Music from the Tang Court

During the two centuries before 841, the Japanese Court borrowed a large amount of secular entertainment music from China, chiefly music of the Sui and Tang Courts. This music, known as 'Tang Music' is preserved in manuscripts written between the eighth and thirteenth centuries and to be seen today in the library of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and in other Japanese libraries. With Fascicle 3 the series will begin publication of smaller suites and pieces, together representative of the 'middle-sized pieces' and 'small pieces' (chukyoku and shokyoku) of the threefold classification, in which the daikyoku are the largest suites. O-dai hajin-raku from a reputedly eleventh-century manuscript: Kaicbu-fu, in parallel with the conflation discussed in Fascicle 2, together with single-stave, conflated, justified versions of Toraden and Shunno-den, and structural analyses of these two suites.