KJCKorea
Journal Central

Kang Joon-Il as a Korean composer has a unique place in the history of Korean compositions. As many other Korean composers, he applies Korean traditions-from the musical sound to the musical convention and philosophy -for his own style. But the 'Korean tradition' in his music does not mean the conceptual ideal which we should keep in mind, nor is used just as sound material to produce the composer's unique sound. What the Korean tradition of his music means, is our life itself. To him, Korean tradition is not the old one which belongs to the past, but is our life, which is mixed with the past and the present, Korean and non-Korean styles. His music reflect that one. Since 2000, he has tried to write the music for many kinds of ensemble composed with Korean traditional instruments and western instruments. <Sa-Wol (Longing for the Moon)> for Hae-guem (a korean string instrument) and western string ensemble (2004) also belongs to this series. In this piece, there is the tension between two music-worlds. Korean music is inclined to be open-ended. The Korean music piece is not structured as well as the western, so it does not exist as the complete work itself. To Korean, the well-structured and close-ended work is a dead artwork, not living. The Korean instruments have developed to be adjusted to that perspective. But western instruments are different. They have developed to be aimed at sounding more accurate pitch and rhythm, because the evolution of western music was headed for fixed structured artwork. Each of both instrumental groups has its own technique and convention. The composer, Kang doesn't try to reconcile the two different worlds. He just shows the difference of both worlds and let them to be resembling each other. Hae-guem plays sometimes the typical Korean melodic line, but sometimes tries to form the structured sound-contour with western ensemble. The western strings sound sometimes like Hae-guem‘s tone-color and tune. The further the music flows, the more naturally both sound-worlds get together. That flow, which is unfolded by two different worlds, sometimes struggling and sometimes assimilating, makes his music unique. This paper is intended to analyse how that feature reveals itself in Kang's music <Sa-Wol>.

Kang Joon-Il, <Sa-wol(Longing for the moon)>, Hae-guem Concerto, analysis of korean modern composition, creative generation