Kim Dal-sung

Kim Dal-sung (also Kim Dal-seong, 김달성) was born on 6 June 1921 in Hamhung (North Korea). He completed his studies at Hamhung Normal School and subsequently worked as a teacher. 
After relocating to South Korea in 1946, he studied composition at Seoul National University College of Music, graduating in 1951. In the 1950s he continued his training in Vienna, where he studied composition and modern music at the Vienna Conservatory, completing his studies in 1961.
After returning to Korea, Kim Dal-sung taught at Hanyang University and Seoul National University before joining Dankook University, where he later served as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. He also held administrative and professional positions as a board member of the Korean Music Association and as Vice President of the Korean Society of Musicology.
Alongside his academic and institutional work, Kim was active as a composer, focusing especially on art songs based on Korean poetry, including texts by Kim So-wol, Kim Young-rang, Yun Dong-ju, and Seo Jeong-ju. From 1958 onward he published songs incorporating twelve-tone and serial techniques, influenced by his studies in Vienna and the ideas of Josef Matthias Hauer. In 1969, two evenings of the International Music Festival were dedicated to his opera Jamyung-Ko.
His output includes chamber works such as a Piano Trio (1958), a Quintet for winds and strings (1961), a String Quartet (1961), and Noudition for winds, strings, and percussion (1962), as well as orchestral and instrumental works including Music for Nine Instruments (1965) and Six Musical Dramas for Piano (1968). His piano music includes Four Fantasies and a Piano Sonata (both 1961). His vocal works comprise song cycles such as Später (24 songs, 1962), Before Love Passes Away (12 songs), and Two Songs (1966). He also composed operas including Jamyeonggo (1961; revised 1985) and Okpo Changa (1961), the cantata Hymn to the South Sea (1981), and several works for Korean traditional instruments, including Dong (1972), Manbosangyeon (1979), and Chuyasang (1986). His publications include Harmony, Studies on the Twelve-Tone Technique, Composition Techniques, and Understanding 20th-Century Music, as well as several art song collections published between 1958 and 1981.
He received the Samil Cultural Award and the Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit. 
Kim Dal-sung died on 5 December 2010.

String quartet

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the String quartet No.1 by Kim Dal-sung. The work was composed in 1962, shortly after his return from Vienna to Seoul.