|
 In
a continuing 4-part series we bring you excerpts from Sabah-born
scholar Charmaine Blythe Siagian's dissertation prepared
for her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Oklahoma.
For her research Siagian has chosen to study 7 Malaysian and
Indonesian composers and their piano music. This concluding
part takes a brief look at her survey of Indonesian composers
and their piano works.
< back to part
3
In Chapter IV of Charmaine
B Siagian's dissertation the focus shifts to Indonesia, whose
musical scene has always been a subject of awe for Malaysians,
even if only in secret. This respect is well-deserved, as shown
by Siagian's extensive coverage of three important Indonesian
composers. Several other notable figures such as Tony Prabowo
were not included only because they had not managed to get back
to Siagian in time, says the author. In this final part only
a brief overview will be extracted from the work, due to it's
length and scope.
Indonesia's contemporary
music scene has been slowly brewing for over the past decades.
As in Malaysia, information about the music scene is scattered
and sporadic, but no less distinguished. This chapter offers
an excellent introduction to the music scene of our southerly
neighbour and helps to put some perspective into the development
of art music in South East Asia.
Selected Solo Piano Works
By Contemporary Malaysian And Indonesian Composers From 1979
to 2007: An Introduction
By Charmaine Blythe Siagian
University Of Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma, USA
2007
CHAPTER IV
Selected Solo Piano Works from
Contemporary Indonesian Composers
|
Indonesian composers
are less known than performers. This could be explained
by the "overall notion that individual composers
are not very common in Indonesia because [it is assumed
that] the collective is still the main issue in art production,"
- Dieter Mack, CD
Notes to "Asia Piano Avantgarde Indonesia"
|
The rich textures and mystical sounds of the gamelan put Indonesian
music on the map at the Parisian World Expo held in 1889. However,
well over a century has passed and still the country is by and
large associated with gamelan and traditional music. This is
not wrong or misleading-especially because Indonesians are known
for being extremely proud for their traditions and heritage-but
the country's contemporary composers and musicians often have
to make more than a considerable effort for recognition.
According to Dieter Mack, renowned musicologist and professor
of composition at Musikhochschule Lübeck in Germany [and
writer of the CD notes to "Asia Piano Avantgarde Indonesia"],
"Normally people believe that these traditional musics
do not change. The opposite is the case, and there is a quite
significant contemporary music scene [in Indonesia]. . . ."
Indonesia has produced classical musicians of international
renown such as Jahja Ling, music director of the San Diego Symphony
Orchestra, former resident conductor for the Cleveland Orchestra
and current conductor laureate for the Florida Orchestra, and
Eduardus Halim, Horowitz's last student, currently on the artist
faculty at New York University. Other musicians receiving recent
recognition include pianist and recording artist Esther Budiardjo,
the first-prize winner of the William Kapell International Piano
Competition in 1996, Ayke Agus, violinist and close confidante
of Jascha Heifetz (and author of Heifetz As I Knew Him, published
in 2001), and concert pianist Ananda Sukarlan, currently based
in Spain and featured in this study.
Indonesian composers are less known than performers. This could
be explained by the "overall notion that individual composers
are not very common in Indonesia because [it is assumed that]
the collective is still the main issue in art production,"
says Mack. Franki Raden's 2001 doctoral dissertation and subsequent
Grove entries detailing the lives and careers of over thirty
Indonesian composers- and the bourgeoning contemporary music
scene-is a considerable step in awareness in introducing the
musicians of Indonesia to the world.
Additional Published Composers from Indonesia
Three important contemporary composers with pieces that have
been published, recorded, or premiered responded to the request
to participate in this study. They are Michael Asmara,
Slamet Abdul Sjukur, and Ananda Sukarlan. However,
a few other important composers with published music initially
contacted were not able to follow through. This included pioneer
composer Amir Pasaribu, who this year turns ninety-two. Pasaribu
(born 1915) was the first Indonesian to study classical music
abroad, studying piano and cello at the Musashino School in
Japan.
After the Japanese occupation, he was one of the first to publish
his own music. A partial listing of his piano music and articles
he has written can be found at http://people.zeelandnet.nl/gtpasaribu,
a website devoted to his music. Pasaribu is credited with the
initial awakening of interest in classical music to the first
generation of Indonesian musicians.
Pianist and composer Trisutji Kamal (born 1936) is another
published composer who deserves mention. Unlike many of her
contemporaries, her piano collections Sunda Seascapes, Indonesian
Folk Melodies, and Younger Years (Selected Compositions) are
all inspired and heavily influenced by lyrical folk melodies
and highlight the diversity of Indonesia. Kamal's recent piano
collections have been recorded and championed by pianist Ananda
Sukarlan. More information on Kamal can be found on her website
at www.geocities.com/trisutji.
Composer Paul Gutama Soegijo (born 1934) left Indonesia to
study in Amsterdam in the 1950s and later became moderately
successful in Germany, where he still lives.6 In 1968 Soegijo
published a piano piece Klavierstudie with Bote and Bock: the
piece is still in print as of this writing.
Asia Music Avantgarde Indonesia: A Recording
 Three
of the selected pieces featured in this chapter have been performed
and recorded by pianist Stephen Schleiermacher, a specialist
in contemporary repertoire.
The CD, Asia Music Avantgarde Indonesia, features seven
piano works by contemporary Indonesian composers, with excellent
liner notes by Dieter Mack. The music may perhaps be described
as ponderous and intelligent rather than virtuosic and exciting,
so it is not surprising that there is a tinge of puzzlement
in the reviews, though they also seem receptive. Its analysis
in Fanfare magazine begins:
I hope I may be excused for never having heard this music
before, nor having heard of any of these composers. This collection
is pretty far from the beaten track . . . . Our Western sense
of Indonesian music begins and ends with the gamelan, where
the act of composition is traditionally collective rather than
individual, but that is a limiting notion: there are composers
in Indonesia, same as everywhere else, and the sound of their
music is not necessarily location specific . . . . These works
are not simply exotica. It seems to me that an Asian sensibility
comes through most strongly in the feeling of time suspended;
of musical motifs growing organically at their own pace, undisturbed
by human concerns.
Records International Catalog is a website that touts itself
as a place where unusual music and recordings can be found.
Their reviewer writes: The five Indonesian composers here have
all had thorough exposure and training in Western contemporary
music, but all retain strong ties to their native culture as
well. However, the piano is a Western instrument, so unsurprisingly
it is to the Western avantgarde piano schools that these works
are most obviously connected. . . . The general impression given
by this selection is that when Indonesian composers remove themselves
from the traditional collective approach to indigenous Indonesian
music, they are most drawn to sonorous pointillism and reductivism
in the Scelsi-Feldman axis. Interesting.
...[end of excerpt]
Siagian goes on to examine at length
the work of Slamet Abdul Sjukur, Ananda Sukarlan and Michael
Asmara, each of whom "represent different areas of maturity
- Sjukur was born in the 1930s, Asmara in the 1950s, and Sukarlan
in the late 1960s." Sjukur may be referred to as the "father"
of Indonesian contemporary music, and his Svara (1979)
is discussed with considerable detail. it is a work that bears
strong Indonesian roots in its minimalist materials.
Slamet Abdul Sjukur
[excerpt] ... Sjukur is a professor and composer living in
Jakarta, Indonesia and is the only composer in this study with
his own entry in the New Grove Dictionary. Born 1935 in Surabaya,
Indonesia, he has led an extraordinary and interesting life,
admitting that to support his career as a composer he had to
"do nearly everything." ...
Sjukur was a founding member of several important music societies
that sought to promote the serious study of music in Indonesia.
They include the Pertemuan Musik Surabaya, the Yayasan Musik
Laras, and the Assosiasi Komponis Indonesia. He was also the
head of the music committee of the Jakarta Arts Council, and
this in particular produced diverse learning opportunities for
local musicians. Sjukur invited numerous performers and composers
to Indonesia for concerts, lectures, and workshops, and also
organized the first festival of contemporary French music in
Southeast Asia.
Sjukur produced weekly contemporary music programs for the
Radio Suara Surabaya (1991-97), and he gave a lecture series
that was broadcast on the station Wereld Omroep in the Netherlands
(1987). ...[end of excerpt]
First page from Slamet Abd Sjukur's Svara
Michael Asmara
[excerpt] ... Michael Asmara, currently a resident of both
Indonesia and Japan, was born in 1956 in Jakarta, Indonesia,
to a large extended family. ...
Asmara is a full-time composer and regularly receives commissions
for his works. As influences, he lists Ki Warsitodipuro, Philip
Corner, Toru Takemitsu, and Pierre Boulez. "I was inspired
by their ideas and philosophies," he says, "and [by]
the way they treat sounds and silences and make it their own."
He considers himself a Javanese-Indonesian on one side and an
international citizen on the other, and says that he is as influenced
by his own culture as the new cultures he comes in contact with.
---His diverse oeuvre includes several published piano works
as well as compositions for assorted ensembles. His Symphony
No. 1 is written for strings, horns, winds, percussion, and
gamelan. He has also written a quartet for guitar, flute and
two genders (traditional Indonesian instrument). Homecoming
is written for thirteen readers and thirteen pitched instruments;
the poem is by Wistawa Saymborska. The Resistance of Substance
includes radio, siren, "noises," percussion, actors,
tenor, and signal lights. All the pieces mentioned above can
be purchased from the American Gamelan Institute website (www.gamelan.org).
[Dieter] Mack writes:
With intensive individual studies and a lot of foreign contacts,
he was able to develop a remarkable individuality as a composer.
. . . In his compositions for gamelan ensemble, Michael Asmara
was able to create a quite new and unique symphonic-style which
seems to be quite pathleading, but unfortunately is almost unknown
in his own country.
A Little Piece for Pianoforte (2000) inspired by the gamelan
sekatan of Yogyakarta. A Piece for Piano No. X (2001) This is
slightly longer than A Little Piece (lasting approximately four
to five minutes), and even more dissonant, therefore entailing
more concentration and listening effort.
...[end of excerpt]
Ananda Sukarlan
excerpt] ...Sukarlan (born 1968 in Jakarta, Indonesia) has
in fact premiered more than 300 works by leading contemporary
composers around the world and is better known in the classical
world as a pianist and recording artist than as a composer.
He was the first Indonesian pianist to be included in The International
Who's Who in Music. He is also listed in the Indonesian Record
Museum (MURI) as the Indonesian pianist who has performed in
the most number of countries. Composer Michael Tippett enthused:
. . . I was taken aback by the freshness and vitality of
the playing. Mr. Sukarlan's interpretation [of Tippett's First
Sonata] gave it a strength and poetry that elevated it onto
a new plane. Technically, his playing was impeccable and his
tone-control and variety of colour quite admirable.
Sukarlan is currently a resident of Spain and is a strong advocate
for new Spanish music ... As a composer, Sukarlan's output is
still relatively modest. It includes twenty songs for diverse
voices and piano based on poems by Walt Whitman, William Blake,
and Indonesian poets such as Ilham Malayu and Sapardi Djoko
Damono. [Sukarlan has also recently written artsongs to texts
by Goenawan Mohamad - Editor]
...Sukarlan appears to be a strong advocate for peace. After
the horrific Bali bombings in 2002, he felt compelled to protest
against these repeated acts of violence. He commissioned works
from composers from countries around the world, including Australia,
Austria, France, New Zealand, Scotland, Spain, Japan, Malaysia,55
Mexico, and Italy, and he performed in concerts in memory of
the victims in Bali and in Sydney. Sukarlan believed the concerts
"express our demand to governments all over the world to
fight against terrorism" ...
Sukarlan is currently working on a piano concerto tentatively
titled "Mahabharatha."
Related Links:
20 Mar 2008
|
