Unsuk Chin – Akrostichon - Wortspiel

Korean Unsuk Chin was a pupil of no less a composer than Ligeti. He must have taught her well, as she won the highly esteemed Grawemeyer Award for her Violin Concerto in 2004.

Tough material, this album – the title of first piece, “Akrostichon” (initial letters of words vertically forming another word when listed below each other) suggests a light-hearted composition, but personally I’m sooner reminded of Lady Macbeth than of Lewis Carroll’s innocent fairy-tales on which she based it.
So, expect Shakespearian intensity here…I haven’t found out yet where the literary device akrostichon comes in; perhaps the keys in which the parts were written have something to do with it, or else the lines sung by Piia Komsi. This Finnish soprano, by the way, does a great job singing her difficult part.
Further, I’d say Akrostichon balances between German expressionism and Asian opera. Two styles that have a lot in common anyway; they share a tendency towards Sprechgesänge, the spoken word becoming music.

Fantaisie mecanique is a serial piece if ever there was one. Stockhausen, Berio to mention a few, it’s all there. Chin received praise for daring to give new life to a genre that’s considered more or less outdated.

With Xi the composer explores another post-war European development, that of electro-acoustic music.

tracks:

1-7. Akrostichon-Wortspiel
8. Fantaisie mecanique
9. Xi
10. Double Concerto

Performers:
Ensemble Intercontemporain, various conductors
Piia Komsi, soprano