Shinuh Lee's Chorale Fantasies and Uzong Choe's Piano Preludes

The following treatise is based on content from two separate lecture recitals that the author previously delivered at Florida State University. Followed by performances of the pieces, the first lecture recital featured Shinuh Lee’s Chorale Fantasy No. 2 ‘The Collar’ and Chorale Fantasy No. 3 ‘Alleluia’ while the second lecture focused on selected Piano Preludes by Uzong Choe, which at the time of this writing are still unpublished works. The lectures were developed with two purposes: to introduce composers Shinuh Lee and Uzong Choe and their relatively unknown works to the public and to study their distinct compositional styles and sound philosophies by analyzing the forms and compositional techniques of the pieces presented. Accordingly, both Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the treatise provide accounts of the composers’ biographies, compositional styles, musical influences, and finally analyses of forms and compositional features. The first part of the treatise focuses on Shinuh Lee’s Chorale Fantasy No. 2 ‘The Collar’ and No. 3 ‘Alleluia.’ Each work is based on the poem The Collar and Psalm 117. Following some background information on the poem, the analysis of Chorale Fantasy No. 2 focuses on the relationship of the music to the poem. Sound world of Chorale Fantasy No. 3 ‘Alleluia’ represents religious influences. The second part of the treatise explores selected piano preludes by Uzong Choe. Each prelude was inspired and established by a distinct idea that is discussed in the section. The author focuses on how each musical idea contributes to the development in the prelude. While the two parts of this treatise are not directly connected thematically, the author hopes that the discussion offered in these pages will help spread awareness of and generate more interest in some of the most original 21st century Korean piano works.