“A composer cannot view the world in which he lives with indifference. Human suffering, oppression, injustice… all that comes to me in my thoughts. Where there is pain, where there is injustice, I want to have my say through my music.” (Isang Yun) This new release features works by Isang Yun performed by Dennis Russell Davies, Matt Haimovitz, Yumi Hwang-Williams, Maki Namekawa, and the Bruckner Orchester Linz. Isang Yun was born on September 17th, 1917 near Tongyong, South Korea, and received his first musical training (cello and composition) in Korea and Japan. Active opposition to the Japanese occupation resulted in his being imprisoned until the end of World War II. After gaining his freedom, he spent a period teaching music at Korean high schools und universities. He was a member of the Hamburg and Berlin Academies of Arts, and a honorary doctor at Tübingen University and honorary member of the ISCM, also member of the Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea, Salzburg, among other distinctions (Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz). ----- REVIEWS: Matt Haimovitz is the superb soloist in the fiercely confrontational, single-movement Cello Concerto from 1976, surely one of the finest works for cello and orchestra of the last 50 years, while Yumi Hwang-Williams is equally accomplished in the more lyrical solo writing of the first of Yun’s three concertos for violin. – Guardian (UK) Excellent new recordings of two of Yun’s most gripping major scores - the Cello Concerto and the Violin Concerto No. 1. The powerful Cello Concerto (1976) was a watershed. The western concerto structure and harmonic relationships lend themselves to confrontational dialog, while subtle evocations of the timbres, melodic contours, and microtonal inflections of Korean traditional music leave one in no doubt of the arena in which the drama is being played out. The larger — 40 minute — Violin Concerto is even more firmly based in the western tradition, with some wonderfully opulent orchestral tutti that even distantly evoke Richard Strauss. – Records International
