Hatsuko Kikuhara, 102; Master of Japanese Folk Music

Hatsuko Kikuhara, a master of traditional Japanese music who was designated a living national treasure, died of pneumonia Wednesday at the age of 102.

“She was a heavyweight,” said Yuichi Mishima, emeritus professor of literature at Shitennoji International Buddhist University. “Both musically and culturally, she was among the last to embody the revered traditions of Japan.”

Kikuhara--her real name was Hatsu Nunohara--was born in Osaka on Jan. 17, 1899, the eldest of four daughters. Her father, the blind and gifted jiuta master Kotoji Kikuhara, was adopted before she was born by the distinguished Kikuhara family, in a practice common in Japan among families without offspring to carry on their line.

Jiuta are centuries-old ballads derived from Kyoto and Osaka folk songs and played on the three-string shamisen and the larger, 13-string koto. The oldest songs predate the Edo period, which lasted from 1600 to 1867, and are organized into 32 suites.

“During the Edo period, koto players were very well-respected,” Mishima said. “And if you became a top koto master, you enjoyed the life of a prince.”

Kikuhara first touched the koto when she was 3 and started formal training with her father two years later. At 9, she began taking shamisen lessons from her grandfather, who was also blind.

Her training was very strict, and she was forced to practice more than 12 hours a day, stopping only for meals. During the winter, her father made her put her hands in freezing water before playing to instill mental rigor in her and the ability to play even when she couldn’t feel her fingers.

She was taught by her father and grandfather to play by ear--blind musicians have held a special position throughout Japanese history for their perceived intuition and keen musical abilities--and in later years would sometimes criticize younger musicians for relying on printed music and displaying little feel for the notes.

Kikuhara never married. In her day, she once said, girls received marriage proposals around the age of 15 and were expected to spend a year or two with their future mothers-in-law learning housekeeping skills before tying the knot at 17 or 18.

“In my case, my father rejected all my suitors,” she said. “I thought men were all terribly scary and remained single.”

Instead, she devoted herself to her music and by the age of 18 had mastered all 32 jiuta suites and 200 other pieces of classical music.

A few years later, in July 1925, she appeared with her father on her first radio program, a jiuta performance transmitted live from the roof of a department store in downtown Osaka. Recorded broadcasts hadn’t been developed yet, and she recounted later being terrified.

In 1926, at the age of 27, Kikuhara adopted her stage name. In succeeding years, she would accompany her father arm in arm around Osaka when he gave lessons. One student was Junichiro Tanizaki, a famous novelist. Kikuhara and her father inspired Tanizaki’s masterpiece “Shunkinsho,” about a blind koto player and her servant.

Kikuhara’s father died during World War II. Toward the war’s end, as the Allied bombing campaign spread, father and daughter scattered their prized instruments around Osaka hoping to keep them safe. The family home was ultimately destroyed, as were most of their kotos and shamisens.

After the war, however, Kikuhara tracked down a surviving koto--named “Tomochidori,” or “Friend of 1,000 birds”--at the Osaka Broadcasting Hall. It was the instrument she played until her death.

In the ensuing decades, Kikuhara gave koto and shamisen lessons to generations of promising young students.

“She was so elegant, kind, beautiful and generous to everyone,” said Keiko Nakajima, a retired music professor who knew her for 50 years. “And she had an excellent memory.”

In 1967, the Osaka College of Music started teaching koto and shamisen, and Kikuhara was asked to take a position there.

“I’m already 68 years old,” she said. “It’s really strange to be entering university for the first time at this age.”

She proved a strict disciplinarian in the classroom. But colleagues said she also had a good sense of humor and occasionally showed a little-girl side, swinging happily in a park like a child.

In 1979, Kikuhara was named a living national treasure. In January 1999, she gave a commemorative performance on her 100th birthday at the National Bunraku Theater in Osaka. She said she felt uncomfortable when people told her she was old.

“I’m still young,” she said. “And I’m looking for a husband who’s older than me.”

Makiko Inoue of The Times’ Tokyo Bureau contributed to this story.