Changgeuk is the performing arts in which chang (song) and a play are combined like mind and body. If the two are in harmony, it can succeed, if the two are in conflict, it will fail. If changgeuk focuses too much on eye-catching or ear-catching facto...
Changgeuk is the performing arts in which chang (song) and a play are combined like mind and body. If the two are in harmony, it can succeed, if the two are in conflict, it will fail. If changgeuk focuses too much on eye-catching or ear-catching factors, its essence can be damaged; therefore, cautious approach is required for the success of changgeuk.
Changgeuk is the performing arts in which tradition and modernity intertwine like weft and warp. When the stance merely towards the preservation of tradition or towards an experiment is held firm, the prospects for changgeuk are bleak.
In the changgeuk "Medea", Ho-jun Hwang attempted an ideal combination of traditional and contemporary music. In particular, Hwang attempted to introduce the style of contemporary music in which music serves the purpose of a play. To this end, he made the premise of jakchang (writing chang) and composition in harmony and the result was the eclectic music idiom characterized by 1) jakchang on manuscript paper and score, 2) the introduction of the "sung-through" format, 3) various solo melodies, 4) the effect of a dochang (siging narrator) maximized by the chorus master and a mixed chorus, 5) an interplay of tension and release by discord and chord, 6) the effect of kil-bakkum (Korean traditional method of modulation) created by modulation and borrowed chord of Western music.
In "Medea," Hwang minimized the accompaniment of instrument (like daegeum, haegeum, gayageum, janggu and other percussion instruments, and keyboard) to prevent singers' voice from being not delivered well. And among song, narration (aniri) and gesture (balim), he adopted song for the way how singers express various hidden sides of play, thereby maximizing the sound effect. While using narration and balim moderately, he also maximized the visual effect by stage design and choreography. Maximizing the visual effect appears to be the strategy of structural eshthetics to dramatize the conflict, the key factor of tragedy. This is quite different from existing changgeuks in which pansori(Korean folk song)'s own minimalism esthetics were damaged by director-led overemphasis on realism esthetics and in which chang and a play were separated and there was no sufficient singers' expression of hidden sides of play due to the incongruity between realism and minimalism.
In "Medea," consisting of ten chapters and 2,722 bars (and having a running time of about one hundred minutes), Hwang introduced the sung-through format in which a play is delivered almost merely by music and by little or no spoken dialogue. To connect every scene of the play smoothly with music, Hwang adopted the following composition techniques: first, he used the same tonality (c minor) for the beginning and end of each chapter; second, he employed the same tempo, either six-eight or twelve-eight meter, for the end of most chapters; third, he made use of ostinato for the most part of the work; fourth, he utilized minor or augmented intervals for each chapter for similar mood to be maintained; fifth, he made the accompaniment appear before and after narration so that a sense of consistency is created in music; sixth, he used Korean traditional rhythms (i.e. jungjungmori, jinyangjo, jungmori, semachi) so that chang and music are delivered more effectively and organically; seventh, he used leitmotif (i.e. Song of Crime and Punishment) so that the main theme is delivered well throughout the play.
"Medea" does not have just one main melody, enabling a play to take a central role. In "Medea," oral sounds expressing wail, lament, cheer, sneer and scream are often employed and various solo melodies appear that fit for personalities of characters, clearly showing what bunchang (singers' singing songs divided according to characters) is all about. Furthermore, discord and chord are effectively used according to the development and mood of play; for instance, as the mood of a scene shifts from tension to relaxation, discord was followed by chord, and vice versa. Hwang also showed the effect of kil-bakkum in "Medea" by boldly using modulation and borrowed chord of Western music instead of the traditional modulation method.
In Hwang's eclectic music idiom shown in "Medea" lies anguish of chang and a play, anguish of tradition and modernity, anguish of uniqueness and universality, and anguish of hidden and revealed sides. This lets people to expect the bright future and great potential of composer Ho-jun Hwang's changgeuk and music.