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PTC5186693
Originally recorded in 2018
Classical
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About
Uncompromising in his life as he was in his music, Korean composer Isang Yun (1917–95) held fast to his dream of a united Korea, even as he was unjustly accused of espionage for North Korea and sentenced to imprisonment and death. From a life of unimaginable oppression and torture emerges music of raw emotional power, heard on Iang Yun - Sunrise Falling, a centennial commemoration of Yun’s life and music from the Pentatone Oxingale Series. Maestro Dennis Russell Davies, a longtime collaborator and advocate for Yun, curates the programme and conducts the Bruckner Orchestra Linz. A cellist himself, Yun’s fascinating, highly autobiographical Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1975/76) anchors the album. In a live performance, cellist Matt Haimovitz tackles the controlled chaos of Yun’s score, bursting with passion, despair, and new timbral textures, such as the use of a plectrum to emulate the Korean zither, the komun’go. Yun’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra no.1 (1981) features violinist Yumi Hwang-Williams, who reflects upon her own emotional return to Korea in 2015, where she performed the work at a festival in honour of Yun. The double album also includes the orchestral Fanfare and Memorial, and additional illuminating solo works by Yun performed by pianist Maki Namekawa, Hwang-Williams, and Haimovitz. 100 years after Isang Yun’s birth, the two Koreas still teeter on a razor’s edge, with ever more global ramifications. His music opens the gate to a lost, united land, with Yun’s own heart bleeding but ever hopeful.
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Reviews
Richard Hanlon - Recording of the year 2019
“My ‘top six’ list for 2019 is dominated by discs of little-known 20th and 21st century repertoire. Firstly, Pentatone celebrated the music of Isang Yun with a luxuriant twofer of the trailblazing Korean’s chamber, instrumental and orchestral music, crowned by revelatory accounts of the Violin Concerto No 1 and the Cello Concerto by Yumi Hwang-Williams and Matt Haimovitz respectively. They are accompanied by the Bruckner Orchester, Linz under Dennis Russell Davies. It is an exceptional issue which unequivocally reinforces the view that Yun was a twentieth-century master.”
“… These three contrasting, colourful and unusual concertos are without doubt the main attractions in this set. They are all works of deep sincerity, unusual colouration and considerable originality. But the four substantial chamber and instrumental pieces that are also included are far from makeweights….In my view Pentatone’s exceptional presentation affords Yun the importance and respect his work certainly merits. The commitment of all the performers involved is quite beyond question, but Dennis Russell Davies deserves special praise for conceiving the project in the first place.”
The Times Best Classical Music Albums of 2018 - Contemporary
"This two-disc box showcases the unjustifiably little-known South Korean-born composer (1917-95), whose passion for reunification had harrowing consequences for him."
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