Born in Tokyo, Kōsaku Yamada (1886–1965) started his music education at Tokyo Music School in 1904, studying there under German composers August Junker and Heinrich Werkmeister. In 1910, he left Japan for Germany where he enrolled at the Prussian Academy of Arts and learnt composition under Max Bruch and Karl Leopold Wolf and piano under Carl August Heymann-Rheineck, before returning to Japan in late 1913. He travelled to the United States in 1918 for two years. During his stay in Manhattan, New York City, he conducted a temporarily-organized orchestra composed of members of New York Philharmonic and New York Symphony, short before their amalgamation.
Yamada composed about 1,600 pieces of musical works, in which art songs (Lieder) amount to 700 even excluding songs commissioned by schools, municipalities and companies. The songs were performed and recorded by many famous singers such as Kathleen Battle, Ernst Haefliger and Yoshikazu Mera. His opera Kurofune (black ships) is regarded as one of the most famous Japanese operas. His work was heard at the music section of the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.
As a conductor, Yamada made an effort to introduce western orchestral works to Japan. He premiered in Japan of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, Gershwin’s An American in Paris, Mosolov’s Iron Foundry, Sibelius’ Finlandia, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1, Johann Strauss II’s An der schönen blauen Donau, and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll.
Yamada died at his home in Tokyo of a heart attack on 29 December 1965.