Chinese and Korean influence - gigaku, gagaku
The opening up of regular trade routes with mainland Asia during the late Kofun period brought many new cultural influences into Japan. The most significant of these were the spread of the Buddhist religion from China via Korea and the adoption of Chinese characters, both of which date from around the sixth century; however, important artistic developments were also under way at this time.
New instruments developed in China and Korea from Central Asian and Indian models were brought into use at the imperial court of Nara and refined to suit the Japanese aesthetic, and a new performance genre - gigaku or 'elegant entertainment' - was devised to propagate the new religion. Apparently based on the Korean kiak and comprising a Buddhist mystery play preceded by a mime-dance procession featuring caricatural masks and burlesque characters, gigaku retained its popularity in Japan until the medieval period.
By the 7th century both Tang dynasty China and Shilla dynasty Korea had developed advanced courtly cultures to match their military might and prestige, attracting great admiration in Japan.
Accordingly, over the following centuries Japanese emperors sought to reproduce the glories of China and Korea in their own dominions by systematically importing many of the courtly practices associated with the royal palaces of Changan (Xian) and Kyongju. In this way did the Japanese imperial Confucian music and dance tradition first develop.
As in Tang China, old and new instruments alike became classified during this period according to 'Eight Categories' - 'stone' to describe stone chimes; 'metal' to denote gongs, chimes, bells and cymbals; 'silk' to specify stringed instruments with silken strings such as the two-stringed fiddle known as the
kokyu (equivalent to the Chinese
huqin and the Korean
haegum), the lute known as the
biwa (related to the Chinese
pipa and Korean
bipa) and the zither known as the
koto (equivalent to the Chinese
zheng and the Korean
kayageum and
komungo); 'bamboo' to describe pipes and flutes such as the end-blown bamboo
shakuhachi (equivalent to the Chinese
tungxiao and Korean
taegum); 'wood' to denote clappers and wind instruments such as the reed oboe known as the
hichiriki (equivalent to the Chinese
suona and the Korean
piri and
taepyongso); 'skin' to specify drums; 'gourd' to describe mouth organs such as the
sho (equivalent to the Chinese
sheng and Korean
saenghwang or
saeng); and 'earthenware' to denote vessel-flutes and struck vessels.
Gagaku, a corpus of Confucian-style music (kangen) and dance (bugaku) based on that performed at the Chinese and Korean royal courts, began to develop at this time under the sponsorship of the Japanese emperors.
The
gagaku repertoire was subsequently administered at Nara and later at Heian-kyo (Kyoto) by an imperial music bureau known as the
Gagakuryo, which was staffed by over 250 musicians and dancers and incorporated divisions for Chinese, Korean and 'native' music and dance. The
gagaku tradition is preserved today by the elite
Music Department of the Imperial Household in Tokyo.
From the 12th century onwards the rise to power of the samurai or warrior class shifted the focus of performing arts development away from the imperial court. Over the following centuries successive shoguns sponsored not only their own modified forms of gigaku and gagaku but also new types of performance, which developed under the influence of popular entertainment.
