Japanese Classical Music

Japanese Classical Music, or hōgaku, is Japan's pre-modern art music: the gagaku of the imperial court, Buddhist shōmyō chant, the music of nō theatre, and the chamber traditions of shakuhachi, koto and shamisen. Transmitted through hereditary guild schools (ryū) with oral and notated systems of their own, it prizes timbre, breath and interval over harmonic development, and its repertoire stretches from seventh-century continental imports preserved at court to the virtuoso solo literature of the Edo period and the centuries beyond.