Yun, Isang

(b Duk San, San Chun Gun, Tongyong [now Chung Mu], 17 Sept 1917; d Berlin, 3 Nov 1995). Korean-German composer. Son of the poet Yun Ki Hyon, he began to write music at the age of 14 and went on to study at the Osaka Conservatory and in Tokyo with Ikenouchi. During World War II he participated in underground activities against the Japanese, was imprisoned (1943) and lived in hiding until the liberation. In 1945 he helped in the reconstruction of Korean cultural life. From 1946 he taught music in Tongyong (now Chung Mu), Pusan, and, after the Korean War (1953), in Seoul. As the recipient of the 1955 Seoul City Award, he travelled to Europe for further study. He was a pupil of Pierre Revel at the Paris Conservatoire (1956–7) and of Boris Blacher, Josef Rufer and Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik (1958–9); he also attended several Darmstadt summer courses. After spending the period 1960–63 in Krefeld, Freiburg and Cologne, he returned to Berlin in 1964 at the invitation of the Ford Foundation. In 1967 he was abducted from Germany to Seoul by Chung Hee Park's regime, charged as a communist and imprisoned; after international pressure resulted in his release two years later, he was taken back to Berlin where he was granted amnesty in 1970. He taught at the Hanover Hochschule für Musik (1970–71) and the Berlin Hochschule (from 1970). His honours include the Kiel culture prize (1970), the Federal German Republic's distinguished service cross (1988), the medal of the Hamburg Academy (1992), the medal of the Goethe Institute (1994), and membership of the Hamburg and Berlin academies. The Isang Yun Music Institute opened in P'yŏngyang, North Korea, in 1984 and the International Isang Yun Society was established in Berlin in 1996.

Yun's fundamental aim as a composer was to develop Korean music through Western means, combining East Asian performing practice with European instruments, and expressing an Asian imagination in contemporary Western musical terms. His works of 1959 and 1960 reflect the 12-note serialism associated with Darmstadt. After 1961, however, a more individual style began to develop in compositions such as Loyang (1962), Gasa (1963), Garak (1963), Om mani padme hum (1964) and Réak (1966). In these works, glissandos, pizzicatos and vibratos provide a certain exoticism, while traditional Chinese court music ornamentation emphasizes the highly differentiated character of multiple melodic lines. In works written after 1964, Yun employed numerous melodic strands; these ‘Haupttöne’, as he called them, constitute centres of gravity through which the musical form is generated. Contrasting elements, derived from the Taoist concept of unity as the balance of Yin and Yang, influence instrumentation, dynamics, harmony, intensity and other musical parameters, finally uniting in a single sound stream, as suggested by Taoist philosophy. Yun's operas draw on similar principles. The two-part work Träume, for example, is made up of a serious drama, Der Traum des Liu-Tung (1965), paired with the burlesque comedy Die Witwe des Schmetterlings (1968). Other scores mirror the mood of temple ceremonies (Bara, 1960; Konzertante Figuren, 1972; Muak, 1978; Festlicher Tanz, 1988) or employ programmes based on Asian fairy tales (Flute Concerto, 1977; Double Concerto for Oboe and Harp, 1977), antique mural paintings (Images, 1968) and Korean history (Silla, 1992). After 1980 Yun's works reflect his political beliefs and desires: Korean unification, democracy, peace and freedom; these include Exemplum in memoriam kwangju (1981), the second movement of the Violin Concerto no.2 ‘Dialog Schmetterling und Atombombe’ (1983–6), Engel in Flammen (1994) and the five symphonies (1983–7), among others.

WORKS

operas

instrumental

vocal

BIBLIOGRAPHY

KdG (W.W. Sparrer) [incl. discography, further bibliography]

H. Kunz: ‘Bewegtheit in der Unbewegtheit: die Musik des Koreaners Isang Yun’, Münchner Festspiele 1972, Bayerische Staatsoper, ed. Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Münchner Opernfestspiele und Bayerischen Staatsoper (Munich, 1972)

K.J. Müller: ‘Taoismus und Atonalität: zur Musik von Isang Yun’, Musik und Bildung, lxx (1979), 463–8

H.W. Heister and W.W. Sparrer, eds.: Der Komponist Isang Yun (Munich, 1987, enlarged 2/1997)

H. Bergmeier, ed.: Isang Yun: Festschrift (Berlin, 1992) [incl. articles on compositions, work-list, discography, bibliography]

Musiktexte, lxii–lxiii (1996) [special issue]

H. KUNZ