Painting, Poetry & Music in Concert
By Lee Hyo-won
Staff Reporter
Classical music aficionados can look forward to concerts that are not only pleasing to the ear but visually and intellectually stimulating as well.
Painting & Music
Gustav Klimt's love for music is manifest in the ``Beethovenfries,'' inspired by Beethoven's ``Chorale'' Symphony. To revive this spirit, Hwaum Project is playing original compositions inspired by the Austrian artist's paintings ― most appropriately, inside the halls of the ongoing Klimt exhibition at Hangaram Art Museum, Seoul Arts Center, southern Seoul.
Beginning today, two concerts featuring different programs will take place every Wednesday through May 13. At 11 a.m., the chamber group will perform Kim Sung-ki's ``Monologue for Viola Solo,'' which was inspired by Klimt's pastoral ``After the Rain (Garden With Chickens in St. Agatha).'' Also included in the morning performances are works by Klimt's contemporaries Mahler and Schonberg.
At 6 p.m., concert-gallerygoers can tune into Im Ji-sun's ``Secret of Golden Color: Klimt's Confession,'' which is based on Klimt's gold-encrusted masterpiece ``Judith I.'' Also included in the evening concerts are works by Mahler and Beethoven. On April 29, there will be no morning performance. Tickets, which include admissions to the art exhibition, cost 30,000 won.
Moving Pictures & Music
The Grand Theater of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, in downtown Seoul, houses Asia's largest pipe organ. The grand 8,000-pipe instrument will come to life with ``Moving Pictures at an Exhibition.''
Pipe organist Kim Hee-sung will play Mussorgsky's timeless piece ``Pictures at an Exhibition'' (transcribed for the pipe organ by Jean Guillou) to moving screen images of Lee Jong-mok's paintings by video art professor Ha Dong-hwan.
While Lee's ink paintings feature a minimal color palette like traditional calligraphy works, ``Thousand Moons'' (2007) and others portray different moods, from somber to cheerful, that are found in Mussorgsky's Romantic music.
The program also includes Bach's ``Toccatta and Fugue'' in D Minor, BWV 565, Widor's Symphony No. 6 in G Minor, Op. 42 and Franck's ``Fantasy'' in C Major. Tickets cost from 20,000 won to 50,000 won.
Poetry & Music
The following evening, at the Sejong Center's Sejong Chamber Hall, Hwang Dong-gyu's poetry will take a melodious form through the musical vision of Kang Unsu.
Composer Kang fell in love with a poem a friend sent her while studying in Germany in the 1980s. She later learned it was ``Siwol,'' by Hwang, and composed a melody for it. Kang began to compose other works for Hwang's poetry and created 16 pieces of vocal and instrumental music.
This concert features ``Siwol'' (1993) for soprano and the piano, the Korean premiere of ``Liebe Mutti'' (2005) for the clarinet solo and the world premiere of ``Now Your Are a Lover'' (2008) for the baritone, clarinet and piano.
Also included are works featuring traditional Korean instruments such as the ``gayageum'' (12-string zither) and ``daegeum'' (horizontal bamboo flute). Tickets cost from 20,000 won to 30,000 won.
Call (02) 780-5054 for more information about all three concerts.