Gagok Lyrical Songs

Kim Wol-ha died 20 years ago. She was one of the last musicians who had trained in the most prestigious of Korea's lyric song traditions, gagok, before Korea's division in 1945. Gagok songs have been performed in their current form since the 18th century, but as a genre have origins dating back at least to the 14th. A fixed form is characteristic, tying poetry to a single melodic frame: in total there are only 26 surviving songs for male voices and 15 for female. The ten tracks here are taken from the Bible of the genre, a set of six albums released by the National Gugak Center in Seoul in the mid-1980s, on which Kim is accompanied by the most senior, prestigious instrumentalists.

An excellent introduction is given in the liner notes by the current head of research at the National Gugak Center, Song Ji-won. Gagok singing is slow and lugubrious, formal and classical, and adds falsetto passages to vocal writing pitched over several octaves. It may be an acquired taste, but aficionados will be more than happy with this Ocora release; those approaching the gagok genre for the first time will soon realise they have found a treasure.