Best Records Of 2012 & A Short Review

Below are the best 10 records that I have listened during 2012. These may not be the 2012 releases as can be seen from my posts already.

1) Isang Yun - Selected Works For Clarinet - Compositions Of Isang Yun 1

2) Olivier Messiaen - Catalogue D'Oiseaux

3) Thelonious Monk - Riverside Classics

4) Woody Guthrie - Library Of Congress Recordings

5) Metallica - Live In The 80s

6) St Germain - Tourist

7) Oriental Wind - Chila-Chila

8) Leadbelly - Good Night Irene

9) Alva Noto - Unitxt

10) Various - Musique Persane

Looking back to 2012, my main listening habits did not alter too much with the main genres as Contemporary Classical and Experimental Electronic. World music had a surge due to me delving deeper into the origins of music. Electro, Techno, House, Dub and their variations seem to have decreased somewhat along the way, but now thinking about it, I am missing them also. Jazz stayed more or less the same level as well as Blues. I might have increased Free Jazz and Improvisation a little.

In terms of record labels, Editions Mego is by far the leader of the pack. Then comes Decca due to it's wide range of releases starting from Classical to Blues. Philips and EMI (Including Angel & HMV) were also very much in the high levels. Arion, Ocora and Le Chant Du Monde also entered the scene due to World music. Wergo has gone down from it's position from last year since there are not many titles left for me to buy and listen. Also Columbia and Riverside got lower returns. Sonet entered to my catalogue for the first time this year through Oriental Wind and Okay Temiz releases.

I wish everyone a year full of music, health, prosperity, peace and love.

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.

To buy this record:

@ Discogs

Isang Yun - Loyang, Gasa, Réak, Tuyaux Sonores (Wergo - WER 60034)

There are certain moments when I face the hard truth that my German is basic and my French is composed of 20 words. As a record collector, these heartbraking moments tend to occur quite a lot. Especially on releases two legendary record labels, Erato and Wergo, this issue becomes a pain in the neck.

The record is question here is a release of the Korean Isang Yun on the German Wergo label. It is the first press from Germany and therefore includes only German notes. A Heliodor release of this record from UK would have been a little more helpful in this case, but hey, who's to complain.

Actually Isang Yun has been a quite silent character generally among the contemporary composers apart from one incident where has was captured in East Berlin by the South Korean agents with his wife, taken back to Seoul and prisoned. He was later tried and sentenced to death when the whole world of composers created an uprising. The names among them were politically strong names like Stravinsky, Karajan, Klemperer, Stockhausen and Ligeti. All these names had substantial force in their respective governments and their pressure/petition was granted after two years of imprisonment. Yun was exiled and banned from reentry from his native country.

Isang Yun is somewhat one of the most accomplished and underrated composers of the 20th Century. Honestly I cannot put this to the mainly more depressive type of compositions he wrote. Many of the composers of his era were already excessively depressive due to witnessing two world shattering events during their lifespans. Some even committed suicide. But I believe the depression in Yun's music comes from the fact that he was extremely far away from his homeland. The culture and the thought process were (And still are) totally different and this caused him to be more pessimistic. Interestingly we saw the opposite in the case of Stravinsky, but there he nourished from the artistic movements of the era in Paris and there was a hard fact that he was not in a culturally opposite culture. A little more liberal maybe, but in essence not too different.

Unfortunately for me, by the time I started listening his music, he had already passed away, better late than never. Isang Yun's music can be classified as emitonally depressive and expressionist contemporary classical music. Moreover, even though experimentation has been a crucial factor in his compositions, these trials do not strike you with the ferocity of Stockhausen or Kagel. His experiments are also within a certain regular scheme where the listener accepts without raising an eyebrow. On the other hand, the continuous depressive mood can be nerve wrecking at various points. The most attractive composition for me on this record has been Gasa and I am truly fascinated by it. He clearly represents a different voice among the contemporary composers and it is a delight to listen to him.

To buy this record:

@ Discogs
@ Ebay