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This is a Sokyoku piece in the Kumiuta style from the Ikuta Ryű school . Kiritsubo is also known as: Kuina No Kyoku, Aoyagi No Kyoku. This piece was composed for koto by Yatsuhashi Kengyo .

History (from Tsuge Gen'ichi)
'Kiritsubo' is one of the 'Thirteen Yatsuhashi Song Cycles,' and belongs to the ura category of the kumiuta repertoire.
The six songs are not related to one another in terms of subject matter. The text of the first and fourth songs, however, refer to memorable passages from chapters of 'The Tale of Genji - 'The Paulownia Court' (Kiritsubo) and 'The Shell of the Locust' (Utsusemi). Hence, the title, Kiritsubo.

Poem (translated by Tsuge Gen'ichi)
The emperor's vow
Of everlasting love
With the lady of the Paulownia Court -
To share a wing in the sky and
A branch on earth -
How sad to see it
An empty dream,
The fate of this transient life.
Awake from a dream
Of a mid-summer night,
I seem to see her still.
Longing burns
In my heart, like a firefly,
And radiates about me.
How can I tell it
To others?
The autumn night
Grows old,
And the moon sinks
Towards the west.
How lonely the sound
Of the wind in the pines,
The roaring of waves,
And the cry of a deer.
Guided by a boy,
The younger brother
Of the lady of the Locust Shell,
Genji stole into her room
Only to find
That she had slipped out.
How sweet the scent
Lingering on her empty robe.
Who is that,
So late at night,
Tapping at my brushwood gate?
A visit from
The wind blowing down
Off the mountain peak,
Or the cries
Of a solitary water rail?

The warbler
Spins threads
Of green willow
As he sings.
The warbler
On a plum branch
Sews blossoms
On a bamboo hat.