Gagaku

For the album, see Gagaku (album).

For the Asuka-period genre of masked dance-drama, see Gigaku. For the style of gagaku adopted from Tang-dynasty China, see Tōgaku.

Gagaku (雅楽, lit. "elegant music")[1] is a type of Japanese classical music that was historically used for imperial court music and dances. Gagaku was developed as court music of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, and its near-current form was established in the Heian period (794–1185) around the 10th century.[2][3] Today, it is performed by the Board of Ceremonies in the Tokyo Imperial Palace.

Gagaku consists of three primary repertoires:[2]

  1. Native Shinto religious music and imperial songs and dance, called Kuniburi no utamai (国風歌舞)
  2. Vocal music based on native folk poetry, called Utaimono (謡物)
  3. Songs and dance based on foreign-style music
    1. A Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian form (specifically Tang dynasty), called Tōgaku (唐楽)
    2. A Korean and Manchurian form, called komagaku (高麗楽)

Gagaku, like shōmyō, employs the yo scale, a pentatonic scale with ascending intervals of two, three, two, two, and three semitones between the five scale tones.[4] Artistically it differs from the music of the corresponding Chinese form yayue (雅楽) which is a term reserved for ceremonial music.[5]

  1. ^ Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyusha Limited, Tokyo 1991, ISBN 4-7674-2015-6
  2. ^ a b History of gagaku Nihon gagakukai
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference council was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Japanese Music, Cross-Cultural Communication: World Music, University of Wisconsin – Green Bay
  5. ^ Ortolani, Benito (1995). The Japanese Theatre: From Shamanistic Ritual to Contemporary Pluralism. Princeton University Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN 978-0691043333.