Donghoon Shin
Threadsuns

Donghoon Shin once explained that, as a teenager, he always dreamed of becoming a writer. And while the South Korean composer born in 1983 eventually chose music, his love for literature has endured. Whether Georg Trakl, William Butler Yeats, or especially Jorge Luis Borges, many of Shin’s vividly colourful and contrapuntally intricate compositions have been inspired by literary works. This is also true of Threadsuns for viola and orchestra – Shin deliberately refrains from calling it a viola concerto. “Threadsuns” is the English translation of Fadensonnen, one of Paul Celan’s most famous poems from his collection Atemwende. 

In the short poem, which seems to evoke musical associations, there is mention of a “light-tone” and songs yet to be sung, “beyond mankind.” These are motifs Shin has taken up in his new work for viola and orchestra. The composer speaks of “complex emotions” in this context, describing the tone as “sad but not plaintive, lamenting but not wailing, despairing but not without hope.” Shin associates the sombre, melancholic mood of the poem with the key of D flat major and the timbre of the viola. From the contrast of this chord with the distant key of A major, he has developed a melodic and harmonic cell that forms the core of the work. Despite these tonal building blocks, Threadsuns is far removed from traditional harmony – modal, tonal, and atonal elements are balanced to give the work its distinctive character.

The two-movement piece follows the classical sonata form, with the first movement corresponding to the exposition and the second movement, beginning attacca, serving as development and recapitulation. The opening movement begins with an extended, songful viola solo, after which other instruments enter contrapuntally. The main theme then unfolds like an aria. Throughout this movement, the instruction “songlike” recurs frequently, and there are distinctive dialogues, for example between the solo instrument and the contrabassoon. The character shifts only with the introduction of the second theme, marked “Scherzando, graceful but somewhat sarcastic,” as the orchestral texture thickens and waltz-like echoes can be heard within the rapid motion. The second movement opens with a rousing variation of the viola’s introductory solo, initiating the development, which, in classical fashion, reworks materials from the first movement, transforming them in tempo or harmony or contrapuntally elaborating upon them. The recapitulation brings a surprising turn to pure A major, with solo instrument and orchestra suddenly appearing as one. The soloist intones the lyrical main theme in unison with the violins before the piece fades away in quadruple piano, “as though mourning the death of a person,” according to the composer.