Unsuk Chin

Born: July 14, 1961, Seoul, South Korea

subito con forza

• Composed: 2020
  
• Premiere: September 24, 2020 in Amsterdam by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Klaus Mäkelä conducting
  
• CSO Notable Performances: These are the CSO’s first performances of this work.
• Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani crotales, crash cymbals, gongs, güiro, marimba, snare drums, tam-tam, tambour de Basque, triangle, tubular bells, vibraphone, whip, xylophone, piano, strings
• Duration: approx. 5 minutes

Unsuk Chin, born in 1961 into the family of a Presbyterian minister in Seoul, South Korea, had little formal musical instruction when she was young, but she taught herself piano by playing in her father’s church and composing by copying scores of well-known composers. Chin was admitted as a composition student to Seoul National University on her third try, and there she became familiar with the leading contemporary European composers. A piece of hers was played at the 1984 ISCM World Music Days in Canada, the following year she won an award from the Gaudeamus Foundation in Amsterdam and, in 1985, she received a German government grant to study in Hamburg with György Ligeti. Ligeti’s influence proved decisive in forming her own creative personality. Chin moved to Berlin in 1988 to compose and work at the Electronic Music Studio of the Technical University and has since made that city her home. She began to build her international reputation when Die Troerinnen (“The Trojan Women”) for orchestra and women’s voices was premiered in Bergen in 1990, and she was soon having her works performed and commissioned by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists around the world; her growing acclaim was validated when she received the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition from the University of Louisville in 2004 for her Violin Concerto. Chin’s many other honors include the Arnold Schoenberg Prize, Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award, Wihuri Sibelius Prize, Hamburg Bach Prize, Kravis Prize and Leonie Sonning Music Prize; her Alice in Wonderland was named “World Premiere of the Year” by the German publication Opernwelt (“Opera World”) following its first production in Munich in 2007. Chin’s many residencies include the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Cologne Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, São Paulo Symphony, Melbourne Symphony and NDR Elbphilharmonie. In 2022, she started a five-year tenure as Artistic Director of the Tongyeong International Festival in South Korea and Artistic Directorship of the Weiwuying International Music Festival in Taiwan.

Chin composed subito con forza (“Suddenly, with Power”) in 2020 “on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth,” as she inscribed in the score. The work was premiered on September 24, 2020 in Amsterdam by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and since performed widely; the first United States performance was given by the Minnesota Orchestra in October 2021. The five-minute subito con forza has several references to Beethoven’s music, mostly immediately the stern chords borrowed from the Coriolan Overture that open the work, but British critic Simon Cummings wrote that “the piece is less about quotation than celebrating, and mirroring, the indomitable attitude of one of music’s truly great innovators. Chin has sought to embody one of the key defining characteristics of Beethoven’s music: the restless, relentless fire and energy that propels his music with seemingly unstoppable force. This is articulated, as the title implies, via a connected sequence of sudden shifts.” Chin confirmed Cummings’ description: “What particularly appeals to me are the enormous contrasts: from volcanic eruptions to extreme serenity.”

— Dr. Richard E. Rodda