Welcome to “Sounds of Korea” on KBS WORLD Radio. This traditional music program invites you to deepen your understanding about Korean traditional music by taking a closer look at various music-related topics every week. Today’s topic is songs about beautiful nature. I’m your host ________. Please stay tuned, I’ll be back shortly.  

Many people complain of feeling particularly drowsy and fatigued in the spring. This condition called chungonjeung춘곤증 or spring fatigue in Korea is caused by the human body not adjusting to the spring environment fast enough. Since the sun rises earlier and sets later in the spring, one gets to stay active longer and sleep less, which eventually leads to lethargy during the day. A short nap at a time like that would be so sweet. “Chunmyeongok춘면곡” is a song that describes how one feels when woken up from a sweet springtime nap.

I opened the bamboo window after waking up from a spring nap.

The splendid flowers in the field seem to hold back the butterflies,

And the willow trees along the river sway in the wind to emit a subtle scent.

Today’s episode begins with “Chunmyeongok” replete with the sentiments of a lazy afternoon. This song is from the original soundtrack of Korean historical movie “Untold Scandal.” 

Chunmyeongok/ From “Untold Scandal” OST

Gasa가사, along with gagok가곡 and sijo시조, refers to a group of songs that belongs to jeongga정가, a genre of Korean traditional vocal music enjoyed by the elites of the Joseon Dynasty. Unlike folksongs enjoyed by the common people, jeongga is characterized by its slow but elegant singing style. While gagok and sijo songs use short poems for their lyrics, gasa songs are typically longer since Chinese poems are added to supplement Korean poems and they have refrains like folksongs. Only twelve gasa songs have been preserved to this day and most of them are about the gentlemen’s appreciation for the arts. The part about waking up from an afternoon nap and looking out to the yard in “Chunmyeongok” was just an introduction to the song. It continues on to describe a gentleman dressing up in a nice outfit to visit a beautiful lady. Coming up next is “Jukjisa죽지사,” one of the twelve gasa songs that have survived to this day. It starts with a Chinese poem that goes as follows. 

The sky and the earth do no age and the moon always rises.

But lonely hopelessness has lasted for a hundred years. 

Don’t these words evoke a feeling of deep resentment? This is a sentiment of a man in exile, an innocent man framed for something he didn’t do, who cannot dare blame the king he once served but merely comforts himself by believing that everything will turn out fine. We’ll play you a new arrangement of “Jukjisa” entitled “Nagwonga낙원가,” which means the song of paradise. It’s sung by Park Jin-hee.

Nagwonga/ Sung by Park Jin-hee

Gagok songs in the jeongga genre are typically sung to the accompaniment of several instruments such as gayageum, geomungo, daegeum haegeum, piri and janggu. In contrast, sijo and gasa songs are accompanied by only one or two wind instruments. That indicates that gasa and sijo songs appealed more to the general audience although gagok, sijo and gasa songs were all classified as jeongga pieces usually reserved for the learned upper class with more time and money to enjoy the arts. 

Just like “Nagwonga” we just heard, “Sangsabyeolgok상사별곡” to be played shortly is a new modern arrangement of the original version. “Sangsabyeolgok” is a song about the loneliness one feels after parting with the loved one. The modern version features the ajaeng아쟁, a gayageum-like string instrument, and the piri to emphasize the sadness of a broken heart. This week’s Sounds of Korea will conclude with young gugak band ModernGagok singing “Sangsabyeolgok.”

Sangsabyeolgok/ Sung by ModernGagok