Fanfare & Memorial

After the "Dance Fantasy" Muak (1978), Yun has emphasized the contrast between the European and the East Asian character for a second time in Fanfare & Memorial, composed in in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Münster Symphony Orchestra. The title may be understood literally. The Fanfare, initially played by the trumpets, appears in a theme of 4 1/2 measures. Yun understands it as an apocalyptic warning which anticipates the idea of the first movement of his Symphony I (1982/83). Memorial, a tribute to the long tradition of the orchestra, is characterized through the voice of the harp, at times accompanied by flute and solo-oboe. Its musical discourse is not constructed in the European style and has hardly as clear an outline as the rather powerful and straightforward, direct and firm Fanfare. But it reminds, in a far-eastern flow, distant and soft, the memory of days gone by and visions of times to come. The first and the third part of Fanfare & Memorial each contain three tutti and two solo-passages; the middle part is soloistic. The work may be regarded as a disguised harp concerto as well as a symphony-movement with harp-obbligato.

Throughout the whole composition, the firmness of the Fanfare-theme is subverted, overwhelmed and dissolved by the gentle East-Asian character. Fragments of this theme, however, remain perceptible even in the ceremonial atmosphere. As the use of an intrinsic theme is highly unusual in Yun's music, the initial Fanfare-theme is printed out here:



Immediately after the clearly defined melodic line in the opening, the lower woodwinds and strings, trombones, tuba and horns develop shapeless, dark opposing forces. In the ensuing measures, the upper strings pick up the theme in an octave-unison which the woodwinds continue. Again the brass instruments reply in amorphous vagueness, followed by the strings, dispersed in agitation.

In an evolving variation, the theme is again presented by the woodwinds. Then it reappears in the first solo, in long sustained tones of the flute, later in the strings. In the second tutti, fragments of the theme played by the strings are opposed by interfering chords of the brass. It disappears in the second solo, giving way to an homage to Asian remoteness which leads into the third tutti. There, a harp interjection changes the movement's character once more from calm to agitated.

The lyrical middle part presents harp-, oboe- and flute-solos. Parallel thirds in the flute and oboe, intensified by muted horns, trumpets and lower woodwinds, form the transition to the third part in an appealing upward motion.

The third part starts off with an agitated tutti. In the first solo, the harp is no longer employed soloistically, but now integrated into the symphonic process. In the second tutti, the Fanfare-theme reappears in the trumpets; the second solo, again expression of the Yin-Yang-balance, leads to the harp cadenza. The third tutti displays one more time the association of proximity and remoteness characteristic for this festive music, which seems to preserve vague memories of the Fanfare's warning call (in the brass), blended into East-Asian chant (in the strings) – just as the term Memorial, strictly speaking, contains both elements, remembrance and monition.
Walter-Wolfgang Sparrer (1987; translation by W. Vieweg/L. Randolph)