.

At that time, Japan fought against Germany in World War I. Japan occupied “Chintao”, Qingdao in China which German had held. The Japanese army took German soldiers prisoners. Toyohisa Matsue was the head of the prison camp which used to be in Shikoku.

Toyohisa Matsue treated the prisoners generously. He had well known about the hardships of the exiled people through his father’s harsh experience. He understood their position and sympathized with them from the bottom of his heart. He would say, “They just fought for their country, so did the Japanese soldiers.” German prisoners were not miserable at the prison camp with Toyohisa Matsue’s good management.　Many of them were more of the craftsmen or technical experts than soldiers. They taught people living there a lot of German high level techniques such as milking cows, making butter and baking bread. German cake, “Baumkuchen” was first introduced into Japan by them. Thanks to Toyohisa’s humanitarian treatment, German prisoners could enjoy various activities in their spare time.

They especially loved music and took comfort from it. Appreciating Toyohisa’s great kindness, they performed Beethoven's ninth symphony for the first time in Japan. This performance was so wonderful that it made a deep impression on the audience including Japanese people. Beethoven's ninth symphony has become one of the most popular pieces in Japan since then.

A few years later, German prisoners were allowed to come back to their country. They had kept appreciating Toyohisa’s generosity forever after that.

Toyohisa later quit being a soldier to become mayor of Wakamatsu-shi. He died in 1956 at the age of 82.

(by Mikio)