Isang Yun

Isang Yun (Duk San, Tongyong, now Chung Mu, 17 September 1917 - Berlin, 3 November 1995) was a composer of Korean origin who spent much of his career in Germany. The son of the poet Yun Ki Hyon, he began composing at the age of fourteen and studied at the Osaka Conservatory and, in Tokyo, with Ikenouchi. His life was shaped by the Japanese occupation of Korea and by the politics of the Cold War, two factors that determined both the course of his career and his musical themes.

During the Second World War he took part in clandestine activities against the Japanese, was imprisoned in 1943 and remained in hiding until the liberation. In 1945 he helped rebuild Korean cultural life and, from 1946, taught music in Tongyong, Busan and, after the Korean War, in Seoul. Thanks to a municipal prize from Seoul in 1955, he travelled to Europe to complete his training: he studied with Pierre Revel at the Paris Conservatoire and, in Berlin, with Boris Blacher, Josef Rufer and Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling. He also attended several summer courses in Darmstadt. After a period in Krefeld, Freiburg and Cologne, he returned to Berlin in 1964 at the invitation of the Ford Foundation.

In 1967 he was kidnapped in West Germany and taken to Seoul by the regime of Park Chung-hee, which accused him of communism and imprisoned him. International pressure secured his release two years later, and he returned to Berlin, where he received an amnesty in 1970. He taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Hanover and, from 1970, at the one in Berlin. His distinctions include the Kiel Culture Prize, the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and several medals from German academies and cultural institutions.

His fundamental aim was to develop Korean music through Western means, combining the performance practices of East Asia with European instruments. His works of 1959 and 1960 follow the twelve-tone serialism associated with Darmstadt, but from 1961 a more personal style emerged, visible in pieces such as Loyang or Réak. After 1964 he employed several melodic lines, which he called "Haupttöne", and the opposition of elements inspired by Taoism, the balance between yin and yang, shaped his sonic language. His legacy is that of a creator who sought to build bridges between Asian traditions and the European avant-garde, and his ideas on Korean unification, democracy and peace are reflected in his output after 1980.