AKIRAIFUKUBE.ORG - Kugoka, Aria Concertata di Kugo-Arpa

KUGOKA, ARIA CONCERTATA
DI KUGO-ARPA
(1969, revised 1989)

Playing the Konghou by Qiu Ying (1494-1552)

The kugo (konghou in Chinese) is an ancient member of the harp family which originated, it is believed, in ancient Assyria and traveled east into China and Japan, arriving in Japan by the 8th century. At first, it was used in gagaku, the ancient court music of Japan, but its use soon died out, perhaps due to its size and thus the difficulty of handling it.

Akira Ifukube was inspired to write Kugoka after seeing the remains of the instrument at an exhibition of the collection of the Shôsô-in, the ancient storehouse of the Nara temple Tôdai-ji. The composer tried to imagine what the melodies played by this instrument in ancient Assyria may have sounded like.

Kugoka premiered in Paris, France on May 27, 1969 with the Japanese guitarist Norihiko Watanabe. This piece, while originally composed for the guitar, can also be played on a 25-stringed koto without having to make any changes to the original score.

Norihiko Watanabe

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Acknowledgments:

Pipa Xing - Works by Akira Ifukube by Motohide Katayama.