Younghi Pagh-Paan: Chamber Works

YOUNGHI PAGH-PAAN CHAMBER MUSIC

MAN-NAM I (Begegnung) for clarinet and string trio (1977) was written three years after Younghi Pagh-Paan's arrival in Germany, when the composer was urgently looking for a way out of a trying situation in which she found herself - triggered by a confrontation with a woman no matter how foreign culture. In order to overcome the culture shock in herself, she addresses the encounter between the two cultures in the form of a four-part composition inspired by a poem by the Korean poet Sa-Im-Dang Sin (1504-1551), in which she also - like the poet - longing for her mother (or homeland). The quietly moving first part of the work, in which the composer "hesitatingly" tries to calm her fear, is followed by the "escape into the protective solitude of the mountains" - presented as a pure string section with agile, hopping melody cells, embedded in extremely delicate flageolet sounds [01:50]. The turbulent third part [03:42], with the clarinet as the protagonist, finally leads via the intermezzo of a solo cello cadenza [05:59] to the »reconciliation« of the voices in the last part [08:03], which, accompanied by drum-like Cello pizzicati that seem to celebrate the coexistence of their existence.

The composition dedicated to Nuria Schönberg-Nono after the death of her husband Luigi Nono ma-am (my heart) for female voice (1990) is the beginning of a series of works in which the composer deals emphatically with the subject of the heart. One in the form of Old Korean They shine The poem by the poet Chung Chul (1536–1593), written by the lyric poet Chung Chul (XNUMX–XNUMX) with its characteristic tripartite composition, not only becomes emotional on the inside, but also forms the basis of this composition on the outside. In the first part, which begins with the first Cho Jang part of the poem mentioned above (»I want the heart…«), Pagh-Paan uses a rhythm explicitly borrowed from Korean music as a chronological framework (beginning with a conspicuous short accent, which follows the long-held central tone of  precedes). In this part, the pair of claves takes on the role of the in in a reduced manner They shine- Demonstrations of accompanying percussion instruments cowboy. The second and third parts [01:52 and 02:45] formally agree with the remaining two parts of the poem, by name young-jang ("In the boundless depths of heaven...") and yong yang (»So that the place may be illuminated…«), and lead us, further and further equalizing the rhythmic, via different tonal centers to the initial note of  back, which closes the circle of the composition.

In U-MUL / The Fountain (1992), the percussion – one of the mainstays of traditional Korean music – occupies an essential position, as is often the case in Pagh-Paan's works. It stands symbolically for the archaic image of the fountain, which itself becomes a double symbol: on the one hand as an image of the human soul, as deep as "a well without an abyss" (Meister Eckhart), on the other hand as a memorial to a social act: taking and passing on – of sharing. The »necessity to share« becomes clear right from the start, when the sounds of the frame drum - occurring after the initial ringing of the iron spiral and the wind bell - are taken over by instruments and passed on. The result is a wealth of sounds that invites you to listen to the "depth" of the acoustic space. The percussion, as the main character of the work, goes through a path of concretization through a few stations: After the bamboo bundle [01:40] enters, the frame drum hands over its main function to an archaic-looking duo of wooden beams and guiro [02:47], the the entrance of the central tone E (beginning with the alto flute) and later [04:10] draws all attention as the sole actor. Then prepare the around the central tone Es surrounded by instrumental sounds [05:26], the use of the circling maracas [05:46], the sound of which evokes associations with the calm flow of water. But before this concretization process goes any further, the return to the initial sounds of the frame drum, the iron spiral and the bamboo bundle [06:50] allows us to reflect on the "primal reason of being", on what has always been there. The processual is only an illusion, everything given has always been there and will always return. The shimmering through of a luminous, floating sound of the strings [08:05] now introduces the use of the rain pipe as an even clearer water symbol. At the end of the work, the process of "sharing" is also substantiated, in that a great tam-tam, acting as a resonator, twice takes over the sound of a loudly struck and immediately muted gong [09:17], in order to let it continue to sound inside. The piece ends a little later with a transparent sound that unfolds between high notes from violin and viola and a double bass tone that lingers in the lower range, thus giving the composition an open end.

In the latest work from the »Herz« series, My heart I for soprano and viola (2020), the composer devotes herself to the poem of the same name by the Austrian poet H. C. Artmann (1921-2000). Significant for the composition is the highly synthetic relationship between voice and instrument: together they follow an organic and slowly pulsating flow of time, meet at structurally supporting pitches, embrace each other, separate, but soon reunite. The eight lines of the poem, which repeatedly begin with the words »my heart«, are formally constitutive of the composition. The first two lines are set to music in succession, leading to a moment of pause triggered by solo viola double harmonics. A second section [01:52] opens with the third line of the poem and ends with the opening words of the fourth, before the next part surprisingly begins with a different, Korean-style style [03:20] to add the words »mein herz« in to let the Korean language become sound. The fourth line, which was broken off earlier, is then brought to an end, but the break remains in the text-music relationship. In the fourth part [04:40], lines five and six are completely set to music, but the seventh is only hinted at with a single word ("my heart lies, drinks, carries, is"), the eighth is omitted entirely. The piece closes in the fifth section [05:55] with the recapitulation of the first line: »my heart is the smiling dress of a thought that has never been guessed«. This magical balance of ratio and  emotion can certainly also be considered a substantial source of holistic and authentic expression for the music of Younghi Pagh-Paan.

"Waves. whole and parts. The same and the other. horizon on the high seas. We are surrounded by our own gaze.« These lines by Simone Weil (1909–1943) as well as the first word from the Seven Words of the Cross (»Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.« Luke 23,34:XNUMX) are the inspiration for Younghi Pagh-Paan's string quartet horizon on the high seas (2016). She seems to have found a soul mate in Simone Weil who, like her, was able to integrate the realities of life from a spiritual point of view and into her art with a constant »movement in the stillness«. The composer wants to seek the »power of the mystical« and the »depth«. She lets powerful original sounds together with their extremely delicate opponents, motivically concise - at times fugal - sequences of notes with the structurally opposite, flexible and lively individual tones as well as endless other differences pour into the stable framework of a meticulously thought-out time structure. She is an »architect of time«. She succeeds in merging the seemingly contradictory elements, in sublimating the diverse individual “parts” into a “whole”. In the final act of the piece, this process reveals itself for the last time in an almost ostentatious manner, in that a pentatonic structured melody, radiant in its simplicity, finds its way into the composition’s melting pot: the modal melody introduced by the viola [14:42], as it were a strange reflection on the sound surface of the piece, throws a surprising - albeit anticipated - light on what was previously heard, is scattered again into the entirety of the sound apparatus and finally merges completely into the structure of the work. In the end it is the lively stillness, the "movement in the motionless" that remains.

Ali Gorji