Saibara
Saibara ( Japanese 催馬 楽 , "horse driver music ") is a cheerful genre of songs , mainly from the areas around Kyōto and Nara , which was reworked artistically in the Heian period at the imperial court and was part of the court music.
The songs consist of alternating four- and nine-syllable lines of verse and a refrain . In terms of content, they deal with the feelings of ordinary people such as hunting, work, travel and preferably with love, which is expressed unusually openly. Saibara were often performed on festive occasions, as is described in some places in the Genji Monogatari , a novel written around 1000. They lost their popularity to the Imayō in the Kamakura period and were revived again in the Edo period .
According to the Genji Monogatari , saibara are performed as a soloist or with the accompaniment of a flute, the short-necked lute biwa , the vaulted board zithers koto or wagon , occasionally also with a flute and one of the stringed instruments.
literature
- Bruno Lewin (ed.): Small dictionary of Japanese studies . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1981, ISBN 3-447-00530-0
Individual evidence
- ^ Eta Harich-Schneider : A History of Japanese Music. Oxford University Press, London 1973, p. 247