Gagaku (雅楽, literally "elegant music") is a type of Japanese classical music that has been performed at the Imperial Court in Kyoto for several centuries. It consists of three primary repertoires:
Gagaku, like shomyo, employs the Yo scale, a pentatonic scale with ascending intervals of two, three, two, two, and three semitones between the five scale tones.[1]
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By the 7th century, the gakuso (a zither) and the gakubiwa (a short-necked lute) had been introduced in Japan from China. Various instruments including these two were the earliest used to play gagaku.
Gagaku, the oldest classical music in Japan, was introduced into Japan with Buddhism from the China. In 589, Japanese official diplomatic delegations were sent to China (during the Sui dynasty) to learn Chinese culture, including Chinese court music, Gagaku.
Komagaku and togaku arrived in Japan during the Nara period (710-794), and settled into the basic modern divisions during the Heian period (794-1185). Gagaku performances were played by musicians who belonged to hereditary guilds. During the Kamakura period (1185-1333), military rule was imposed and gagaku was performed in the homes of the aristocracy, but rarely at court. At this time, there were three guilds based in Osaka, Nara and Kyoto.
Because of the Ōnin War, a civil war from 1467 to 1477 during the Muromachi period, gagaku in ensemble had been stopped playing in Kyoto for about 100 years. In the Edo era, Tokugawa government re-organized the court style ensemble, which is the direct roots of the present one.
After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, musicians from all three guilds came to the capital and their descendants make up most of the current Tokyo Imperial Palace Music Department. By that time, the present ensemble composition had been established, which consists of three wind instruments – hichiriki, ryūteki, and shō (bamboo mouth organ used to provide harmony) – and three percussion instruments – kakko (small drum), shoko (metal percussion), and taiko (drum) or dadaiko (large drum), supplemented by gakubiwa.
Gagaku also accompanies classical dance performances (called bugaku 舞楽), and both are used in religious ceremonies by the Tenrikyo movement and a few Buddhist temples.[2]
Gagaku is related to theater, which developed in parallel. Noh was developed in the 14th century.
Today, gagaku is performed in two ways:
Komagaku survives only as bugaku.[3]
Contemporary gagaku ensembles, such as Reigakusha (伶楽舎), perform contemporary compositions for gagaku instruments. This sub-genre of contemporary works for gagaku instruments, which began in the 1960s, is called reigaku (伶楽). 20th century composers such as Tōru Takemitsu have composed works for gagaku ensemble, as well as individual gagaku instruments.
Wind, string and percussion instruments are essential elements of gagaku music.
Beginning in the 20th century, several western classical composers became interested in gagaku, and composed works based on gagaku. Most notable among these are Henry Cowell (Ongaku, 1957), La Monte Young (numerous works of drone music,[4] but especially Trio for Strings, 1958), Alan Hovhaness (numerous works), Olivier Messiaen (Sept haïkaï, 1962), Lou Harrison (Pacifika Rondo, 1963), Benjamin Britten (Curlew River, 1964), and Bengt Hambraeus (Shogaku, from Tre Pezzi per Organo, 1967).
One of the most important gagaku musicians of the 20th century, Masataro Togi (who served for many years as chief court musician), instructed American composers such as Alan Hovhaness and Richard Teitelbaum in the playing of gagaku instruments.
The American poet Steve Richmond developed a unique style based on the rhythms of gagaku. Richmond heard gagaku music on records at U.C.L.A.'s Department of Ethnomusicology in the early 1960s. In in a 2009 interview with writer Ben Pleasants, Richmond claimed he had written an estimated 8,000-9,000 gagaku poems.[5]
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