| Interestingly,
the reasons for this love of classical music can be found in the military history
of Japan. At the beginning of the First World War
the Japanese, as enemies of the Germans, took control of a German-occupied island
in the Pacific called Qingdao. 5,000 German soldiers
were taken prisoner and brought back to prison camps in Japan. The
prisoners were encouraged to enjoy sport and culture. They
enjoyed playing classical music, especially Beethoven, greatly influencing their
Japanese prison guards. The second part of this story
happened twenty years later. When Hitler came to power
in Germany, many Jewish musicians decided to leave the country. One
of them, the conductor Joseph Rosenstock, came to Japan to develop the Japanese
Radio Orchestra. Audiences thought he was wonderful
and, even now, he is a kind of father figure to Japanese musicians. Rosenstock
started the tradition of playing Beethoven's Ninth during the last few days of
December, and this has continued right up to the present day. On
December 4, 1983, an estimated 10,000 people took part in a performance of Beethoven's
Ninth in the Osaka area. | 
