0515메모

대금산조

The sanjo was born at the end of the 19th century as a suite for a solo instrument and a drum. More than any other genre, it embodies the Korean traditional music of today, probably because of its contemporary sounds and its stounding virtuosity.
The sanjo draws on several heritages: the improvised shamanistic music sinawi, the one-actor opera pansori, the aristocratic chamber music pungnyu. The piece, in several parts, is performed as an impromptu: at first calm and meditative, the playing as the tempo is getting faster, is more tensed and brilliant so that it brings a feeling of jubilation.
Created originally for the zither gayageum, the sanjo was soon adopted by several masters on various Korean instruments. The daegeum transverse bamboo flute renders perfectly the constrasted moods of the sanjo with its crisp and clear tones which can turn dark and windy or sound like a shawm thanks to a sympathetic vibrating membrane.
Ahn Sung-woo, born in Paju in 1961, is one of the best daegeum players of his generation. He performs here Seo Yong-seok's daegeum sanjo characterized by audacious playing and apparent freedom. He is accompanied by Jo Yong-bok on the janggu drum.
This album features also a solo improvisation and variations on a work song and on shamanistic music accompanied by the master of the ajaeng bowed zither, Kim Young-gil.

The daegeum (also spelled taegum, daegum or taegŭm) is a large bamboo transverse flute used in traditional Korean music. It has a buzzing membrane that gives it a special timbre. It is used in court, aristocratic, and folk music, as well as in contemporary classical music, popular music, and film scores.

Smaller flutes in the same family include the junggeum (Korean: 중금; Hanja: 中笒) and sogeum (Korean: 소금; Hanja: 小笒), neither of which today have a buzzing membrane. The three together are known as samjuk (Korean: 삼죽; Hanja: 三竹; literally "three bamboo"), as the three primary flutes of the Silla period.^[1]

The solo performance called daegeum sanjo was pronounced an Important Intangible Cultural Properties of Korea by the Cultural Heritage Administration of South Korea in 1971.^[2]