Label: NEOS SACD 20803
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PATHÉTIQUE
ISANG YUN (1917 – 1995):
Shao Yang Yin (1968, piano version 1996)
Five Pieces for Piano (1958); Interludium A (1982)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827)
Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, Grande Sonate pathétique (1798/99)

Kaya Han, piano
Freedom, equality and brotherhood – Beethoven represented the ideals of the French Revolution, whereas Yun fought for the liberation of his country from military dictatorship and despotism. He longed for the reunification of his homeland, one that had been divided by foreign powers as a result of the Second World War; he suffered under the division of Korea and had to endure imprisonment and torture. Certain similarities may also be made out in the music, despite the cultural and historical distance of roughly two centuries. Melodic intensity, suspense and drama; character of speech and speech-like syntax; a dramaturgy – pugnacious up to now – that aims at a concrete turning point and which evinces at least in Yun’s late works the imagery of advancement, all these things can be distinguished in his music. Beethoven, like Yun, searched for a balance between expression and structural thinking, between apparent inordinateness and a continually lotic sound continuum.