Koto no Yurai
Koto no Yurai appears on the following albums
| Album | Artist | |
| Musical Anthology of the Orient, Unesco Collection Vol 3 | ||
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The first appearance of the nigenkin about the year 1820 occurred at a time when the musical style of the Edo period had received a set form and had for the most part become standardized. It is not surprising then that the new instrument is not only closely modelled on the koto and its variants, well-known in Japan for centuries and especially highly esteemed during the Edo period, but also that the music written for it keeps within the familiar and popular style of the time. The l1igel1kil1 players however turned away completely from secular music and regarded their performance as a religious act belonging to the ordinances of Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan. The texts are often quotations from classical Japanese writings, or they deal with episodes from the earliest mythological period. This kind of music is an expression of the nationalist Shinto movement which considerably influenced the spirit of the late Edo period, and called for a radical break with Chinese ideas. It encouraged the study of the oldest Japanese literature, in order to lend substance to the idealized image of a self-reliant Japanese cultural development. The text of the piece recorded here describes the origin of the nigenkin in mythological terms, and also gives a short description of the instrument. A characteristic of the music is the relative independence of the writing for instrument and voice. The form is a simple one and follows the usual model of the time, that is: vocal section-instrumental solo - vocal section. | ||