Isang Yun (1917-1995) is one of the most important composers in Korean history. Even though Yun is a South Korean-born composer, most of his music was composed in Germany and has been largely performed and studied in Europe, Japan, and even North Korea. His music is unfamiliar to South Korean audiences because of the political issues surrounding the East Berlin Spy Incident (1967). Isang Yun composed a massive amount of music employing his unique compositional methods, such as the Korean traditional zither technique, Nonghyun, which is very similar to the vocal technique, Sigimsae. Also Yun created a Main-Tone Technique that was influenced by Korean court music and utilized more practically for his orchestra pieces as a Main-Sound Technique. Based on Taoist philosophy, Yun employed yin and yang concepts in his compositions and formulated his music with balance. All of his techniques and styles of music were designed by employing Eastern musical language and European compositional techniques. In this thesis, I will introduce the concepts and compositional techniques of Isang Yun. Also, by analyzing how he translated Eastern musical concepts into Western musical techniques in his opera, Die Witwe des Schmetterlings (The Butterfly Widow), I will attempt to demonstrate Yun's unique compositional style which resulted from a blending of Eastern and Western musical elements. In this opera, we have a unique example of how he successfully employed his own Korean musical values and techniques within the context of Western practice. Yun rediscovered the value of his own Eastern compositional techniques and then shared his music with Western audiences.

Thesis (M.A.)--Zhongguo wen hua xue yuan. / Cover title. Rectos of double leaves mostly blank. Reproduced from typescript. Bibliography: leaves 129-131. Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1962. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

A Korean-German composer Isang Yun.s life was evenly distributed between two different countries, and his music contains both elements of performance practices of Eastern Asian and Western music. This dissertation presents his ethnic and aesthetic musical roots by an analytic examination of his solo violin piece, K♠nigliches Thema (1976). The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter contains Isang Yuns biography and his works of the four periods. The second chapter studies his philosophy in music and compositional techniques such as twelve-tone technique, Taoism, Hauptton, Hauptklang and the Korean instrumental technique in Western instruments. The third chapter presents a detailed analysis of Knigliches Thema with his Taoist philosophy. The fourth chapter is solely dedicated to the performance perspectives of Königliches Thema in tempo, dynamic and various violin techniques.

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Was ist an Isang Yuns Kompositionen fremd für uns geblieben? Und welche Musik war für ihn fremd, als er nach Europa kam? Mit welchen Schreibweisen machte er sich in dem neuen kulturellen Raum heimisch? Diesen Fragen wird mit einer Konzentration auf das späte Schaffen des Komponisten nachgegangen.

Isang Yun (1917-1995) embraced a masterful combination of two elements derived from his life: his Korean cultural upbringing and Western musical traditions. This dissertation explores Yun's distinctive style through an analysis of his Kontraste: Zwei Stücke für Violine Solo. Following the introduction (Chapter 1), Chapter 2 contains a brief biography of Isang Yun, and explores the compositions of his Korean period (1917-1955) and his European period (1956-1995). It also discusses how Yun's musical styles changed during these two periods as a result of important life events and due to cultural and political influences. Chapter 3 examines Korean instruments such as Kayakem, Hae-Kem, and Pak; discusses Nonghyun (traditional string techniques of ornamentation in Korean music); and introduces Korean performance techniques. This chapter also provides explanations of these concepts, illustrated through various examples. A subsequent discussion illuminates Yin-Yang theory and Jeong-Jung-Dong, both elements of Taoist philosophy that influenced Yun's compositional style. This is followed by explanations of Hauptton and Umspielung, two compositional techniques that Yun developed and employed in Kontraste. Yun created the idea of Hauptton to reflect the Korean traditional concept of a single note. He used the term Umspielung ("playing around" in German) to describe his interpretation of the four traditional techniques of Nonghyun within a Western notational framework. In Chapter 5, analysis of Kontraste reveals how the piece's contrasting elements represent the concepts of Yin-Yang and Jeong-Jung-Dong, and shows how the violin imitates the sounds of Korean traditional instruments and instrumental technique. Yun's adaption of Korean traditional performance techniques to the violin in Kontraste is aimed at combining East and West and producing a new aesthetic.

Thesis (D. Mus. Arts)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-105).

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