Banquet Music in the Chinese and Korean Courts	Court banquet orchestras in Tang China were the source and inspiration for Korean and Japanese court orchestras. In China, all women orchestras were sometimes employed for court ceremonies. Orchestras from many parts of Asia were invited to perform in the court and many of these ensembles became a regular part of Tang entertainments. The jade stone chime and bronze bells were often added to the court entertainment orchestras to add a rich ceremonial quality to the performance and thus to enhance the gravity of the court.
	An undated depiction of an all women's ensemble from the T'ang dynasty. This orchestra included harps and lutes and showed a strong Central Asian and Persian influence current in the court
	A similar orchestra from a Sung Dynasty painting.
A later Japanese depiction of musicians performing court banquet music in the T'ang style. (From the Shinzei Kogakuzu).
Sound Example Although the traditions of court banquet music survived in strength in Japan and in Korea, in China, however, the tradition was long thought to be lost. During the late 1920s, one ensemble playing a orchestral music related to the old court banquet music was recorded in Manchuria. This very old recording gives some form of this music did survive for quite some time. RealAudio Recently a surviving ensemble of a Chinese entertainment orchestra was found performing in Yunnan province. It retains the drums and bells used to open the performance. The ensemble is a mixed grouping of bowed and plucked string along with wind instruments. RealAudio

 

Links to other related pages


Ya-yueh in Korea.
Japanese Kagura
Back to Gagaku Page.
The Shosoin Imperial Repository

                                                  Robert Garfias