Sounds from Wartime Taiwan 1943 (3-disc set CD)

1943年，在第二次世界大戰期間，由黑澤隆朝等三人組成的調查團，從日本渡海來臺，在臺灣總督府和民間的大力支持下，進行了三個月的環島踏查和錄音與攝影，完成日治時期規模最大、內容最完整的臺灣音樂普查，並為戰爭時期的臺灣原住民和漢人音樂留下了僅存的影音和文字記錄。
　　
調查團冒著生命危險回到日本，將這些記錄編輯成26張七十八轉唱片和十捲紀錄片，但卻全數在東京大空襲中燒毀，幸好老天有眼，讓一套編輯用的26張唱片逃過一劫而倖存下來。
　　
這套26張唱片中的原住民音樂部份，雖然在1974年由日本勝利唱片公司出版，名為『高砂族の音楽』，但是早已絕版，至於漢人音樂的部份則從未正式出版。因此這些珍貴的歷史錄音一直未能廣為人知。
　　
經過多年的努力，如今我們終於得以將『高砂族の音楽』重新復刻，並加上在英國圖書館找到的漢人音樂曲目，以重現調查團的部份錄音成果。其中『高砂族の音楽』完整呈現了日治末期臺灣原住民各族音樂的多元面貌，而漢人音樂曲目（包括祭孔、十三音、佛／道教音樂、皮影戲音樂）也分別代表了各個樂種目前所知最早的歷史錄音，因此此套唱片在臺灣音樂史上具有特殊歷史價值，值得珍藏。
　　
In 2008, as a follow-up on her book Listening to the Colony (2008), Wang Ying-fen (together with Liou Lin-yu) produced a reissue of the recordings made by Kurosawa and his teammate Masu Genjiro of Taiwan aboriginal and Han Chinese music in 1943 during WWII.
　　
Entitled Sounds from Wartime Taiwan (1943) (National Taiwan University Press), it is a three-CD set with a 268-page commentary in three languages (Chinese, Japanese, English). The aboriginal pieces are reproduced from the two LPs issued by Japan’s Victor in 1974 and represent the first recordings that sample the large variety of singing styles among all but one aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. The six Han Chinese pieces are unpublished materials kept at the British Library Sound Archive and constitute the first known recordings of the genres, including Confucius ceremony music, shi-san-yin (thirteen sounds), Taoist and Buhhdist music, and shadow-puppet play.
　　
In addition, the CD-set includes a segment of Kurosawa’s voices recounting his Taiwan music. Together these recordings present the results of not only the largest and most comprehensive music survey carried out in colonial Taiwan but also the one-and-only Taiwan music survey commissioned by the Government-General of Taiwan.
　　
They also remain the only existing documentation of the sounds of aboriginal and Han Chinese music of wartime Taiwan. Hence the CD-set is of particular historical significance.