Gunkan March appears on the following albums

	Album	Artist
	Music of Japan	Koto : Yonekawa Toshiko Shamisen : Toyohisa Shizuko
This is really the number one masterpiece of Japanese march. The original piece was composed by Tokichi Setoguchi (1868-1941) in 1897, the same year when Sousa wrote the famous march "The Stars and Stripes forever." Indeed Setoguchi is comparable to Sousa. He, as well as Sousa, was the band-master of the naval band and composed several good marches. "War- ship March" is the most excellent work of his and really bears comparison with marches by Sousa. After the disarmament of Japan at the end of the World War II there was a time when everything concerning militarism was ostracized. "Warship March" was quite rarely heard then. However, its musical excellence has not been forgotten. Today it seems that this march regained a great popularity as a pure march apart from militarism. Needless to say, the original piece is for a military band. The present piece recorded here is arranged for koto, shamisen and orchestra, with the purpose of showing the tones of the traditional instruments.