The musical narrative, or ‘katarimono’ in Japanese, is a form of performing art in which a story is “sung” or “performed” by a single or several performers. The musical style of katarimono is basically “syllabic,” where one syllable of text is assigned with one musical pitch and therefore the content of the text is easily followed by listeners. In contrast, utaimono is ‘melismatic,’ performed with several pitches (embellishment, or melisma) on each syllable of text. Various genres of narratives were born and have been enjoyed in a number of different settings and contexts in Japan since medieval times, and eventually these narratives have come to make up a large portion of what is now known as traditional Japanese musical culture. As the subtitle “Ten Centuries of Performed Narrative” suggests, this book intends to explore the narrative traditions in Japan diachronically. It follows the narrative genres from their origins up to contemporary times; kōshiki or shōmyō (Buddhist preaching) (chapter 2), heike (the musical recitation of the Tale of the Heike with biwa lute accompaniment) (chapter 3), kōwaka and nō (narratives for dance and masked theatre) (chapter 4), gidayu-bushi narrative for ningyō-jōruri (puppet theatre) (chapter 5), and jōruri narratives in kabuki (bungo-kei jōruri, nagauta, ōzatsuma-bushi) (chapters 6 and 7).

Katarimono is primarily a word-based art form, which recites either didactic or dramatic stories. Therefore, previous studies, in extent, have for the most part focused on the literary rather than the musical aspect. This is the book's primary importance; it sheds light on this rather neglected musical aspect and stresses the significance of the art as “musical performance.”

MacQueen Tokita was raised in Melbourne. She studied Japanese and Japanese music, and taught at Monash University there for a long time while also actively conducting fieldwork in Japan. Since 2010, she has been affiliated with Japanese universities and currently serves as the director of the Research Centre for Japanese Traditional Music, Kyoto City University of Arts. Her fluent Japanese language ability has allowed her to access virtually all of the research on katarimono written in Japanese as well as in English.

Katarimono, in effect, has branched into many genres and diversified styles, although they all share the common musical characteristic of “syllabic” music, the relationship between the syllable of text and musical pitch. The kōshiki, heike are rendered rather simply by one narrator, while the narratives in kōwaka and nō are recited by several actors who perform gestures and dance on stage. Narratives in ningyō-jōruri and kabuki, more complicatedly, interact with shamisen (three-stringed lute) accompaniment and the puppet or actor's kinetic movements. These differences in performing format encouraged each genre to develop as a unique art form and distinguishes them one from another. The research on katarimono in Japan, therefore, has been conducted rather within each specific genre separately. Each genre has “specialists,” for example, Sawada Atsuko for shōmyō, Yokomichi Mario and Fujita Takanori for nō, Komoda Haruko for heike, Tanaka Yumiko for gidayu, Yamada Chieko for nagauta, and MacQueen Tokita herself for kiyomoto-bushi (one of bungo-kei jōruri). She published an in-depth study on kiyomoto-bushi in 1999.Footnote ¹ Based on these individual musicological studies, MacQueen Tokita makes a comprehensive survey on Japanese katarimono and clarifies the musical traits of each genre, and in the narrative stream discusses the continuity and newly emerged elements. The wide scope of her vision is the second advantage of this book. The “continuity” indicates that the same story motif is carried over from the old genre to the new genre, recycled and rearranged into a new shape. In addition, some musical patterns and terminology are also brought into the new genre, showing continuous use but with slightly changed meaning or context. For instance, if a comparison is made between Ataka of nō (chapter 4) and Kanjinchō of kabuki (chapter 7), this phenomenon will be easily understood.

The author, furthermore, tries to situate Japanese musical narratives in a global context. In chapter 1, referring to the Parry-Lord model for the analysis of oral tradition in the Balkan area, she treats the issues of orality, literacy, and textualization of narratives.Footnote ² She claims that even after the oral tradition has been written down, narratives keep some “residual orality” of formulaic expression (pp. 10–13). She also makes cross-cultural comparisons of the performed narratives of Japan and other cultural areas, introducing three structural models for analysis; strophic, stichic, and prosimetric. According to her, Japanese goze-uta (narrative performed by blind female itinerant singers) is stichic, while heike-jōruri would be included in prosimetric, if the term is broadly defined, as they alternate sections of spoken and musicalized delivery (pp. 16–17). Although the information gained from this kind of broad comparison is somewhat general and vague, it certainly allows readers, through classification and analogy, to grasp an image of the narrative of new cultures that are as yet unfamiliar.

As already mentioned in chapters 2 to 7, the author explores the characteristics of the individual genre of narratives. Each chapter commences with an historical overview and introduces generic features of the genre. One or more piece(s) are then analyzed and verbal explanations (including an English translation of Japanese texts), tables to show the formulaic structure of the piece, and music transcriptions in Western notation are provided. In addition, a compact disc is included with the book, so readers can examine the results of analysis and at the same time listen to musical examples. Recently, academic books on music often come with a music compact disc or URL of an internet site that delivers music for free. Having examples of the music, along with the explanation (words, tables, notations), greatly helps readers to comprehend the significance of the book.

Finally, this reviewer suggests that the book uses many vernacular terms without detailed explanation and this limits the readership to some extent. Regarding this, the book may be aimed at readers who are already acquainted with a certain amount of knowledge of Japanese language, culture, and music. But on the other hand, the book also seems likely to appeal to young scholars of ethnomusicology who are specialists of music but not yet familiar with Japanese music; if so, it would be better if a glossary of vernacular terms had been provided.

Nevertheless, the book's diachronic character in structure and comprehensive and comparative perspective that covers not only Japanese narratives but also those preserved in other cultures would be appropriate for neophytes of Japanese music. Those interested in studying genres of Japanese narratives would also certainly find this book of inestimable value. This book won the Tanabe Hisao Prize in 2016, which is given to an outstanding achievement of ethnomusicology. Also, for her contribution to the promotion of Japanese music study over many years, she was awarded the Koizumi Fumio Prize in 2017, which is given to an eminent scholar of ethnomusicology.