Gagaku
Japanese music genre / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the album, see Gagaku (album).
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.
For the Asuka-period genre of masked dance-drama, see Gigaku. For the style of gagaku adopted from Tang-dynasty China, see Tōgaku.
Gagaku consists of three primary repertoires:[2]
- Native Shinto religious music and imperial songs and dance, called Kuniburi no utamai (国風歌舞)
- Vocal music based on native folk poetry, called Utaimono (謡物)
- Songs and dance based on foreign-style music
- A Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian form (specifically Tang dynasty), called Tōgaku (唐楽)
- 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]