Page 246 - Media Coverage Book - 75th Aldeburgh Festival 2024

performance at Aldeburgh this season. Subtitled Ritus des Herzschlags (Rite of
Heartbeat), it is a powerful and dramatic piece, in which Unsuk is drawn to the concept of so
called ‘heartbeat stars’, that have a regular pulsation.

“I’m very interested in science”, she says, “and I was very interested in the different types of
stars. These heartbeat stars have a certain rhythm of changing the brightness, and
immediately I imagined a certain type of rhythm where I could compose a piece with this
idea. The second idea in Alaraph came from Korean traditional music. We have very vivid,
dynamic folk music, and I was always very impressed by its rhythms and melodies, and I
wanted to bring them all into one piece. Lots of percussion instruments will be needed
there!”

In spite of the large percussion section, the piece ends quietly, which if anything heightens
the drama. “The piece is a kind of ritual,” she explains, “and the six percussionists play a
very big role. The sound is moving from left to right and right to left, and at the end of the
piece they repeat the cymbal sound. Then they should stand and show the cymbals, as a
kind of ritual.”

On a much smaller scale, we will hear a group of Chin’s Piano Etudes, in concerts
from Joseph Havlat and Rolf Hind. Talking about the Etudes almost inevitably draws
parallels with Unsuk’s teacher György Ligeti, whose own Etudes for piano have proved
revelatory in the course of the instrument’s recent development. Were they intimidating
when she started to write in the form? “When I studied with Ligeti he had just finished the
first cycle of six etudes, and I was at the premiere of those pieces”, she says. “On the other
hand, I have played the piano since I was four, so it was for me the main instrument. I
certainly got some influence from him in writing piano pieces, but even if he had not written
piano etudes, I would have written my etudes for sure!”