EUNHO CHANG Kaleidoscope
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
EUNHO CHANG Kaleidoscope Arditti Quartet . Ensemble TaCTuS Ensemble Contrechamps . Divertimento Ensemble © Anita Wasik Eunho Chang Eunho EUNHO CHANG (*1983) 1 String Quartet No. 2 (2011) 13:21 2 White Shadow (2012) for six percussion players 15:37 3 Gohok (2012/13) for solo flute and five instruments 15:24 4 Panorama (2015) for seven instruments 13:39 TT 58:01 1 Arditti Quartet 2 Ensemble TaCTuS 3 Ensemble Contrechamps 4 Divertimento Ensemble Irvine Arditti violin Raphael Aggery percussion Félix Renggli solo flute Lorenzo Gorli violin Ashot Sarkissjan violin Ying-Yu Chang percussion Laurent Bruttin clarinet Daniel Palmizio viola Ralf Ehlers viola Paul Changarnier percussion Sébastien Cordier percussion Martina Rudic cello Lucas Fels cello Quentin Dubois percussion Antoine Françoise piano Lorenzo Missaglia flute Pierre Olympieff percussion Hans Egidi viola Maurizio Longoni clarinet Thibaut Weber percussion Olivier Marron cello Lorenzo Colombo percussion Gregory Charette conductor Maria Grazia Bellocchio piano Sandro Gorli conductor 3 Recording dates: 1 24 Jan 2012 2 25 Jul 2012 3 1 Dec 2013 4 24 Oct 2015 Recording venues: 1 Court Room, Senate House, London, United Kingdom 2 Percussion Center L’Hameçon, Lyon, France 3 Studio Ansermet, Geneva, Switzerland 4 Teatro della Terra, Milan, Italy Recording engineers: 1 Colin Still 2 Pierre Olympieff 3 Jan Nehring, Philippe Hamilton (RTS – Espace 2) 4 Divertimento Ensemble Producers: 1 Institute of Musical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London 2 Ensemble TaCTuS 3 Radio Télévision Suisse 4 Divertimento Ensemble Mastering: Piotr Wieczorek Text: Dariusz Przybylski Graphic Design: Alexander Kremmers (paladino media), cover based on artwork by Enrique Fuentes 4 Hypnotising music: This album, containing four works from About Eunho Chang’s 2011 to 2015, reflects the artist’s current chamber music attitude. With great expertise, the compos- by Dariusz Przybylski er creates new, technically advanced mu- sic, with deep Korean roots. The artist is also able to work with the best new music ensembles, for whom the present works have been created. Here we have a syner- gy between Asian spirituality and the ex- ecutive accuracy and virtuosity of Europe- an ensembles. Eunho Chang’s music is, as the composer String Quartet no. 2 was recorded in 2012 himself asserts, a record of his life, a musi- in London and premiered by the Ardit- cal diary, souvenirs recorded in sound. The ti Quartet. The work draws its inspiration artist has a characteristic style, exhibiting from a traditional Korean painting, San-Su- an original approach to the musical mate- Hwa (San – Korean for “mountain”, Su – wa- rial, representing an Asian influence sever- ter) representing the peninsula’s natural al times not only in formal and ideological landscapes, which are mostly covered by aspects, but also in spiritual ones: in the mountains. The composer makes use of a sense of time, or in the emotional course dense musical treatment that represents of his work. The artist describes his musi- a single dense brushstroke of black paint. cal approach with the following words: My This texture develops throughout the music, simply put, is to express the sound of work, eventually thinning down in or- nature in a combination of various tones. der to depict a scene of rock and water- These sounds instantly mix harmoniously fall. The most important musical element and appear as complex second dimension- is colorfulness, which is achieved by nat- al reverberations of abstract sounds. This is ural brushstrokes, always unique, just like a holistic description of my music. works of nature. Copious use of new tech- 5 niques for obtaining sound from a homog- tions, which betray a rich style of compo- first association we get while listening to enous ensemble of string instruments al- sition and instrumentation, is not readily the melodic flute part is the creative inspi- lows the artist to enrich the sonorous obvious. This technique allows additional ration of a traditional Korean instrument palette, which is supposed to highlight levels to be depicted and interpreted on a – the Daegum. The artist achieves sound the effect of the black ink’s dilution, as in more profound level. effects by various means, like a hum, long its monochromatic form, the ink contains static sounds, and modulation at various an endless amount of shades. We desire to experience speeds of vibrato, flutter-tonguing, glis- Sensation of softness and a curve sando, and chords. The work is character- Also in 2012, the composer was able to ob- Unity with all behaviors ized by a rich sonority, and statics predom- tain much more colorful combinations in A thrill in the deepest part of our brains inate, laid out in between the culminations a work written for a complex percussion Giving off a violet scent points. The other instruments accompany ensemble, poetically titled White Shad- A deadly beauty … the main melodic flute line often in the ow. The premiere took place in Marmande, guise of an echo, leaving us perplexed; in France, during the Vacances Percutantes It is with these words, included in the pref- this way, the piece seems oneiric. Horizon- Festival and was commissioned by Ensem- ace to the score, that the composer intro- tally written counterpoint in relation to ble TaCTuS. The three-movement work duces us into the mood of Gohok, a com- the instrumental solo voice reflects an in- depicts percussive timbre in all its majes- position from 2013 for solo flute and five teresting texture on a vertical level, which ty. The first movement is a complex fanta- instruments. The work was premiered evokes an impressionist feeling. Gohok is sia, contrasted by the second movement during the finale concert of the 68th Gene- exemplified by the artist’s understanding which uses exclusively sounds of metallo- ve Competition by flautist Felix Rengg- of beauty, that is, tenderness contrasted phones. The rhythmic element, inherent in li and the Ensemble Contrechamps. The with harshness. percussion, is featured in the work’s fina- solo flute is accompanied by clarinet, per- le. The enigmatic title – white shadow, an cussion, piano, viola, and cello. In Korean, In Panorama, a work for seven instruments, oxymoron – dictates a metaphorical inter- gohok means “fascination”. The composer the artist again undertakes a descriptive pretation of the work. Like on a negative, admits that he wanted to include his own theme of beauty: beautiful and brilliant, the the shadow from Chang’s work emits light, understanding of beauty in this composi- wonders of nature and vast power! Most of contradicts itself, allowing us to interpret tion: statics of meditation in contrast to the the things made in nature are always next to the object by its outlines. The application dynamics of timbre attack, statics of the flute our lives. The random phenomenon created of rare and original instrumental combina- in contrast to the rest of the ensemble. The in nature takes various elements and meth- 6 ods. Among the many energies that make dense and light textures augment the ef- life, light and the sun are the motto, express fect of inner dynamism in the work’s indi- metaphorically the light and the transparent vidual fragments. light, and the energy of the light and the sun in various ways. Written two years after Go- The four compositions represented in this hok, in 2015, this work features dynamics recording illustrate Eunho Chang’s excel- of sound, which are facilitated by the en- lent mastery of compositional technique semble line-up: flute (including alto flute), in terms of chamber music. The artist ex- clarinet (including bass clarinet), percus- plores the “micro-possibilities” of individu- sion, piano, violin, viola, and cello. The pre- al instruments in a sublime manner, experi- miere was performed by the Divertimento ments with them, and proceeds to arrange Ensemble during the 2015 Expo in Milan. the technical possibilities artistically in order to obtain an immaculate, original This piece utilizes a colorful panorama of sound. This characteristic allows him to sounds which form the basis of the central create unprecedented acoustic, harmon- sounds of the work’s individual fragments. ic, and textural combinations. However, This reminds one of Giacinto Scelsi’s late Eunho Chang’s main goal is to express the works; however, one can detect a different sounds of nature that also inspired tradi- flow of energy in Chang’s music. An entire tional Korean art. For this reason, we will spectacle of instrumental virtuosity takes never find two identical musical ideas. The place against a background of static cen- composer always tries to fashion the rep- tral sounds. The individual musical rhe- etition of a given idea in a different way, torical figures have been set “inter-instru- as a variation, thereby showing the giv- mentally”, thereby rendering the effect of en material from a different perspective. “timbre hypnosis” even more potent. The Such an approach to composition testifies music flows in an unknown direction, yet not only to his maturity and sensitivity for we are securely guided by the composer the smallest details in timbre, but also to throughout. The inner tension does not his ability to marvel at the most delicate Translation by relax for even an instant, whereas both sound, a blade of grass or puff of wind. Mateusz Zawadzki 7 Gohok (fragment) 8 White Shadow (fragment) 9 Eunho Chang Eunho Chang’s passion is to express, with contemporary techniques, the various spontaneous timbres, patterns and ges- tures originating from traditional Korean music. Emulating the aesthetic lines of ori- ental painting, he tries to express musi- cally the freedom and autonomy of each painted brush stroke. This is the conceptu- Born 1983 in Daegu, Republic of Korea, Eu- al core of his works. nho Chang began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of seven.