I Hate Gagaku

Fourier Transform · Post by **Fourier Transform** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:14 pm

Talk to me about Gagaku. I have Kunaicho Gakubu's Japanese Traditional Music from 1994, which is absolutely wonderful in every way, from the intensity of the music to the elegance of the cover. I would love to hear more of this.

What's out there? What's good and what's not? What's the (audible) difference between Komagaku and Togaku? Who's recording traditional compositions, and who's writing new work for gagaku instruments? I'm more interested in the traditional stuff, I suppose, but as a total beginner all recommendations are gratefully received. I have (and love love love) Takemitsu's In An Autumn Garden - all else is new to me.

Bonus questions: in what ways has gagaku evolved from the Korean and Chinese court music from which it originated? Do they still sound similar? Any recommendations for court music from places other than Japan?

Post by **grisha** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 11:42 pm

Fourier Transform wrote:I have (and love love love) Takemitsu's In An Autumn Garden

my favourite Takemitsu piece so far.

i wish i knew anything about gagaku, but i have this on lp:

http://www.lyrichord.com/index.asp?Page ... &ProdID=85" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

the back cover provides some general explanations and two books for reference are mentioned. other than that, i don't know anything.

JrF · Post by **JrF** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:12 am

Takemitsu - 'in an autumn garden' is a must (search amazon uk for it - it's only ?7.99 I think & is essential).

There is also a fair bit of music for Gagaku involved in some of his film scores & theatre music - but these are only available on the wonderful but pricey box sets (?140-?150 each).

Toshi Hosokawa - 'Deep silence' is a corker of a disc, tracks of traditional Gagaku + his compositions for Gagaku instruments.

straight Gagaku:

Lyrichord had several lp's of Gagaku - all now deleted on vinyl of course but on cd is:

LYRCD7126 - Gagaku

also:

Ocora C559018 - 'Japon gagaku' (very good recordings from 1979 radio france performance)

Columbia river: 'Japan, gagaku & court music' - not bad but not a top choice.

Musubihime - 'manyo ni asobu' - sho & yokobue/haisho duets

Celestial harmonies (bad name for a label !) has a couple of discs but i'm not a huge fan of the way they've been recorded - a bit too on the celestial harmonies side of things !

JVC / King has several discs - also very good recordings but these are often hard to get here in the UK.

browse the farside music website - but you can find the discs cheaper elsewhere mostly (sorry about that farside, but....)

There are two interesting books on Gagaku - there are more than this of course but these two are easily avialable, not too pricey & might be of further interest to ihm readers & fourier:

Malm's key work 'traditional japanese music and instruments'

& also a book on the composer Yoritsune called 'Gagaku & serialism'

JrF · Post by **JrF** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:32 am

in what ways has gagaku evolved from the Korean and Chinese court music from which it originated? Do they still sound similar? Any recommendations for court music from places other than Japan?

forgot this bit !

how its evolved is one of those questions that has different answers I guess. If one listens to Korean & Chinese court music the easiest way to descibe the difference is that the Japanese court music sounds even more refined (not that the Chinese & Korean music wasn't / isn't refined of course - I refer in simple terms to what some might term the austerity of Japanese court music but that terms seems a bit too cold & JCM is certainly not cold), more minimal in some ways. Chinese court music developed a fairly distinct faster tempo. Korean court music is closer in sound in some ways but has a more brittle sound - which is down to the more robust sound of the intruments deployed.

cd's of note:

China:
Ocora, JVC/King & Lyrichord (good ones on vinyl but not rereleased on cd)- search around those labels.

China wise there isn't that much actual court music available on cd - but there's a nice series of Nan Kouan (court music and song) on Ocora + a couple more discs on classical chinese music that includes aspects of the music that was played at court.

Korea:
again on Ocora there's a disc of 'traditional classical music' that features elements of the court tradition, but the JVC/King series has some really good Korean discs.

Elsewhere:

Ocora comes up trumps again with some great discs of indonesian court music (Java, Bali etc) & again JVC/King too.

Lyrichord had some great Lp's too but again they don't seem to have made it to cd except a couple of gamelan ones, but not court music based.

Vietnam had an interesting palace tradition but most of what's available isn't reprsentative & tends to be just solo music for various zithers & stringed instruments.

(<oo>) · Post by **(<oo>)** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:14 am

Try this one: http://www.networkmedien.de/produkte-pr ... 07-en.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

JrF · Post by **JrF** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:47 am

yeah, that ones ok but by & large the world network releases aren't the best. It also doesn't feature 'court' music - rather instrumental music that stems from some court traditions - but it's ok & WN releases tend to be easy to get & cheapish.

kp* · Post by kp* » Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:59 pm

(<oo>) wrote:Try this one: http://www.networkmedien.de/produkte-pr ... 07-en.html" onclick= "window.open(this.href);return false;

I don't want to hijack with a long winded blah blah blah on Korean Court music, since this thread is about Gagaku ... but that recording leaves a lot to be desired. It is a grab bag of disparate excepts and things. I would recommended it if you saw it used cheap, only. It is not a good representation of the Korean Court rep. It has some excerpts and also folk music bits as well... a really grab bag...

Fourier Transform · Post by **Fourier Transform** » Thu Apr 24, 2008 7:48 pm

Belated thanks for the input so far, all really useful.

Jez riley French wrote:solo music for various zithers & stringed instruments.

The idea of traditional Vietnamese zither solos is very appealing. Any specific recommendations or names/words to look for? Doesn't have to be zither, either, I'd like to hear any kind of solo Vietnamese string music. I know I'm getting further away from the original point of the thread, but hey, what the hell.

JrF · Post by **JrF** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 6:30 am

vietnamese strings wise:

aside from the hard to find Lyrichord vinyl lp series (btw I have a full-ish set of Lyrichord vinyl inc. some repeats so if anyone is looking for any of thier titles let me know) i'd go for:

'music of vietnam' (3 cd set - celestial harmonies) - features 1 cd of court music, 1 of solo / ensemble stuff & 1 of folk music of the vietnamese themselves (as opposed to the various other ethnic groups)

Caprice records also has a series of cd's 'music from Vietnam'

auvidis also has a cd of vietnamese court music

The Dan tranh is the vietnamese zither - there are also various lutes (dan kim etc):

ocoro - 'vietnam - le dan trahn'
playasound - 'tran quang hai - vietnamese zither' (Tran is probably the most famous master of the instrument)
Ocoro - 'Vietnam - tradition du sud'
Ocoro - 'vietnam - poesies et chants'
playasound - 'Tran Quang Hai ' reves et realite'

jpeatt · Post by **jpeatt** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:13 am

Jez riley French wrote:
Caprice records also has a series of cd's 'music from Vietnam'

Ocoro - 'vietnam - poesies et chants'

The "Minorities of the central highlands" discs in that caprice series are my favourites. That Ocora release is another one I like a lot.

Geoff · Post by **Geoff** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:02 pm

I'm enjoying this Gagaku album:

ihatemusic

I Hate Gagaku

I Hate Gagaku

Re: I Hate Gagaku

Re: I Hate Gagaku