ABSTRACT
Hwang Byungki had been playing the kayagŭm for over ten years before he started to compose, and he has continued to perform traditional kugak as well as his own compositions professionally throughout his career. Indeed, his expertise in performance has profoundly affected his approach to composition, enabling him to write music that lies naturally under the hand and effectively exploits the capabilities of the kayagŭm, whereas most ch’angjak kugak composers have had to consult performers for advice on writing idiomatically for kugak instruments (Lee Chaesuk 2008b: 49–50; Kim Hee-sun 2008b: 83). While Hwang has learned to perform various forms of traditional Korean music, the genre that has provided the mainstay of his repertory and the principal foundation for his compositional techniques is sanjo, a form of extended instrumental solo with drum accompaniment. Hwang has called sanjo “the highest form of Korean music aesthetics” (interview in Willoughby 2009: 103), and has expounded its aesthetics in a number of publications (e.g. 1974b; 2003; 2010b) as well as teaching and performing it regularly for over fifty years. An understanding of sanjo is essential to an understanding of Hwang’s music, for it allows us to see how he has both maintained and expanded the musical resources of the traditional genre.
