Isang Yun - Selected Works For Clarinet - Compositions Of Isang Yun 1 (Camerata - CMT-1084)

Since I have provided information on Isang Yun on my previous critic of his record "Loyang, Gasa, Reak, Tuyaux Sonores", I will directly get into the details of this record. I bought this one along with second and third one of the series from a guy in Germany via Ebay. Unfortunately I lost the last (Fourth) one. These are records which were only released by the Japanese Camerata label, therefore it will be some time until I find the remaining one. Anyway let's get back to the task at hand.

This record includes the works of Isang Yun which he composed for Clarinet. The opening piece "Concerto For Clarinet And Orchestra" is his composition for the clarinist Eduard Brunner. The piece is made up of three movements which are linked without any breaks. The first movement is a developing melody that takes different forms, additions and substractions along the way. Second movement is more depressing and slower in tempo. Here the melody is more fragmanted and expressions are made up of various phrases to provide the whole picture. Last movement is more of a concerto as in standard understanding.

"Ruil For Clarinet And Piano" was composed during the never ending pressures the composer endured from the Korean Secret Service. Riul means melody in Korean and the work is a web of a single melody taking different shapes. This is part of the philosophy of "main-tone" which was created by Yun himself. There is a basic melodic line (Like in the first piece) and it evolves during the piece. Piano acts mainly like a percussion instrument to maintain a certain rhythmic flow. It can also be stated that Piano gives a sharp contrast to the melody and therefore shows some of the tensions the composer was facing during the times. You can feel the exact struggle while listening it. Just also to note, Aloys Kontarsky is the pianist (Not surprising of course).

"Piri" is actually a Korean traditional instrument which is similar to Oboe. The piece was also written for Oboe, but Brunner premiered it. There are different melodies in the piece which vary in length and intensity. They do not overlap, but rather follow each other one by one and the closer you get to the end of the piece, the more spacey the melodies become. Somehow this piece reminded me that of Harlekin by Karlheinz Stockhausen in terms of it's structure and expressionism, but it's highly probable that I may be mistaken (Or drunk).

This record is a good example of the variety in composition by Isang Yun. Some people are not very much used to Clarinet driven melodies or have a different idea about Clarinet's modern musical use (Mainly used by gypsy musicians in East Europe, Turkey and Jazz players nowadays). All in all, this is a record to listen with the main thought of melodic Contemporary Classical music in mind.

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