In the first few decades of the 16th century, a number of encyclopedic works on nō were compiled from older records and oral traditions.[1] Altogether, more than 350 plays are listed, together with information about authorship and performance details. Plays mentioned in these works can confidently be dated to the early or middle of the Muromachi period (1336-1573), and it is worth noting that the number well exceeds the current repertoire of the 254 plays that are still in the modern performance tradition, the so-called genkō yōkyoku 現行謡曲.[2]
By the end of the Muromachi period, as many as 760 plays can be found in another work of this kind.[3] Texts survive for a large majority of the additional plays, as well as the great number produced from the late 16th century onwards. Estimates as to the total number of surviving plays have been revised upwards from 2500 – ten times the number in the current repertoire – to a figure in excess of 3000.[4] By no means were all or most of them performed widely, many may in fact have been written by or for amateurs who wanted plays on a given subject for su-utai 素謡 recitation, singing without costumes or accompaniment of drum and flute.
There is thus a vast corpus of plays that have fallen out of the performance tradition, or were never really part of it in the first place. Such plays are known as bangai yōkyoku 番外謡曲, “extra-repertory” (or “non-canonical”) nō plays. The best—and almost only—reference for bangai nō is vols 20-22 of the Mikan yōkyoku shū 未刊謡曲集(続) by Tanaka Makoto (Tokyo: Koten bunko, 1987). It has bibliographic information, but lacks summaries and annotation. The manuscripts are ordered roughly from earlier to later, and it omits works published previously.
Notes
[1] Nōhon sakusha chūmon 能本作者註文 (colophon dated 1524), Jika denshō 自家伝抄 (colophons dated 1414, 1489, and 1516), and Bugei rokurin shidai 舞芸六輪次第 (ca. 1510s). [2] The current number of plays in the performance tradition of the five schools is some 254, give or take a few that are either brought back into the repertoire (fukkyoku 復曲) or dropped from active performance (haikyoku 廃曲). By comparison, as many as 548 are printed in the Meiji-period Hakubunkan edition (Haga and Sasaki 1913-1915), while the premodern encyclopedic Nōhon sakusha chūmon, Jika denshō, and Bugei rokurin shidai list 350, 346, and 207 plays respectively. Watanabe 1995, pp. 202-203. [3] Iroha shakusha chūmon いろは作者註文 (before 1570), available in an annotated edition (Tanaka 1978). [4] Nishino Haruo gives the figure of 2500 (Nishino and Hada 1997: 282), but now suggests that the total number is at least 3000 (personal correspondence, 2005).Links to Michael Watson’s lists of translations:
Genpei Tales and the Noh (many bangai nō featured)
Contributor: Michael Watson