The Black-Haired Tchaikovsky

Forgotten at Home, Famous Abroad (II)

Interview by Jeong Jiyeon.

This article is the second in a three-part series designed to shed light on the life of a musician born in Gwangju who has been forgotten in his hometown – a Korean who migrated abroad and got caught up in the turbulent history of post-WWII Korea. His life was reconstructed through an interview with his relative, Mr. Jeong Heon-ki. (The first part of this series appeared in the October 2020 issue of the Gwangju News.  — Ed.

Gwangju News (GN): Jeong Chu was well known to people by his nickname “The Black-Haired Tchaikovsky.” We are curious to know, what his life in Russia was like.
Jeong Heon-ki: It is said that Tchaikovsky, the composer we all know very well, originally had only one student. Naturally, the student also mentored only one protégé. In this way, there were only three direct students descending from Tchaikovsky, including Jeong Chu, and after him there were no more direct students. The Moscow Conservatory in Russia where Jeong Chu graduated in the 1950s was in itself a place of great prestige since, at the time, rather than in Western Europe, classical music had its renaissance in Russia. Some of history’s most renowned composers to this very day, such as Rachmaninoff and Khachaturian, attended the Conservatory at that time. The pride Jeong Chu felt due to this was such that he did not want to be compared to any other Korean composer of his time.

GN: Could you please tell us more about Jeong Chu’s major achievements as a composer?
Jeong Heon-ki: If I talk about his musical achievements, I must mention that he was the first person ever to graduate from the Moscow Conservatory with a perfect score of 5.5. At that time, the examiner was none other than Khachaturian himself, upon which Jeong Chu’s mentor exclaimed, “Are you aware what you’ve done by getting a perfect score from Khachaturian?” From that time on, Jeong Chu was known by the nickname “The Black-Haired Tchaikovsky.” It is said that at the time, many Russian composers went to the U.S. and Europe to seek asylum, while Jeong Chu was proclaimed a next-generation composer who would lead the world of Russian classical music from that moment on. Furthermore, in 1961, at the site of the first manned space launch of Yuri Gagarin, Jeong Chu performed his compositions on the piano. He was a very highly recognized musician of his time.
GN: He was an outstanding person. However, why do you think that a composer of such reputation in his time is not as well-known as he used to be?
Jeong Heon-ki: After Jeong Chu’s death, we put a lot of effort into re-evaluating his work by organizing his publications and musical scores and sending out his music again to those in the classical music world. However, it seems to me that his work cannot be highly regarded in the modern classical music world, as his musical pieces were those that perfectly suited the Russian classical music tendencies of the age. At the time, the trend of incorporating local elements into classical music was popular in Russia, and Jeong Chu planted many elements of Korean music in his works through writing symphonies in Korean traditional musical scales or using the daegum (대금), a traditional Korean flute-like instrument made of bamboo, instead of a Western flute. It is a real pity that such work nowadays does not get further evaluation beyond that of “musical trends that were once popular.”

Note: The trend on the Russian classical music scene in Jeong Chu’s time was socialist realism. This meant that in order to promote the communist system, art forms relied on the realistic expression favored by the general public. Socialist realism’s main characteristic is to idolize the system and its leaders, and to paint the present and the future in an optimistic light. It resulted in many competent artists in Russia choosing asylum elsewhere. (To be continued next issue.)

The Interviewer

Jeong Jiyeon studied piano at university in Seoul and has now returned to her hometown of Gwangju where she works as a coordinator at the Gwangju International Center.