National identity and colonial modernity in gagok: Korean art songs of the Japanese colonial period

Gagok (Korean art song) became one of Korea’s most popular music genres from the 1920s. In the 1980s, however, the genre was criticized as a mere imitation of foreign and outdated music. This criticism motivated many composers to create a more indigenous vocal music, but they simultaneously depreciated the efforts of past composers for their superficial reception of Western formats during the Japanese colonial period. Many Korean musicians in the 1930s studied abroad, mainly in Japan and the United States, where they were exposed to and absorbed traits from German Lied, Italian art song, American hymns and Japanese popular song, all of which appealed to educated Koreans at the time. Such elements were transformed in accordance with Korean aesthetic preferences. This chapter provides an overview of specific aspects of gagok composition in the 1930s and 1940s - the use of traditional Korean musical elements, the fixed poetic form sijo and Korean sentiment and lyricism - and stresses composers’ search for Korean national identity and modernity under the historical and social circumstances of Japanese occupation.