|
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
Compelling Korean Memorial to September 11 April 22, 2002
|
By Benjamin Frandzel
This has been a bountiful time for new
Korean music. Just last week,
Citywinds collaborated with the superb
Contemporary Music Ensemble Korea, a group of
forward-looking performers on Korean instruments. A
couple of days later came an event billed as Korean
Musical Ceremony, in three Bay Area venues, last Monday in Herbst Theater.
The first half of that program was devoted to
performances of secular, court, and
religious works by a series of distinguished Korean
performers. After that, these musicians joined the Santa Cruz-based Ensemble Parallèle, led by Nicole Paiement, for the unveiling of a major new music and dance work by Hi Kyung Kim, Rituel II
.
Kim, who teaches at UC Santa Cruz, created this work
as a sequel to her Rituel, which remains a
strong memory for me as the highlight of last year's
Other Minds Festival. Like her earlier work, Rituel
II functions not only as a concert piece, but as a
full memorial ceremony, honoring the dead in a
sometimes peaceful, sometimes cathartic manner. While
the original Rituel was written for two friends of the
composer, the new work is written in memory of those
who died on September 11, though its composition
apparently began some time before that date.
In addressing this enormous subject, Kim traveled
through a lengthy series of musical states, not only
mourning the victims' deaths, but evoking their
journey and ultimate peace. In doing so, she
accompanied the dance that was central to the work
with the double-reed piri, the yangkeum ( dulcimer),
percussion and voice from the Korean ensemble, combined with
Western percussion, violin, cello and clarinet. Kim
made effective use of both Korean and Western
instruments, either as isolated ensembles or united
together. Because the visual element of the work was
so compelling, because her instrumental combinations
were so seamlessly woven together, and because of the
sensitivity of all the performers, the transition from one instrumental body to another
was barely noticeable most of the time.
This was often a music of broad gestures, where one might hear a new section initiated by softly rolling timpani and a mournful cello line, or the low rumble of drums and gongs mixed with steady Buddhist chanting, or the eerie mix of the piercing piri with cello harmonics, evoking the memory of sirens. Conductor Nicole Paiement was a sensitive guide to the musicians, in a score that, it seemed, left a fair bit of freedom to the performers. Much of the work's structure was guided by its physical elements. In drawing on the full range of Korean religious practice, the work incorporates elements of Christian, Buddhist, and shamanic traditions. Dancer Sun-Ock Lee, covered in an all-white outfit and surrounded by white tapestries,used the beginning and end of her time onstage to turn and glide at a glacial pace, bringing a quality of meaning to every gesture, evoking the spirits of the dead in a ghostly manner. While she moved her outfit's paper front and sleeves expressively in the ceremony's slower moments, she tore through them later in the piece, initiating her move as the drums led the work's transition to the wild, percussive, near-exorcism that ended the work. To draw this complex and compelling piece to a conclusion, she lowered herself into a still, peaceful pose as the music heated up. At that point, percussionist/dancer Bong-Kyo Lee came forward and assumed leadership of the proceedings from Paiement. Lee, who had already made a striking impression with his dancing, twirling a twenty-foot or so ribbon from his hat to startling effect, tapped a small hand gong loudly and rapidly. He circled the stage with a strong physical presence, signifying the freedom of many souls in tandem with Sun-Ock Lee's tranquil position.
The performances of traditional Korean repertory that opened the program were striking. In-Muk, a Buddhist Monk whose chanting was later to contribute much of the spiritual quality to Kim's piece, offered an example of Bumpae, a form of uniquely Korean Buddhist chant. This is a slow, stately music, beginning and ending with bell ringing, and like much Korean instrumental music, uses countless variations in inflection, in vibrato, dynamics, and so forth, for nuance. The performance was deeply focused. Chan-Sub Kim, one of Korea's foremost piri players, performed the work San Young San, from the repertory of Court Music. Showcasing the tiny instrument's many possibilities, it was a tour de force, in which Kim exerted exquisite control over the instrument's tonal range, from its somewhat sweet tone when played softly to its piercing, bagpipe-like limits. Kim was also a master of intonation, bending pitches with great expressive precision. Eun-Ah Kwak offered a work called Sanjo, an improvised instrumental work, on the kayakeum, the koto-like tabled zither. Although sparsely accompanied by Ji Young Park on the changgo (the hourglass-shaped drum with which Bong-Kyo Lee later drove the Rituel ensemble) she was very much the leader of the duo, weaving increasingly complex and virtuosic variations over a simple theme. The full ensemble came together for a lovely, heartfelt performance of Korean folk repertoire. (Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.) ©2002 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved |
