Uncompromising in his life as he was in his music, Korean composer Isang
Yun (1917–95) held fast to his dream of a united Korea, even as he was
unjustly accused of espionage for North Korea and sentenced to
imprisonment and death. From a life of unimaginable oppression and
torture emerges music of raw emotional power, heard on ISANG YUN: Sunrise Falling, a centennial commemoration of Yun’s life and music from
the PENTATONE Oxingale Series. Maestro Dennis Russell Davies, a
longtime collaborator and advocate for Yun, curates the program and
conducts the Bruckner Orchestra Linz. A cellist himself, Yun’s
fascinating, highly autobiographical Concerto for Violoncello and
Orchestra (1975/76) anchors the album. In a live performance, cellist
Matt Haimovitz tackles the controlled chaos of Yun’s score, bursting
with passion, despair, and new timbral textures, such as the use of a
plectrum to emulate the Korean zither, the kŏmun’go. Yun’s Concerto for
Violin and Orchestra No. 1 (1981) features violinist Yumi
Hwang-Williams, who reflects upon her own emotional return to Korea in
2015, where she performed the work at a Festival in honor of Yun. The
double album also includes the orchestral Fanfare & Memorial, and
additional illuminating solo works by Yun performed by pianist Maki
Namekawa, Hwang-Williams, and Haimovitz. 100 years after Isang Yun’s
birth, the two Koreas still teeter on a razor’s edge, with ever more
global ramifications. His music opens the gate to a lost, united land,
with Yun’s own heart bleeding but ever hopeful.
