2018, Vol.26, No.2

Journal of the Korean Society for Musicology 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.64

eISSN : 3092-2410
https://journal.kci.go.kr/musicology

This paper is on Bessie Lim (林培世, 1897-1999), who has been mentioned the ‘first’ woman composer and singer in modern Korea but never researched yet. Tracing her life and activities, revealing her thoughts on music with newly discovered primary sources―the birth certificate, newspaper, magazine, church records, school records, hand-writing letter, compositions and interview articles― I study how this famous soprano, who was trained under Christianity and colonial experiences and was eager to learn with achieving her dream, had become to have social perspectives to the society where she had belonged to. Especially I first reveal both her life after studying abroad from Joseon to U. S. A. and her activities as a diaspora supporting women in her homeland and yearning for independence of Joseon. Reading her activities with diverse sources in context, this study sheds new light on her as a pioneering woman musician in modern Korea. I took a look into Bessie Lim’s life dividing into 4 periods based on changes of her life and places of activity. The first period is the time in Joseon before she left to Hawaii in 1923, when Bessie Lim had been educated at Ewha Haktang (이화학당/梨花學堂) and sung on stage as a famous soprano. The second is the time from 1923 to 1928, she was a teacher at Korean Christian Institute (한인기독학원/韓人基督學院) in Hawaii and was a student studying abroad in Oberlin College and Illinois Wesleyan University. From this time, her latent social perspectives had started to be manifested in earnest. The third is the time when it is from 1928, the year of her marriage with Kyung Kim (김경/金慶/Bernard Kim, 1888-1966) to 1945, independence year of Joseon. As a diaspora, she supported women in Joseon and sent supporting payments for independence of country. Bessie Lim’s diverse activities in music field are mostly found before 1945. And the last is the time after 1945 that she concentrated herself on her Christian faith staying in New York. Music for women, educated by Christianity in Korea under Japanese rule, was not just for enjoyment but a powerful tool for representing their identities. Bessie Lim’s life was full of christian faith and it shows a big journey of her finding her identity in the society with using ‘music.’ She tried to have her own voice in public squarely looking at current situation and the problems of it. She believed that music could make society better when returning what they have learned, and strongly recommended “this is a ‘must-do’ of musicians.” Bessie Lim was a ‘musician’ in modern Korea, devoting herself to put her learning and beliefs into action with songs. In addition, I also research the historical and socio-cultural meaning of Temperance Song (금주가/禁酒歌, 1918), which is known as her sole surviving song until now, and I first introduce her newly discovered song, My Bible (나의성경, alleged 1938). These two songs ascertain how much influence Christianity in modern Korea has on musicians. A pioneering woman musician, Bessie Lim shows one aspect of women musicians with struggling for herself and society in modern Korea.

As the imperialist war led by Japan intensified, the popular music of Korea inevitably underwent a considerable change. The music business hitherto following commercial logic was forced to follow the new policies of the Japanese government, producing a large number of militarist songs as a result. Militarist song, one of the subcategories of the so-called pro-Japanese popular songs, denotes the songs produced after the Sino-Japanese War with the purpose of glorifying war and encouraging people to take part in the war and sacrifice themselves. When the recording companies began to seriously concentrate on producing militarist songs, a new image of woman appeared in the popular music world. It was the image of a mother, hitherto excluded from the lyrics of popular songs. The new trend of displaying a mother as the speaker of the lyrics was influenced by the new discourse of ‘the Mother of the Military Nation,’ increasingly emphasized in both Japan and Korea as Japan entered into an all-out war system. By emphasizing the strong maternal instinct of a wife supporting the rear ground, the militarist songs offered consolations to the soldiers at war and disciplined women in the rear to absorb the virtues of ‘the Women in the Rear Ground.’ Moreover, the militarist songs at the time restored the traditional image of women to represent the identity of ‘the Women in the Rear Ground’ in relation to the old feminine identity. This type of narratives appears in the songs that introduce a wife who pledges to maintain the true love for and fidelity to her husband. In these songs, the true love and fidelity are also directed towards her country. The act of pledging a true love is represented as the act of pledging loyalty to the country, following her husband’s examples. Through this type of narratives, the militarist songs of this period played an important role in disciplining women to absorb the virtues of ‘the Women in the Rear Ground,’ which combines old feminine values with the sense of loyalty to the country.

As an existing American composer, Lowell Liebermann (1961- ), who has been commissioned by numerous commissioners and has been actively engaged in composing activities. His piano pieces, which occupy a important portion of his 130 works, reveal the advantagess and characteristics of the piano, as well as the use of traditional musical elements is outstanding. In particular, Piano Sonata no.3 (op.82, 2002) is associated with the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. It is a large-scale work containing a menorial message of requiem and more sophisticated than the previous two sonatas. The study of the Liebermann’s sonata in foreign countries is only four doctoral dissertations, and no study of the Liebermann’s sonata in Korea has been made at all. In this study, I have studied the life of Liebermann and the tendency of the piano works before studying of Liebermann's Sonata no.3. In the analysis, the composition technique of Sonata no.3 was divided into formal, acoustical, rhythmic and technical aspects. He showed his new composition and interpretation of the sonata while making full use of traditional language and his own language, and it was confirmed that he made ‘Requiem Sonata’ for piano.