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https://scmp.com/lifestyle/k-pop/article/3187801/bts-songs-and-classical-music-merge-suite-army-composers-ode-k-pop
Lifestyle/ K-Pop

BTS songs and classical music merge in Suite for Army, a composer’s ode to the K-pop boy band

  • When Henry Cheng set out to discover why BTS are so popular, he didn’t expect to fall in love with them himself and write a 15-minute piece dedicated to them
  • ‘Suite for Army’ draws on the band’s hit songs and classical greats such as Bach, Chopin and Wagner. A work focusing solely on Beethoven is in progress
BTS perform Butter at the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, the US, on April 3, 2022. A classical composer has written an ode to the band drawing on their hit songs and classical greats such as Bach and Wagner. Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

When he started listening to BTS’s music during the Covid-19 pandemic, Henry Cheng didn’t expect to end up writing a 15-minute-long suite of classical music based on it.

But the composer-conductor fell in love with the K-pop boy band while attempting to discover why so many people love their music. The result is Suite for Army, which infuses classical greats with BTS hits and B-sides.

The work premiered at an exhibition titled “Beyond the Scene” at the Total Museum in Seoul, South Korea, on July 13. The exhibition tied into another event, “BTS: The Third Global Interdisciplinary Conference”, a gathering of BTS fans and experts, also held that month.

Cheng, who is the artistic director of the Klangkraft Orchestra in Duisburg, Germany, began contemplating BTS’s musical impact after his wife, art curator Joanne Kim, became involved with the 2020 art project Connect, BTS, spurring Cheng’s interest in their musical messages and philosophy.

BTS perform Butter at the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, the US, on April 3, 2022. Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
BTS perform Butter at the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, the US, on April 3, 2022. Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

When orchestral performances came to a halt because of the coronavirus, Cheng began to analyse BTS’s work and their impact from the perspective of his classical background.

“I kind of just didn’t really understand,” Cheng says. “BTS is a boy band, a K-pop boy band, so all the stereotypes of my classical music mind came into play. I said, ‘Well, what does it mean? What does it mean for a boy band to have a philosophy?’

“And so throughout Covid, I ended up analysing every single one of their pieces like one would a Beethoven symphony, which was kind of fun. And it became a bit of an obsession.”

Starting from their 2013 debut single No More Dream, it quickly hit Cheng that BTS were doing something totally different than the stereotypes he held.

“I came in as a complete sceptic but I said, ‘Well, if I’m going to learn about BTS, I should start from the very first song.’ No More Dream was quite fascinating because, and maybe the English translation was missing some nuances, but if I remember correctly, it was saying, ‘Well, you don’t need to have a dream.’

“And that’s very strange to me. Because, of course, my generation is like, ‘No, you have to have a dream, and our job is to go and fight for that dream.’ But then the lyrics are that you don’t need to have a dream to be happy. And I thought that was really quite like there’s a release or relief of pressure. And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s really beautiful.’”

Cheng admits that in creating the work, he also hopes to spur BTS fans to think more about classical music. Photo: Courtesy of Henry Cheng
Cheng admits that in creating the work, he also hopes to spur BTS fans to think more about classical music. Photo: Courtesy of Henry Cheng

As he continued to analyse BTS’s work, it became more apparent how BTS had managed to become one of the most popular groups on the planet.

“Regardless of if you like their music, or whatever bias or preconceptions one may have coming in, they’ve obviously reached a generation.”

Cheng says that while classical music is constantly struggling with its place in the modern era, his analysis of BTS’s work gave him hope. He realised that BTS draw on many classical legacies, whether by incorporating classical music into their songs or drawing on its storytelling and thematic elements, and that their fandom, called Army, reacts positively to it.

Cheng is artistic director of the Klangkraft Orchestra in Duisburg, Germany. Photo: Courtesy of Henry Cheng
Cheng is artistic director of the Klangkraft Orchestra in Duisburg, Germany. Photo: Courtesy of Henry Cheng

“Classical music, where it stands in society, it’s always questioning how it will survive. Beethoven [wrote] letters about it,” he says. “But I noticed so many parallels, thematic, musically. They’re ‘quoting’ Chopin and Debussy.

“[Meanwhile] books of philosophy are selling out [as the group has incorporated ideas and themes from famous philosophers in their music]. It’s not such a bad thing if you empower millions to read [Carl] Jung and [Hermann] Hesse, right?”

Cheng’s website describes Suite for Army as 15 minutes of “interwoven movements [that] chronicle the philosophical and personal developments of BTS & Army”. The piece draws on BTS’s music as well as that of Chopin, Bach, Wagner and more.

BTS perform at the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, the US, on April 3, 2022. Photo: Reuters
BTS perform at the Grammy Awards in Las Vegas, the US, on April 3, 2022. Photo: Reuters

Cheng admits that in creating the work, he also hopes to spur BTS fans to think more about classical music.

“From the time of Beethoven, it was like, ‘Oh, culture is degrading all around us. How will classical music survive?’ And here’s BTS propagating the legacy. So the suite was inspired by BTS, but it is for Army, maybe for people to say, ‘Hey, maybe classical music is kind of cool, maybe it’s relevant.’”

Cheng says he has plans for additional BTS-related works that focus solely on Beethoven, with one piece, Beethoven.BTS Opus 1, currently in progress.