Conversation with the poet of "Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu"

Sorry that this is only in Indonesian. Commemorating the 5th anniversary of the tsunami disaster in Sumatra (26 Dec 2004), I paste this article here. This article is important for my personal artistic reasons as well. It has been published in many newspapers in Kalimantan (Borneo) and Sumatra, and it's a conversation between me and the poet of "Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu", Hasan Aspahani. Here it is:

* Ananda Sukarlan Gubah Sajak Hasan Aspahani

Tajam, Pedih, dan Menggerakkan

Bagaimana dan apa jadinya jika sebuah sajak digubah menjadi sebuah komposisi musik klasik, dan dipadukan pula dengan sebuah tarian? Inilah yang akan terjadi pada tanggal 3 Januari 2010 nanti di Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki (TIM).

Ananda Sukarlan akan tampil dalam konser bertajuk Jakarta New Year Concert. Ia akan membawakan komposisi yang ia gubah dari sajak Hasan Aspahani "Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu". Chendra Panatan, koreografer bereputasi internasional, akan menghiasi konser itu dengan tafsir lain atas sajak itu lewat gerak tari.

"Bukan hanya judul sajak itu yang begitu menyentuh. Seluruh isi sajak itu tajam, pedih dan menggerakkan!" kata Ananda Sukarlan.

Kompisi "Bibirku" terdiri dari dua sesi: pertama, trio untuk piano, alto flute dan biola. Dan bagian kedua, untuk soprano dan piano. Masing-masing bisa dimainkan terpisah. Chenra tampil di bagian pertama.

"Kami tak menyebut tariannya sebagai balet. Karena memang bukan balet. Pokoknya, para penari tampil menyuguhkan gerakan yang kompleks dengan ratusan meter kain properti, yang dengan spektakuler mengesankan gerakan ombak. Ananda Sukarlan bermain dengan dukungan Inez Raharjo pada biola, Elizabeth Ashford pada alto flute, dan Aning Katamsi - penyanyi soprano.

Berikut ini petikan wawancara Hasan Aspahani (HAH) di Batam dengan Ananda Sukarlan (AS) yang menetap di Spanyol, ihwal kerjasama kreatif mereka tersebut.

HAH: Kenapa ya Anda tertarik dengan sajak itu? Saya ingat saya kirimi Anda buku "Orgasmaya.." Ada sajak "Bibirku... " di buku itu. Itukah pertama kali Anda membaca sajak tersebut?

AS: Wah, saya lupa dimana pertama kali baca-nya. Mungkin di buku itu, mungkin dari blog sejuta puisi. Yang saya ingat adalah "kortsleting" yang terjadi di badan saya saat saya membacanya. Kadang-kadang kortsleting itu hanya sebentar terus hilang, tapi dalam kasus "BBDB" itu "setruman"-nya cukup lama, bahkan saat saya sedang utak-atik untuk bikin musik, masih saja terasa.

HAH: Kelihatannya susah ya menafsirkan isi sajak itu ke komposisi musik. Apa saja tantangannya?

AS: Yang susah bukan menafsirkannya. Menafsirkannya itu gampang, bahkan saya bisa bilang bahwa proses ini otomatis, karena ada beberapa puisi yg "bunyi" begitu saya baca (puisi-puisi lain adalah seperti "Dalam Sakit"nya SDD, "The young dead soldiers"nya Archibald MacLeish dll). Ini tidak ada hubungannya dgn panjangnya puisi ataupun struktur dll ... ada puisi yang "bunyi" di dalam diri saya, ada yang tidak.

Yang sulit adalah saat menerjemahkan detail-detail bunyi yang saya dengar. Itu berhubungan dengan teknik komposisinya, bukan penafsiran atau inspirasinya.

Ada bunyi-bunyi yang kompleks, dan tugas seorang komponis adalah menuliskannya untuk "mentransfer"-nya ke para musikus yang nanti memainkan not-not balok itu. Nah, bagaimana supaya bunyi itu bisa direproduksi secara akurat, itu yang sulit. Ini berhubungan dengan progresi harmoni-harmoni yang masih jarang (bahkan belum pernah) saya dengar sebelumnya, dan juga warna dari bunyi itu kan harus ditentukan (oleh karena itu saya menggunakan instrumen alto flute, yang belum pernah dipakai di Indonesia. Mungkin ini adalah karya komponis Indonesia pertama yang menggunakan instrumen ini). Juga hal-hal teknis lain misalnya proses repetitif tapi transformatif dari kata "gelombang".

Itu sama seperti kalau sedang dibaca : diulang-ulang tapi tidak sama intonasinya, kan? Nah, intonasi itu diterjemahkan ke dalam progresi harmoni kalau di dalam musik.

HAH: Berapa lama menggarapnya sampai merasa selesai, beres, pokoknya sampai Anda merasa ada sesuatu dari komposisi itu.

AS: Ada dua proses : sketching, dan kemudian proses menuliskan detailnya. Sketching-nya cepet banget : 1-2 jam setelah (dan sambil) baca puisi itu sudah kelar.

Sebetulnya setelah saya sketch, baru saya bikin beneran beberapa bulan setelahnya, karena banyak hal yang tidak bisa saya tinggalkan. Dengan sketching inspirasi itu tertulis dan jadinya tidak akan terlupakan. Sejak permulaan saya merasa bahwa ini bukan karya yang kecil (bukan hanya dari segi durasi, tapi juga dari kedalaman & kompleksitas ekspresinya).

Saya selalu bawa kertas kemana-mana, karena inspirasi kadang-kadang terjadi pada saat yang tidak tepat, dan kalau tidak saya tulis (walaupun hanya secara garis besar) biasanya akan lupa. Nah, penulisan detailnya itu saya kerjakan on and off, di tengah kesibukan lain, dan juga karena faktor bahwa karya ini cukup panjang dan arah-arahnya cukup "unpredictable". Makanya saya menganggap karya ini penting dalam daftar karya-karya saya (yang sekarang Alhamdulilah jumlahnya ratusan, dan tidak semua sama "pentingnya" buat saya he he ...) karena ada konsep harmoni baru yang buat saya sendiri merupakan suatu "discovery". Ini penting buat saya sendiri dan perkembangan musik saya.

HAH: Bisa sebutkan beberapa contoh karya anda yang "penting" dan juga yang "tidak penting" bagi perkembangan artistik anda ?

AS: Yang penting adalah "Dalam Sakit" (dari puisi Sapardi Djoko Damono), The Young Dead Soldiers (dari puisi Archibald MacLeish) dan Requiescat (karya instrumental untuk english horn dan string quartet). Karya-karya tersebut buat saya adalah references, atau tonggak-tonggak yang menentukan jalannya nilai-nilai artistik saya selanjutnya. Yang tidak penting misalnya musik saya untuk film "Romeo & Juliet" : itu musik yang --walaupun sekarang menjadi cukup populer di antara banyak sekali pianis yang memainkannya karena melodinya "enak didengar"-- saya ciptakan semata-mata untuk menggambarkan emosi dan latar belakang suatu adegan saja. Juga beberapa lagu-lagu pendek yang saya ciptakan misalnya untuk kado ulang tahun teman-teman, dan sebagainya. Anehnya, seperti kasus film R & J itu, banyak musik saya yang tidak penting buat saya tapi justru yang paling populer ....

HAH: Ada juga tarian nanti ditampilkan bersamaan dengan komposisi itu. Kenapa ada kolaborasi begitu? Bagaimana bisa muncul ide memadukan tari dan musik itu?

AS: Saya bercerita tentang musiknya dan kemudian saya mainkan ke Chendra Panatan , koreografer yg saya paling kagumi di Indonesia dan sering bekerjasama dengan saya.

Sebetulnya proses dia sama saja dengan proses saya dgn sebuah puisi. Kalau saya "mendengar" musik dari puisi itu, dia "melihat goyangan" dari musik saya. Ada musik saya yang "menggoyangnya", ada yang tidak, dan kebetulan "Bibirku" secara visual juga sangat "menonjok". Koreografi itu memakai gesture-gesture dan gerakan yang sangat besar, sehingga tubuh penari butuh semacam "extensions", makanya dia akan memakai kain-kain, efek lampu dan lain-lain. Sampai saat ini sih saya belum melihat koreografinya dia (yang masih juga dalam proses, belum selesai), tapi saya yakin efeknya akan sangat luar biasa, bukan hanya sekedar mencengangkan, tapi juga secara emosional sangat dalam.***

(Not just) Another choral piece (for ITB Choir)

I spent a most memorable afternoon today at Saung Angklung Udjo in Bandung. It's a center for the making and learning the traditional instrument called angklung, made of bamboo. The reason I was there is because ITB Choir has commissioned me to write quite a big (they use the term "monumental"-- I hope I can realize it!) piece for choir and (western) orchestra and an ensemble of angklung, which will be the first piece in the world written for that formation. This piece is meant to mark the inauguration of their ITB International Choral Festival and Competition, where I am also honoured to be invited to serve as a jury member.

I left Saung Udjo with a strange feeling : a mix of enlightenment, happiness and peace (yeah, the place gave you that feeling, especially we watched the sunset in that wondrous, heavenly place) but also full of doubt of what piece would come out of my brain (which sometimes doesn't collaborate happily with me). One thing for sure is that I am not going to change my musical style, and as I always say, I write what I feel I should write. The inauguration will be televised, and attended by thousands of people from all over the (choral) world. Bandung will be the center of choral music during that week starting from end of July 2010. The concert of my piece itself will be on the 29th of July 2010.

I don't have to worry about it for now. I have another mammoth coming very shortly : in about 10 days my second cantata "LIBERTAS", this time reorchestrated and will be performed by more than 100 musicians will be the main course of the Jakarta New Year Concert on the 3rd of January 2010. Plus my new collaborative work with Chendra Panatan : a choreographic work on the tsunami, called "Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu". The music and the choreography turn out to be quite complex (no, not only a cascade of running notes depicting tsunami: it has a love theme, tsunami theme, and then a vocal part sung by Aning Katamsi, based on a poem of the same title by Hasan Aspahani). So, I'll concentrate on that for now. My great friends (and great artists!0 are joining me for this, and I also have the greatest luck to meet new friends with no less talents, such as the 15-year-young violinist prodigy Inez Raharjo and the singers of Paragita from Universitas Indonesia (yeah, they were the ones who commissioned me my "Choral Fantasy", if you remember, but this is the first time that I had the pleasure to work with them. They are F-A(U)-N-T-A-S-T-I-C !

Next week will be a week of basically rehearsing and rehearsing with different people, before we have all the musicians and dancers coming together for the general rehearsal the day before the concert. As you can imagine, New Year for me doesn't mean champagne and big lobsters, since 5 years ago when we did the Jakarta New Year Concert for the first time. Many rains has fallen since then, and it has now grown into a full-blown celebrational event and a trademark for the first Sunday of the year in Indonesia's capital city. Thanks to all of you who've supported us these 5 years!

Happy New Year, and Happy New Ears for Classical Music ! Now, who said that classical music is dying??

Explaining art

Sometimes I receive compliments about my piano recitals that I talk to the public, explaining the music. I don't know if explaining music or arts in general deserves to be congratulated. Perhaps it does, if the one who does it is an academician or intellectual. But not artists, I think.In fact, what I talked during my piano recitals has nothing to do with explaining music. It is like a monologue about other things which is connected to music. I don't have anything to say about my music anymore; I have written all down in the form of musical notes on paper.

I think music expresses those which cannot be expressed thru words. Besides, if it could be explained, why listen to the music? I would like my music to be able to communicate with its audience directly, without having to be explained what the music is about. Hopefully it works that way.

Art is like sex, and rationalizing it is like masturbating. Yes it does give you orgasm, (perhaps more to him who explains it and not so much to the listener/reader), but that's fake orgasm. In fact, that's why I call music critics "The Great Masturbator". Sorry for borrowing the title of the great masterpiece by Salvador Dali, since music critics are much worthless than that. Most of the time they even misinterpreted the music they are trying to explain to the reader, and their opinion is as useless as the product of masturbation : nobody derives pleasure from it. It's just wasted.

The power of your lips

The Jakarta New Year Concert (JNYC) is gonna be in about 45 days from now. Preparations are going well, tickets are selling, and the management team is focusing the publicity on my second cantata "LIBERTAS" as the main course of the program, not only because it is a colossal work, but also the whole management team were impressed when they saw it during its world premiere by its commissioner, Bimasena, last August. It contains famous heroic poems such as Chairil Anwar's "Krawang-Bekasi" and Archibald MacLeish's "The Young Dead Soldiers", and to hear them turned into music is quite a surprising revelation for those who know the poems well. It is quite normal that they hold on to a piece which they know and fascinated with, and firmly believe that it will give a big impact to the audience.

But there is another piece in the program which now I also consider important in my opus, and that is the dance-work "Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu". The free translation would be like "My lips bow (or surrender ?) to your lips", or that my lips are conquered by yours. I know, I know, it sounds strange in English, but it is very poetic in Indonesian. And it's not only the title that is so touching; the whole poem is so poignant and moving. It is by an Indonesian poet of about the same age of mine, Hasan Aspahani who I admire so much, have talked to so many times through the internet but still haven't got the pleasure to meet personally. He's told me that he will travel to Jakarta (he lives in Batam Island) to attend the concert (I also set another poem of his, "Palestina" as the second number of LIBERTAS).
"Bibirku" is a virtuosic work that consists of two sections : the first is a trio for piano, alto flute (doubling "normal" flute) and violin, and the second is for soprano & piano (where the poem is set to music). Each section can be performed separately. Chendra Panatan will choreograph the first section. We won't call it a ballet, because it is not. In fact, the dancers will work on complex movements with hundreds of meters of materials, which will spectacularly give the impression of the waves. The poem is about love and destruction and inspired by the great tsunami of Sumatra in 2004. The big form of "Bibirku" is quite straightforward, but the intricate details gave me a hard time in composing it, since I am employing complex harmonic progressions especially for the noisy "tsunami" middle section (what for, you ask? Ain't I missing the point of just making a big noise instead of worrying about the harmonies for it? Yes, but somehow my pretentious artistic intentions make my life even more complicated, he he ...). And those harmonies are in fact quite dissonant and adventurous (especially for such a festive concert like the JNYC !), although it begins and ends with a melodic, expressive and very tonal love music. But I am sure that the Indonesian classical music lovers are prepared for it; at least its visual and choreographic aspect will be quite amazing. You might think that you don't like strange, modern classical music of Bartok or Shostakovich, but then you unconsciously listened to it --and loved it, right?-- in films such as Harry Potter or Sleepy Hollow. And d'you know that Stanley Kubrick used that haunting, eerie and fascinating music of Gyorgy Ligeti in his films, such as 2001 Space Odyssey or Eyes Wide Shut ? Aren't they marvellous?

"Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu" will receive its world premiere at the Jakarta New Year concert, January 3rd 2010, by Inez Raharjo -violin, Elizabeth Ashford -alto flute, Aning Katamsi -soprano and myself on the piano

Alicia's First Piano Book

Really ? I haven't post the preface to Alicia's First Piano Book here? Ooops, sorry. Here it is, exactly written for the foreword to the score :

This book would not have existed without my dear daughter, Alicia Pirena, and her love to music. It started about 3 years ago with a couple of short pieces I wrote for her to learn in her first few piano lessons, but then I enjoyed very much writing them that afterwards I started writing pieces which are more difficult, with the hope that she will improve her technique and would enjoy playing those pieces in the near future. Some of them were written during my travels, when I am thinking about her.
Some I wrote with her sitting on my lap, and two of them are duets which I imagined I would play with her. And since I was commissioned to write the music for the film "Romeo*Juliet" by the Indonesian award-winning film-director Andibachtiar Yusuf, I
decided to include 2 love "songs without words" from that film in this book, thinking that one day Alicia would pass that difficult ( I meant to say "romantic") period of her life and that those romantic melodies would alleviate her from love-sickness.
Whatever the reason of existence of these pieces, they are written purely out of love, not only to music and to my daughter, but to all the young people that hopefully would also share the fun of playing the piano, and to let them feel for themselves that music is our best friend, in times of joy and in times of sorrow.

I am grateful to my friends Ingrid M. Cahya and Iswargia Renardi Sudarno from the Jakarta Conservatory of Music for supervising and revising the educational aspects of each of these pieces, to Mutia Dharma for her help introducing those pieces to many young pianists who would play them for the first time and to Chendra Panatan my manager to whom I am grateful for his endeavors in the publishing of this book.
We all hope that this publication would serve as a small contribution for the young generation not only to learn how to play the piano, but also to realize what Shakespeare had said that music is "the food of love".

Ananda Sukarlan,
March 2009

The ghosts of the Young Dead Soldiers

Hey, it's Narcissism time!. But I can't help it, I am a composer. We are creatures of continuous self-doubt so we need, once in a while, a boost for our ego. Besides, what's wrong of being self-congratulary sometimes ? So, I have a declaration to make, besides quoting Oscar Wilde's answer at the immigration office at a certain harbour "I have nothing to declare besides my genius" for the question "Do you have anything to declare?".

My own music which I love the most until now is the song "The Young Dead Soldiers do not Speak" from my second cantata, LIBERTAS. If a dictator suddenly appears and tells me to burn all my work, I'd burn all of them but would ask to spare that piece. Not even the whole Libertas cantata. The work itself doesn't have complex rhythms or polyphony, no innovative twists nor it is brilliant in any ways ; it is just the music which really came out of my head. Every note of it. Like when you open the tap, the water just flows, and perhaps I wasn't even so critical about it when I wrote it. It is even filled with recitatives, and as you know recitatives are NOT meant to be beautiful, nevertheless, I just love it, deeply. Of course it was also due to the fantastic performance of the world premiere, when all the musicians were so commited and very passionate. And that's another thing : when I wrote it, I knew it will be sung by my dearest friends whose dedication to music is a bit more than 100% : the baritone Joseph Kristanto and the ITB Choir and its conductor, Indra Listiyanto. They and their love to music are very inspiring to me. Without them in my mind while writing it, the piece would sound different.
In fact, nobody has explicitly told me that that particular piece of music touched them deeply, or other flattery things about it. People told me that they have been touched deeply by my other pieces (some of them don't have the high esteem from their own composer!), and somehow I know that "Dead Soldiers" is not, and perhaps will never be included in "Ananda's greatest hits" in the future. So, I guess that my (musical) taste IS quite peculiar ... and again it's a proof that my taste doesn't coincide with the public's taste.

But being proud of one's particular creation brings certain problems. I always try to set my own standards both to my compositions and to my piano performances. Since finishing LIBERTAS, I felt that I would like to write another "dead soldiers", but I just can't. It's like I compare everything I wrote afterwards with my dear dead soldiers. Either I am making a bad photocopy of it, or I am trying to make something completely different, but nothing has satisfied me as much as that moment when I finished writing the Dead Soldiers. So, I think I'll have to forget it completely for the time being ... which will be difficult because it (with its companions that formed the whole LIBERTAS cantata) will be performed again at the Jakarta New Year Concert on the 3rd of January. And I will be involved, deeply, in its performance. So I'll just have to live with those young dead soldiers, just as the poignant text of Archibald MacLeish's poem :"They have a silence that speaks for them at night." And their silence, my friends, speak louder than the loudest screams.

Choral (too much) Fantasy ?

I have always admired the musical artistry of Aning Katamsi, as so have I always admired the poems of the recently departed WS Rendra. So when Aning, on behalf of her choir PARAGITA (who's gonna join forces with the ITB Choir singing my second cantata "Libertas" for the next New Year Concert -- having those 2 top Indonesian choirs sharing the stage is like having a (wet) dream come true !) commissioned me to write a choral piece using Rendra's poem to commemorate his passing away, I accepted it delightly without second thoughts ; even when the answer to my question about when the deadline would be was "a.s.a.p. please, since the concert will be next month." Ooops ...

But things got rather complicated, because apparently Rendra's poem has been set into a pop song by a pop songwriter, and he is the person who iniciated and organized this concert. So, what I should do is to "interpret" his song (Aning specifically told me not to "arrange" the song, so I guess the process would not be so different from my pieces such as the 3-pianos 6-pianists "Schumann's Psychosis" where I took Schumann's Toccata and "messed it all up", shall we say.)
The original song itself has the title Kantata [sic] Belavita (you know Indonesian pop musicians like to use the words "cantata", "symphony" and "opera" for their songs. I guess there are more "operas" in Indonesian pop music than the whole history of Italian music. I wonder why nobody puts other fancy titles such as Passacaglia or Concerto Grosso). So, certainly I wouldn't like to apply that title to my piece which definitely is NOT a cantata. He he .. in this case I really am an old-fashioned classical music composer. Therefore, my piece bears the fancy title "Choral Fantasy" (yeah, yeah, it sounds beethovenianly bombastic for a 6 and-a-half-minute piece, but at least it's correct!). But that's not the problem : the problem was that when I read the poem, I couldn't connect it to the pop song (I really tried, I did !). In other words, if I were given that poem, my tune and even the character of my music would sound completely different, and even directly opposed to the existing pop song which should be the basic material for my new piece.

So I was like the son of those old-fashioned parents who is told "Meet this girl, love her coz you're gonna marry her.", while I am like those rebellious sons who'd say "OK, I'll marry her but then I can have affairs with anybody I like". I guess the birth process of my Choral Fantasy was sort of like that. Therefore for my first extra-marital affair I took another element for my piece --to make things more complicated-- which is the rhythmic structure of Beethoven's First Movement of the famous 5th symphony. And so writing my Choral Fantasy became really fun !!

"Choral Fantasy" will be premiered on the 29th of October at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta by Aning Katamsi (soprano soloist) and the Paragita Choir accompanied by a pianist which I still do not know who will it be until now.

Are you commissioning the right composer ?

This is certainly the most important question one should consider when one wants to commission a certain composer for a piece. I have been commissioned for many specific purposes : from easy music to be played by children, music written for handicapped people (e.g blind or limited fingers on one hand) to the most recent example : a concerto for piano and orchestra, with the prime reason that since I have a certain reputation as a pianist whose repertoire ranges from Rameau to Rueda, a piano concerto would be an interesting contribution of mine to the repertoire. I myself didn’t (and still don’t) think that this is true ; after all those Beethovens, Tschaikovskys to the quite recent “Nusantara” symphony of David del Puerto with that incredible piano concertante part, what could I contribute more to this genre? And so my concerto took almost 2 years to write, interrupted by many other pieces and being premiered every time in bits and pieces. And I still don’t think of it as a finished work, in its 17-minute duration. But no work of art is finished anyway, only abandoned, right ? And funny enough, the problem of my First concerto was that I had a false start, but continued on it. I got the impression that public liked it a lot, with its virtuosic elements and anything else that a piano concerto should have, but to be honest with myself, I now know how my next concerto would sound like, and in fact immediately after my First’s premiere I started sketching the structure and materials for the orchestral part of what would be either my Second or a concerto for another instrument. It would have more things which I want to express, instead of just a flashy virtuosic piece.

But I wanna point out another important thing, and that is about style. Certainly an institution (like an orchestra) or someone (such as one needing a birthday or wedding present for a loved one) wouldn’t commission a composer without knowing how his music sound like. But there is that unpredictable element that comes with it. In any case, this is a commissioned work of art, of a new creation. And in art there is always this concept of “freedom of expression”. Yeah, one can impose certain restrictions to the composer, such as its duration, formation and even technical difficulty, but what about how the music should sound like ?
Someone approached me after the piano concerto’s premiere, asking me for a piece for a certain ensemble that should sound “not so heavy”. His words were like “The concerto was really great, but your music always has some moments that needs a certain effort to listen to”. The way I interpreted him is that “my music are sometimes difficult to digest”, and he wants me to write the music which sounds not entirely “me”.

I think commissioning a composer is like asking him to marry you. You wouldn’t propose to marry your loved one saying “I wanna marry you, but I don’t like some aspects of you, so would you stay with me for the rest of our lives but only while we sleep?”, would you?

How Indonesian am I?

The majority of foreign (read : non-Indonesian) public like to ask me whether my music is “Indonesian music”. I guess nobody would’ve dared to approach Manuel de Falla or Isaac Albeniz and ask them whether their music is “Spanish”; it was pretty obvious, eh? But not in my case. Not only that my music doesn’t sound quite “Indonesian”, but also because the definition of “Indonesian” in music is still not clear. Therefore the answer to “my” audience’s question is not that simple, and whether you like it or not, it automatically relates to the question “What is Indonesian classical music?”

Let me tell you a bit of my life. I was born and raised in Jakarta, a metropolitan city where traditions and culture had disappeared long time ago. Jakarta is worse than a melting pot : it is a place where people’s eyes only focus on one direction : to the USA. I was like that during my teenage years : I wanna be anything American. I was like that until my early 20s when I already lived in Europe for a few years and discovered that there is a LOT to be proud of to be Indonesian, culturally speaking. But I have lived in Europe since I was 17, and even before that, I missed absorbing that thing called “culture” of Indonesia, except through some small examples through recordings of gamelan music or very few programs on TV. So, I can say that my perceptions of Indonesian traditional music and culture are like any other European’s, although I had the big advantage of experiencing the Indonesian way of living, thinking and of course its language. And music, any kind of music, is born from its culture and language and they way we feel, express and talk.

But then Indonesian music is not just gamelan. Gamelan is only a teeny weeny bit of Indonesia, and even gamelan music has different kinds of scales, timbre and “style”. And I must say that I have been influenced more by the classical music that I listen to and love, from Bach to Britten, from Scarlatti to Stravinsky. And I have more composer friends in Spain than in Indonesia, with their strong character which not only influence MY musical language, but the whole Spanish classical musical scene of this period as well. So I might say that my brain is like a melting pot of so many spices and ingredients, and hope that something delicious comes out of it, eh?

Neither English, nor a horn

You might think that my favorite instrument is the piano, but that's not completely true. I love it, of course, but it's always a drag for me writing for piano. As a pianist, I ought to write something PIANISTIC, right ? So I have to sit down on the piano and put my poor fingers on it everytime I write for this instrument. While for other instruments, I write my music anywhere else : from my desk at home to the seat of the airplane (with the TV screen off, unfortunately ...).
Well, I tell you who my true love is. It's the English Horn, which is in fact neither English, nor a horn (but it does make me horny listening to its sound, he he...) . The term came from its German name, engellisches Horn, meaning angelic horn. But engellisch also meant English, and so the English claimed themselves to be angels (or was it the other way around?). And then it acquired a French term, cor anglé, (angled or bent), but then mistakenly written as cor anglais (which means English, and now it's better that I don't make jokes about this). And about the horn, well, it's quite obvious that it has nothing to do with it, so I really don't know why it bears the "horn"....

Both my cantata "Ars Amatoria" and "Libertas", have English horns, whose players do NOT double the oboe. And both have an interlude that features the instrument quite boldly. Libertas even has an interlude for E.h and string quartet called Requiescat, which can be played separately. And both, intuitively written, deal with the tonality of D major and B-flat major.

I always perceive some tonalities in my head as associated with particular things, and I am always sure that I am not alone in this. A major, for instance, always give the impression of everything worldly, or earthly. Remember that Mendelssohn's Spring Song of the Lieder Ohne Worte is in A major, and also the last movement of the Franck Violin Sonata ... it's so beautiful and so down to earth ! And that's why Libertas starts with a boisterous A major, "Bentangkan Sayapmu, Indonesia" (Spread your wings, Indonesia), and the a cappella chorus, "Kita Ciptakan Kemerdekaan" (We create Freedom) is also in that happy tonality.

But then it's the tonality of B-flat major which is the real "nirvana" for me. The real truth, purity, perfection, divine. Listen to Schubert, that impromptu ... and the last sonata ! That's why the main core of Libertas, where the singers sing "For the poet, death is victory" is in glorious B-flat major. Glorious but in pianissimo. Festive but profound. Declamatory but so introverted. Only B-flat major can afford that.

And D major ? That brings me pain and sadness. "Requiescat", for english horn & strings (from Libertas) is all in that tonality. And the last song of Libertas, "Krawang Bekasi" starts with a lament of the dead heroes ... but then there is a transition from those cries of desperation to the other world ... which is in B-flat major. And that's where it ends, where they all cry "Remember us" .... from heaven. That is so different from another song "The Young Dead Soldiers do not speak" (poem by Archibald MacLeish), where it also ends with "Remember Us" ... but still from this world : in D major. The same words, "Remember Us" ... and yet with different meaning. You see how powerful music is to express feelings ? Even more powerful than words, eh?

And I can go on and on with talking about how tonalities work in my head ... but hey I don't want to bore you to death with it. The main point is that I almost always perceive my music in a certain tonality, and it always hurts me if one sings / plays my music by transposing it.
Anyway, it's weekend now, and you know what ? Weekend muses always make me write music for young people, because my daughter Alicia is always home (she won't be in a few years : she'll be in her BOYFRIEND's house ... aaaargh !!) and I just realized today that most of the pieces in "Alicia's First Piano Book" were written on weekends! So, my muse is pulling my shirt now and asking me to write something for her ... before I leave next Monday for a whole week. Hey, the Queen is coming to my concert, and I'll convince her to sign up on Facebook, ok ?

Buzzing Rueda, buzzing Rueda, you'll come a-buzzing Rueda with me

Still warm, my newest CD released by NAXOS with (almost all) piano works of Jesus Rueda is creating a buzz. Honestly, perhaps this IS the CD that all piano lovers in Spain (and many abroad) have been waiting for these years. Anyway, I'll keep it short this time, since you can check it out at : http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572075 . And I'll paste my article in the booklet of that CD here. Hope you enjoy the new 21st century pianistic adventure !


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Jesús Rueda (b. 1961)
Piano Music

A recording of Jesús Rueda’s piano works is long overdue. Rueda is today unquestionably the foremost living Spanish composer for the piano. Although he has never been a performer, his understanding of the resources and potential of the piano is nevertheless broader than that of most. His pianistic masterpieces would not have existed—as he himself openly acknowledges—had it not been for his intensive studies of the pianism of Chopin, Liszt, Ravel and Prokofiev; but it is his highly individual language that makes his music not only so new and radical, but highly expressive and communicative. He has successfully produced a mesmeric blending of ‘classical’ and contemporary elements: his compositions might ask the instrument to whisper in utmost secrecy or, in Walt Whitman’s words, to sound its “barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world”.

This ‘Rueda’ pianistic soundworld was launched with his First Piano Sonata, composed in 1990–91. Entitled Jeux d’eau, the sonata is clearly influenced by Ravel, its nine-minute gorgeous wash of sensuous music evoking radiating light, sweeping surges and powerful torrents of water. This is Rueda the master draughtsman at his most shimmering and seductive. The subtle use of pedal should always be observed by the pianist in order to take full advantage of the extensive palette of colours.

More than a decade separates Rueda’s first sonata from his Second, entitled Ketjak. This time—even more virtuosic than the first—the influences are jazz and Balinese Kecak dance rhythms, and I am so profoundly grateful for the honour of being its dedicatee. The motif of the whole piece is introduced in the very first bar, roaring in the lower registers of the instrument. This motif develops in many different ways throughout the piece, trembling with a textural density spanning from hollowness of unearthly splendour to dense cascades of pummelling electric charges.

The 24 Interludes are sophisticated short pieces which immediately engage us. The majority stem from true life experiences, and they contain the most ravishing musical expression Rueda has hitherto articulated. Their wealth of expression ranges from the most poignant anguish to the most ecstatic rapture and even ironic wit. Some were conceived and developed in Rome—where Rueda lived 1995–2000—evoking impressions of the city (Movimiento, Niebla, Grazioso, Corrente, Sospeso, Dibujo). Others are musical gifts for the new-born babies of close friends (Canción de cuna, Berceuse, and for my own baby daughter born in 1998: Il filo di Alicia sull’acqua). Rueda does not hesitate to look back in time, and in some numbers he indulges the inextinguishable romantic urge: Chopin is directly inspired by Prelude No. 16 of the great Polish composer; Vision is a Lisztian study borrowing the title from one of his Transcendental Etudes; Prokofiev’s ghost appears in Toccata; and Rueda was possessed by Scriabin’s spirit while writing Campo de Estrellas. Notturno in Bali depicts the fearful 2002 night when the terrorist bombs exploded in Bali; Seikilos is based on an old Greek epitaph; and Rueda conjured up impressions of his close friends in Retrato, Omaggio, Registros separados and Corale. These exquisite pieces sometimes also serve as studies or sketches for a larger future work.

Mephisto (1999) is one of the pieces originating from my invitation to a number of Spanish composers to write a ‘hommage’ for the seventieth birthday of Luis de Pablo, who had once been Rueda’s teacher. The piece’s gestation took place while Rueda was travelling in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Modelled on Liszt’s famous first waltz, it is certainly a terrifying tour-de-force for any pianist, fiercely erupting in a Dionysian catharsis in the third—and final—section of its five-minute countdown to the apocalypse.

Being a great composer, Rueda understands the piano so well that he can write—as composers of the past have done—(very) simple and highly attractive pieces for children to play. In 2003 he started writing these Inventions, dealing with basic piano techniques and ranging technically from the very simple to the moderately difficult. In this recording we hear nine of them. Bouncy Black is for black keys in intervals of a second, and Inner Piece is its counterpart for white keys. Then there is the Ligetian “blocked keys” technique in Watch Your Steps, the unending cascade of notes in To Be Continued and amusing rhythmic games in The Happiest Seconds. Rueda continues to add attractive short pieces to the approximately fifty he has already written; Inventions is thus an essential contribution to the musical education of the young.

Ananda Sukarlan

Yeah the title isn't mine, but the music is !

Just realized I haven't blogged for over a month, eh? So here I am again. When I was in Indonesia last month I got another negative comment about my Rapsodia Nusantara : the usual phrase that it is not my music but an Indonesian folk-tune instead. Well, it is ! Let me tell you how it works, for the n-th (and hopefully the last!) time :

The idea of "Rapsodia" (let's call it RN since now, although it sounds like another flu virus spread by Donald Rumsfeld's company) was first mentioned by my late friend, composer Yazeed Djamin. He wanted to do a series of RN (the title was HIS idea) for me, for piano solo, so that I could have a series of Indonesian virtuosic piano works and at the same time introduce Indonesian folk-tunes in my concerts. Until then (he died in 2001) there weren't any really virtuosic piano works by an Indonesian composer, can you imagine ? I mean, those ones that could bring the house down as the closing piece of a concert. Now, this idea itself is not original : it was inspired by (what else?) Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies. If you now go to Hungary and hear some familiar folktunes, well you can be thankful to our old friend Ferenc who introduced them to you by incorporating them (or using them as material) in his Rhapsodies. And Yazeed's (and my) argument was : why do we Indonesians always end our concerts with Hungarian Rhapsodies ? Why don't we make our OWN Rhapsodies ?

Liszt's case wasn't the first, nor the last time that composers "steal" from folk-tunes. It goes back to the 16th century and maybe before. You can hear them in works of Sweelinck, Rameau and Mozart. The extreme case are those pieces called "Rumanian (and Bulgarian) Folk Dances" by Bela Bartok, as if HE was the composer of those folk dances. Now what, would you point your finger to him again and say that he cheated ?

Guys, it's not the material that counts. It's the development of it, it's what you do with the material. It's like saying "When life gives you lemon, make lemonade". Materials (it's cooler for artists to say "inspiration") could be found everywhere; even you can DEFINE a material in words (such as "three short notes and one long note" for Beethoven's Fifth). It's like a grape, which you can just eat as it is, or turn into very refined wine. And yeah, wine IS grape ! Who said it's not? So, d'you get it now that I am not trying to boldly write music which no man has written before?

Anyway, you won't say that those running octaves and crazy arpeggios are not mine, right ? You say they belong to folkmusic, and many people would be dead trying to sing them !

So, enough of that. I am writing --to be precise, trying to write-- my third opera at the moment. Usually I love writing operas, but it is now a different issue. There will be no real strong protagonist in this opera ; at least 8 singers would be a soloist in a certain moment. The difficulty is that I don't have those singers in mind. I always have this wishful thinking that my music would still be around after I die, and they will be played and sung by musicians that I won't be acquainted personally, but at the time of writing the music, the figure of the musician in the back of my head really does help in making the shape of the music. One of my greatest pleasures in writing music was when I wrote a series of duos (for violin, bassoon, trumpet etc. with piano) for the handicapped people here in Spain : it was their handicap, and their love and enthusiasm to music that inspired the music that I wrote. And those duos can be (in fact, will mostly be) performed by any musician with complete limbs of the body. So it is not about the virtuosity or genius of the musician ; it is just themselves and each of their particular way of making music. Every person is special to me, and there is always an element in everyone that makes me fall in love with them, and therefore, be inspired by them. The proof is, everytime I wrote music for (a) certain musician(s) for the second time, it always turned out to be better !

Mourning becomes Indonesia

Just a couple of hours ago I landed at the Jakarta airport, picked up by Chendra. His first words were :"Rendra just passed away". WS Rendra was one of Indonesia's greatest poets, and a personal friend of mine. I have set a poem of him, "Tidurlah Intan" which you can listen to Aning Katamsi singing it at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgrT3CCdbYo .

In 5 days, Joseph Kristanto will be the soloist together with ITB Choir and a small ensemble, all conducted by Indra Listiyanto in my newest work, my second cantata "LIBERTAS". It is now that I realize and understand the meaning and existence of this work.

When I was commissioned to write a piece to celebrate this year's Indonesian Independence day, I knew that I should have written a joyful, optimistic and celebrational work. After all, the occasion demands it, with the presence of Indonesia's president, vice president and many of our cabinet ministers. Instead, the piece turned out to be a cantata glorifying death. I was about to change the title into "Requiem" if it were not for my consideration that I didn't have any more time left to write the commissioned piece, a real "LIBERTAS". Apart from the poems which were specifically written for the occasion and included in Libertas (by Sapardi Djoko Damono & Ilham Malayu), all the poems I chose for LIBERTAS are about death. Death of all the fallen heroes, and one of them is by WS Rendra, "Ia Telah Pergi" (He has gone). But that was not the real coincidence. Another poem is "A Un Poeta Muerto" (To a dead poet) by Spanish writer Luis Cernuda, written as a requiem to the death of Federico Garcia Lorca. And this is the point I wanna make : The most crucial point in LIBERTAS doesn't lie in the most exuberant fortissimo or exciting moment in the piece. It lies in this number, where a pianissimo, etherial B-flat major chord starts the phrase "Para el poeta, la muerte es la victoria" (For the poet, death is the victory), after a long section of dark atonal utterances. I remember exactly that LIBERTAS in fact started when I read those lines by Cernuda. They trigger those chords in my head, from which LIBERTAS was born.

I certainly wasn't thinking of Rendra when I wrote LIBERTAS. In fact, the 3 big works this year (the other two are the opera "IBU--yang anaknya diculik itu" and a dance piece to be choreographed by Chendra next year which I will write about it in a few weeks in this blog) all deal profoundly, and exclusively with death. You can also check an entry I wrote here when I was deeply immersed in this definitely-not-my-favorite-at-all subject.

I can't help but dedicating LIBERTAS, in its entirity, to the memory of WS Rendra. LIBERTAS is so him. So Rendra. Sadly, it turned out that way, as I am assimilating it while I am writing these very lines.

And now, fellow Indonesians, you can shout your favorite word "Victory!" to Rendra. Because for the dead poet, death is victory.

Requiescat et libertas, WS Rendra. Your art will live forever.

Polit ... I mean, Peace and Prosperity

I just HAVE to write this even if I don’t want to, just because I was feeling like .. oh, why oh why ? Why do I keep receiving proposals to be involved in politics? I should tell you my own definition of the word “politics” : The ugly business of beautiful words. And those words are always the same : peace, prosperity, patriotism, … coincidentally all that equally begins with a “p”!

They are just crazy, all those who have invited me to join “concerts for peace”, or to take part of a campaign or even to be actively involved in a political party. Look, I could say that I hardly know how the Spanish politics work, but I just don’t know ANYTHING about Indonesian political parties and all that hillybillies ! Those offers and proposals appear more often before the elections, and in some cases after a disaster, like the one that happened a few days ago: the bombing of 2 American hotels in Jakarta. Isn’t that enough suffering already to be exploited further for an increase of personal fame and wealth?
Oh, and about my operas? You can say they are very political, yes! In fact they all deal with the victims of politics. I don’t glorify politics in my works, I insult them, I show how bad politics do in our lives, in case you don’t get the point.

I was always clear about my dreams since I started my career : to retire young. No, I am not like those guys who needs MORE money, MORE power, MORE fame, MORE this and that. Just give the opportunity to the younger generation. I am OK. By the way, you know what my real happiness is? It’s having lots of blank papers in front of me to be filled with those tiny black notes. That’s what I mean by retiring young : being boring and just get paid writing all those notes. And I have sort of achieved it. So let me work in peace, I mean, REAL peace, not a politically correct peace!

But let me rectify my refusal. I will take part in a political activity, only if he or she who proposes it to me has read Plato’s “The Republic” and would like to put at least 10% of it into practice. Until now, that is the only correct guide of how to run a country, in my opinion. And don’t tell me that I am old fashioned or I am 2000 years retarded. I can’t be argued about that. If you don’t agree, let’s just talk about something else, anything but politics.

May the best win ... but what about the rest ?

In the early 90s as a young and ambitious pianist I was active in the competition world as a competitor, and I always wonder how would it feel to be on the other side, sitting as one of the judges. My parents were not so well off, they couldn't act as my producer, sponsor and manager for my musical career (they didn't even know anything about this crazy artistic business), so that was the only way I could earn money back then. Now already about a decade I've been sitting, watching, listening and judging various competitions, both in Spain and in Indonesia. Naturally since then I have heard and received, directly and indirectly, protests or just insatisfaction from those who don't win, or even don't pass the first preminilary round(s). Not only protesting against the result, but later on they attack the system, infrastructure and even the very existence of an artistic competition.

I've always expressed my disagreement about competitions for the arts. Naturally I don't protest when I won a competition, but I do think that competitions could pick the "survival of the fittest" only up to a certain level, which is the technical point. So it's just about making sure if a pianist can play the running scales and octaves in a refined manner, a violinist plays in tune all the way from beginning to end or whether a young composer's harmony and counterpoint reflects his good ear and that he's not just writing, as we say, "paper music". But after that, do we have the right to judge a good pianist's interpretation of a Prelude & Fugue by Bach ? If I do it differently, would MY interpretation receive a higher point than his or hers ? And imagine a competition where both young Shostakovich and young Stravinsky participated, to who would you give a higher mark?

But why do I join the "competition club" ? Simply because I cannot think of a better base for a young artist to build a career on. Now in Indonesia, where the number of pianists is growing (incredibly) rapidly, voices start to go around how competition is bad for the arts. It is obviously an old issue (but still talked about) here in Europe, without anybody finding its solution. Of course those critical voices in Indonesia come from those who have joined and "lost" (I hate that word), either in a national, regional competition or by those who have participated abroad and ... well, you know the result. Now I tell you one thing, folks. I was really lucky to have won my first competition, but I have had my share of losing a couple as well. It is not a rule that if you win in a competition, you'd win in another, and the same can be said about losing. You just gotta do your best ! And stop talking and stop criticizing ! A successful person is not the one who never failed ; it is he who can get up and do it again after each failure. And success, my friends, is built on many failures. And if competitions are so bad .... can you give a better suggestion to what a young pianist, or any other artists should do to start their career ?? Nothing Machiavellian, I mean.

If you can, that's great. Because I can't.

Thanks, Alicia!

"When you give, you don't lose. You gain more by giving." That's what my mom always told me. I didn't understand it until many years later, and the latest example happened last week.

I judged a couple of piano competitions in a space of less than 1 month. The latter, in Bandung, used my new book “Alicia’s First Piano Book” as the obligatory pieces; hence each participant should choose one among the 35 solo pieces to be played in the semifinal round. I was touched how they treated my piece as anything BUT obligatory. In fact, after the competition finished, so many people (teachers, participants—including the ones who didn’t win any prizes, and people among the public) came to me and said how they enjoyed the pieces and thank me for my contribution to the piano repertoire for the young. And I discovered that many piano teachers have used them for teaching purposes, nothing to do with the competition.

Now, of course I am honestly happy that my book has sold hundreds of copies (in fact Chendra my manager is gonna re-publish a second edition of 1000 copies very soon). Another happy discovery is that apparently no Indonesian composers have done explicitly pieces for the young, so this is the first Indonesian “Album for the young”, “Children’s Corner” or “Mikrokosmos” or whatever you wanna call it. But the thing that made me happy the most is that I have given something which made those children enjoy playing the piano. And this is all thanks to my little daughter, Alicia. It was her who made me write all those pieces. In fact, one piece in that book called “12 Haiku” was commissioned by her … for 1 euro! (I think I wrote about this in this blog, you can check it out in my previous entries about 1 year ago). Apart from that, all the pieces are written without any money involved. That’s what you call, literally, “for the love of it”.

And I must confess, there is another thing that made me happy, but let me tell you one thing first. A few years ago, the ABRSM commissioned many composers from many countries a short piece to be compiled in their book “Spectrum”. I contributed a very short and easy (well, that was the requirement of the commission) piece called “Gentle Darkness”. Later on the commissioner told me that my piece is among the most popular & often played by students ….but none of them who played my piece is Indonesian!! Indonesian young pianists always choose other composers’ pieces from that book. So that shows my (un-)popularity in my own country ….and my narcissist instincts told me that it is not because my piece is inferior than the other pieces in that book!
But my book (or shall I say Alicia’s?) proved it wrong.

I have had fantastic performances of my music. Some of them sound even better than what I had imagined. But nothing, I tell you, nothing gives greater happiness than your own daughter playing your own music, especially music written especially for, and with her in our minds (or sometimes even sitting on my lap). And I have a hunch that she will inspire “Alicia’s SECOND piano book” (at least, there are already several pieces written for the next book).

When the black turned white (RIP Michael Jackson)

This morning, woken up and chased by the deadline of my piece for percussion and piano to be performed at the Meloritmos Festival in 3 weeks time, I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing away of my idol, Michael Jackson. He has certainly done to the 20th century world of music what Gustav Mahler did for the 19th century. Yeah, they are 2 different genres of music, but who is more influential to the music world in the fin-de-siecle period? How many composers (I mean "classical" ones) have been influenced by MJ ? I remembered talking passionately about MJ's music with 2 great figures, the late Sir Michael Tippett and Louis Andriessen (both of whose music have also influenced mine and my way of thinking). If you hear the "rap music" section in Tippett's opera NEW YEAR, well that was thanks to MJ. And I made my own version of rap music in my opera IBU--yang anaknya diculik itu, also thanks to MJ, in particular his Smooth Criminal. Two different versions, two different interpretations. Just two. I imagine there might be another ..10? 100? That is, I guess, what Stravinsky called "Music about music". And that proves just how rich MJ's music is and how he performed them, with his particular voice, body movements and style.
I can't help thinking about who, in my opinion, is the greatest figure of music in the second half of the 20th century. I won't agree if it were the Beatles, since their music is just "nice" and "beautiful" (which are 2 important elements as well!), but I doubt in the strength of the impact in the artistic world. You know what I mean, this posh circle of operas and contemporary classical music. If Mahler and Britten and especially Stravinsky were still alive, they won't be that immune from the strong influence of MJ, I bet you.
MJ's music has boldly gone where no man has gone before. RIP, Michael Jackson. I will always love you. And your music.

Missed!

It's been exactly 1 month since I last blogged. Many things have happened, which in normal circumstances should have made me happy, but am still having doubts about those changes in my music. I even have doubts in doing something so easy, such as "cutting and pasting" my music to make my Dance Remix no.1, to be performed in Meloritmos Festival in Palencia, next July. That involves "revisiting" my old pieces, and though the task is just reworking them for a new instrumentation, I can't help doubting my previous works.

I am this kind of composer which one normally can call "prolific", and many times I do set aside the issue of "repeating oneself", since I see that all composers of the past did repeat themselves anyway. And all this change in my music is not my intention. It just happened. Just like when you reach puberty, you know what I mean ?

Anyway, am totally immersed in Pramoedya Ananta Toer's "Mangir" these days. I can identify my musical language with his "colour", somehow. Can't help admiring him more and more.

Well, I AM repeating myself about "change". What a bore, eh? I guess this is my speciality, trying to say something new with the same old words.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. (TS Eliot, Four Quartets)

Now, just change "words" into "notes" and you'll know what I am going through ...

To boldly CHANGE that we can believe in

Now that's very fine, Mr. President, what you said about change. Most people are so conservative that they are afraid of any changes. In fact, one gets older in order to get settled down, and "well-established" instead of "seeking change, new life and new civilations". If one is comfortable with something, why change it, right? But what about this thing that happens to me now ? I am feeling a kind of change ... in my music. And it's not me who wanted this change. Now, that's ok, considering that I've been in and out writing music for the last 20 years, and I did have some changes in my musical language in the past. I do envy Rachmaninov who had been so consistent throughout his life. Even all his 4 piano concerti ends in the same manner: pam papapam !! (as if there are no other ways to end a piece of music). Oh yeah, I just finished my Rapsodia Nusantara no.4 a few days ago, and I was making sure that the ending is different from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd he he ..

Now back to change .. the thing is that I think I like my music more and more. I still am a Britten and Stravinsky wannabe, but hey, I write music because I want to listen to it and nobody has written it, that's why I write it down, right ? And then I know that many people also likes my music, and although I keep on telling this bulls**t to myself that "artists write not for people, but to express what they believe", I do feel flattered every time I realize that my music can "move" someone. Together with this change in my musical language, I also realized that I like new kinds of music which I wasn't really fond of previously. Two "H" composers have been my favorite lately : Hindemith and Hans Werner Henze. In the latter case, I even know him personally, and still wasn't a big fan of his music. Until recently, for the last few weeks.

So, what kind of change is happening ? First of all, with my 4th Rapsodia, I did something, an experiment if you like to call it so, which I never did before. I wrote about my method of composing in this blog about last month. At last it has 10 variations, but I couldn't avoid feeling rather jittery when I finished writing the variations, having 10 pieces of puzzle to construct. Even some silly questions popped up, such as "Why should the bare & naked theme appear in the beginning?" I still don't know if my "4th" would work as a solid construction, but that's the risk if one wants to "change". A work of art is never finished, said Paul Valery, and this phrase could serve as a big consolation in times like this ..

Another change is the harmony in my music : it's getting darker, and even thicker. Now usually when one gets older, his music tends to be simpler, more transparent. Just listen to all those guys : Beethoven, Liszt, oh well, most of them. And the bad news is ... I think you won't like it, folks. It's less "accessible", and shall we say, more "difficult listening" (in need for a better opposite of "easy listening").
Oh well, enough for now. Let me just go and boldly change. To seek out new music and new ideas .. Make it so, Number One! Energize !!

Cinta bung, bukan kebencian

Kali ini saya harus mencoba menulis dalam bahasa Indonesia, karena saya mengharapkan "mereka" membaca. Dan "mereka", saya yakin, tidak bisa bahasa Inggris. Dan kalaupun membaca dalam bahasa Indonesia, semoga mereka tidak salah interpretasi. Soalnya, membaca itu juga adalah suatu yang harus dibiasakan dan dilatih, bukan semata-mata bisa membaca alias tidak buta huruf.

Tulisan saya ini mengenai tiga hal, dan keduanya menyangkut salah interpretasi dari kegiatan kami yang menyangkut film "Romeo - Juliet", dan terkait pula dengan kejadian pemukulan terhadap sutradara dan beberapa anggota tim R-J di Bandung Sabtu lalu. Inilah tiga hal yang sekarang sering disebut-sebut oleh banyak emails ke kami :

1. "R-J adalah tentang konflik dan kebencian". Bukan! Begini bung, di setiap kisah atau karya seni itu harus ada kontras. Lukisan itu tidak bisa hanya satu warna.Untuk menonjolkan satu warna, harus ada warna yang kurang menonjol, atau "dikorbankan". Musik itu tidak bisa hanya satu melodi. Nah, di satu cerita itu juga harus ada kontras. R-J itu ingin mengisahkan sebuah kisah cinta. Jadi elemen kontrasnya, yaitu kebencian, ya terpaksa harus ada! Tapi fokusnya tetap saja ke cinta. Tapi kalau anda memang sudah penuh dengan kebencian dan sampah-sampah lain di dalam diri anda, ya pastilah anda hanya lihat hal-hal tersebut saja. Yang paling penting, yaitu cinta 2 sejoli itu, malah nggak kelihatan. Cinta itu ada, bung. Cinta itu eksis, dan kalau dicari pasti dapat (wong nggak dicari aja dapet kok !) .
Jadi, R-J itu bukannya mau menyebarkan kebencian, tapi justru kebalikannya. Ya tentu saja harus diperlihatkan sisi konfliktif dari dua grup itu, kalau tidak, bagaimana penonton mau mengerti ?

2. "Film R-J Andibachtiar Yusuf itu plagiat !" Nah, betul sekali ! Anda memang sangat intelek ! Memang itu plagiat, nyontek abis. Cerita itu sudah ditulis oleh pujangga terbesar dunia, William Shakespeare di abad 16 (silahkan google saja kalau tidak percaya). Dan setelah itu buuuuaaanyak sekali yang mengambil cerita itu dan diadaptasi seenaknya. Soalnya, kisah ini sangat penuh dengan metafora, dan sangat mencerminkan kehidupan siapapun. Mungkin itu adalah kisah cinta yang paling lengkap yang pernah ditulis.
Nah, yang nyontek itu bukan hanya penulis, sutradara film atau teater setelah Shakespeare. Bahkan komponis pun banyak yang nyontek! Coba google saja nama-nama Hector Berlioz, Tschaikovsky atau Prokofiev (aduh, 2 nama terakhir itu kok susah bener ya. Belum lagi nama penulis aslinya, Shakespeare), mereka pernah bikin karya yang sama persis judulnya. Tapi, soal contek-menyontek di dalam dunia seni itu adalah satu hal yang kalau dibicarakan nggak akan habis dalam 7 hari 7 malam dengan minum kopi satu gentong. Jadi ... gimana kalau saya pribadi mengakui saja .. ya kalau anda bilang ini nyontek, ya terserah deh bung!

3. "Andibachtiar Yusuf itu digebukin untuk promosi". Nah, kalau ini salah besar, bung. Kami semua yang terlibat di produksi ini memang berharap bahwa film ini ditonton oleh orang banyak, dan kami mengadakan promosi masing-masing. Cuma saja kami tidak segitu "putus asa" (desperate, dalam bhs Inggris) sampai sang sutradara rela digebuki supaya filmnya ditonton. Ini kecelakaan, bung! O ya, kalau saya ke Jakarta, jangan digebukin juga ya?

Nah, untuk anda semua yang doyan ngritik, kami sangat berterimakasih atas segala masukan anda. Tapi, jangan harap bahwa karena anda doyan ngritik dan doyan nggebukin sutradara film, kami anggap anda tuh "macho" loh ! Nggak keren deh ! Buat saya pribadi, lebih keren bisa bikin film lah! O ya, saya punya jawaban untuk para kritikus saya "O, jadi anda bisa bikin yang lebih bagus ya? Wow, salut, bung! Tapi kok nggak bikin?"
Kami hanya minta satu hal : tonton dulu filmnya, bung ! Baru boleh ngritik atau nggebukin sutradara ...

Ananda Sukarlan
penulis musik untuk "Romeo-Juliet"

Too much death, too many deaths

Difficult compositional period these days. Too much death, and too many deaths involved in my music. My second cantata which is supposed to deal with "Libertas" (hence the title) turned out to be depressingly pessimistic : instead of liberty, it deals with its deprivation. Mea culpa : I am using poems about dead heroes fighting for liberty. Even the word "libremente" (freely) was used by Luis Cernuda in his last phrase ".. permite a tus amigos , en un rincón pudrirse libremente" (allow your friends, in a corner to rot freely). It is a poem about the death of Federico Garcia Lorca and his anti-Franco colleagues (whose bodies, as you know, were never found) ! So there you get your freedom ... afterdeath. What a coinci.. I mean contradiction : it is commissioned for the celebration of Indonesia's Independence Day in August. I wouldn't have so much doubts if it hadn't been for this occasion. Anyway, that's how the music turns out.

My previous works lately were also closely involved with death. The film Romeo - Juliet obviously was, and my opera IBU (which I just finished a few weeks ago) is about a mother whining about her dead son AND husband, for more than half an hour, from beginning to end. And at the end of the day, though it's not my favorite theme, it just gets on my nerves. Perhaps I'm just too much attached to my own works. I dunno ...

I have also started sketching my opera, Damarwulan. I work with Eka Budianta as the librettist (whose poems I always deeply admire, and have set some to music) who concentrates in the version of Sanusi Pane (a great Indonesian writer during the first half of the 2oth century) who wrote his own interpretation of this Javanese legendary hero. In Pane's version, Damarwulan was executed in the end, and Eka Budianta is going to take it further with his libretto for my opera that it should be the Queen Kencana Ungu who was supposed to be blamed for the death of Damarwulan. She is this kind of femme-fatale : "If you don't love me, then you die. (And slowly and painfully.)" Wow, now THAT I like. Oh and I'm fascinated myself with the transformation of her feelings, from her love at first sight, obsession and fixation towards Damar turning into extreme hatred. Wow that's like real life, eh ?
We still differ in opinions about how Damar should be executed ; Eka Budianta would like it to be truthful to the past period with its strict Javanese tradition, while I'd like to bring the whole scene to the present (or even future ; what do you expect from a Trekkie, eh?). Let's kill Damar with a laser beam, shall we ? But what we have agreed upon is that Damar will undergo a lot of suffering before he is executed. So, I can realize my dream of writing my "Bolero" for his pre-execution scene. I've been wanting to write my own version of Bolero since I heard it the first time (you know when ? It was when I was a teenager in Indonesia, during a show "Holiday on Ice" of dancing ice-skaters. It was the first time that I heard music with just one melody and one rhythm, repeated again and again !).

Hey, am I exercising plagiarism ? Of course not. I am just taking Ravel's concept. Yeah, when you hear my Damarwulan later you might say that, but what if I write a sonata ? Am I copying Mozart and Haydn ?

Talking about plagiarism, there was a guy who aggressively criticized in his facebook page on our film Romeo - Juliet : "Hey, Yusuf (the director) is committing plagiarism. I know that story before ! Even the names of the protagonists were, as I remember, the same ones."
Gosh, I hope that guy won't come to see my opera .... "Opera ? Hey, that's not original! I knew someone has made a show called opera before ! I believe he was Italian !!"
You're mistaken, pal. It's a she, and she's American. Her last name is Winfrey.

Personal inventory

This entry is in fact for myself. During this tranquil week, while I was writing my 4th Rapsodia Nusantara "en forme de variations" (which goes very well, in fact. I did 7 variations in 4 days) I scrambled through my manuscripts to --at least, that was the original intention-- throw away my "early pieces". But then I found some pieces, all dating from early 1990s, that I thought should be "ok" and not too shameful to be performed in front of an audience. So, after throwing away some rubbish, here are some rubb .. I mean, pieces, which I've decided to keep to be revised later when opportunity arises for them to be performed :

1. Whitman Landscapes (2 short pieces for wind quintet)
2. Piano Trio no. 2 16' (my longest "early piece")
3. Piano Trio no. 1 (only exists in its first 4 minutes. I guess this didn't work out then, so I began anew and did my no.2. Now with my more "accomplished" technique, I think I know what to do with this)
4. String Trio
5. 2 Songs for soprano, clarinet & piano (I'd revise them and perhaps add more songs later)
6. "Strings", a 5-minute piece for string orchestra
7. 4 Whitman Songs
8. Two short pieces for cello solo

Rectifying Rossini's Record

Whew ! At last I finished my "pocket opera", IBU, a few days ago. Just sent the score to the musicians last nite. Now I gotta immediately start composing my second cantata, LIBERTAS.

I've broken my own record of the shortest time period in composing IBU. I did sketch its formal, harmonic & rhythmic structures last year right after I received the text of the monologue from Seno Gumira Ajidarma himself, but practically I started writing its actual notes on the plane carrying me back to Spain on the 10th of March this year. Then there was a one-week "black-out" period, plus some small travellings until at last I wrote its last note on the 11th of April. So, about 4 weeks of intense composing IBU. In between, some notes and sketches of LIBERTAS had also been done, even a number has been completed (I intended it to have 9 numbers, each based on a poem by a.o. Walt Whitman, Hasan Aspahani, Sapardi Djoko Damono, Ilham Malayu, WS Rendra).

Not that I wanted to break Rossini's record being the world's fastest scribbler ; I did it because of the scheduled World Premiere which will be on the 7th of June ! It will be programmed for the Jakarta Opera's Festival at the World Theatre of the British International School. And Aning Katamsi, the one and only singer of the opera, would certainly like to have it as early as possible. If I were her, I'd kill the composer for doing this to her ...

Now to LIBERTAS. My second cantata (my first was Ars Amatoria, which I will conduct again right 1 week before the premiere of IBU in Jakarta) will have approximately the same duration of IBU : a bit more than half an hour, but it will demand bigger forces : a baritone solo, a mixed choir (Joseph Kristanto will be the soloist together with the ITB Choir conducted by Indra Listiyanto) accompanied by 8 instruments. Commissioned by Bimasena, it is scheduled to be premiered in August this year for an audience which will include the president of Indonesia and some ministers.

But gimme a break ! Another big piece to write ? No way. I wanna have some days of "relax composing" as I always say, which means writing something completely different and unburdened (does that word exist? Anyway, I wanna say no deadlines, no commissions). I have started doodling on a new Rapsodia Nusantara no. 4 this morning. Am excited about it for 2 things : 1. It will be in variation form, a form which I never had explored & exploited thoroughly or explicitly. I will just write 1 variation a day, and put them in order after I decided that they should be enough (let's see .. perhaps 7 or 8 variations ?). 2. I have promised my friend Henoch Kristianto to dedicate it to him. He is a fine & brilliant pianist whose playing I admire so much (he studied & graduated in the US, but hey .. nobody's perfect). In fact, it was his playing of the Saint Saens 6th Etude which inspired me this morning to write a "light" variation. My Rapsodia won't sound like Saint-Saens, but sometimes my secret love to a certain composer come to the surface ...

By the way, d'you have something to do next weekend (24th of April) ? If not, you might like to have a date with your loved one to go to the cinema (if you live in Indonesia) and watch Romeo & Juliet. You won't regret it. I don't say it because I wrote the music for that film, I just think it's a very fresh & original look at the greatest love story of all time.

Dichotomy

No, that's not a title of a new piece. It's what I have been thinking these days, writing my new opera.

Let's face it, my (and many of other artist's) taste is not (always) the common public taste. Nobody has heard even one note of my new "pocket opera" IBU (oh, by the way, this word means "Mother"), but many questions, opinions and even protests (!) have been sent to me regarding my article about my creative process (see my previous entry). Most of you expressed concern about this surrealistic idea of mine of writing "unfinished" arias in my new opera. And now that it is 99% finished, I can see that I am truthful to my original idea about "unfinishing" arias, recitatives, even its overture and instrumental intermezzi. Basically, most of your reaction is simply "Hmmm ...Andy, I don't think it's a good idea ..."

"Unfinished" is my way of symbolizing the underlying theme of IBU : What really happened to my son ? And it also expresses this kind of strange sadness. If you have an unanswered (and very important) question in your life, I guess that's what happened. Everything keeps hanging in the air. But one thing is symbolism, another thing is being artistic. Will the public stand an opera, sung by one and only one singer (Aning Katamsi will be spectacular in her singing and acting, I can assure you, but this lasts for 35 minutes non-stop !), singing broken arias all the time ?
But hey, writing with this technique could perhaps make an "Indonesian identity". You see, Indonesian public likes to clap (which is nice, I know. Imagine a public who does NOT like to clap !), especially between movements and even before a piece is finished. I always regret them clapping right before the coda of my song, "Dalam Doaku". This coda was very difficult to write, and I think I succeeded in its timing and placement. But Indonesian public never heard it because they always clap right before the coda arrives ! So, "broken arias" might be a solution to avoid them clapping, he he ...

I have done some "dangerous" artistic experiments in my life. Some failed, some succeeded, as usually happened in any kind of experiments. I lost count on the amount of music I wrote that ended up in my dustbin. The last time I did this kind of experiment was in the film "Romeo & Juliet" by film director Andibachtiar Yusuf, already received its world premiere at the Hongkong International Film Festival a few weeks ago, and due to be premiered in Indonesia on the 25th this month. Some say it's outrageous, some say it's brilliant, but I will let time to tell the ultimate truth. Which means that in a few years time, when I am older (and hopefully wiser) I will look at it again and see whether I did a brilliant thing or I was just exercising an idiocy.

Some artist friends always told me that the public is not my business. But then I believe, with several other artists friends, that I am part of the public. Whatever the truth is, for many many years now I've been holding on to this catchy phrase of my favorite painter Piet Mondriaan : "Art has to be forgotten, beauty must be realized".

World Premiere of "IBU -- yang anaknya diculik itu" will be held at the World Theatre of BIS ( British International School )
Bintaro Jaya Sektor IX, Jl. Raya Jombang
Ciledug, Pondok Aren
Sunday, June 7, 2009 at 4 p.m

Performers will be : Aning Katamsi, soprano as IBU
Elizabeth Ashford, flute
Ananda Sukarlan, piano
BIS Children Choir dan JCOM Children Choir
conducted by Elizabeth Ashford dan Mirta Hartono

Flirting fingers and a desperate housewife

One thing I notice about the public of a piano concert. Everybody wanted to have a seat at the left side of the hall, "where I can see the fingers of Ananda". That's what the majority of the people told Chendra, my manager, when they reserved the tickets for my only solo piano recital in Jakarta this year. (By the way, the last time I did another solo piano recital in that city was in 2006. Time flies ! At that time it was at the (still) beautiful old building Gedung Kesenian. The director(ress) was just appointed then, in 2004. Since then, the building and its management became a big mess, no more audiences, and therefore no more concerts these days (I saw in their Calendar of this (or last?) month,and there were only 3 events in a month). The most important artists of Indonesia don't want to perform there anymore. I'm not important, but I also don't feel like going there again under this management.)

Now I am back home, writing my pocket opera, "IBU". It is commissioned by Jakarta Opera to be performed in Jakarta on June 7th this year. The libretto is based on a monologue by Seno Gumira Ajidarma, and it is a sequel to "Mengapa Kau Culik Anak Kami". So, since I will write it only for one soprano and nobody else, I am thinking it to be accompanied by a very small group of musicians. In fact, only 2 : piano (myself) and a flute doubling piccolo. That's the idea of "pocket" opera : an opera which can be carried easily, toured easily. I am happy that my friend, the excellent soprano Aning Katamsi has agreed to do it.

I am trying to do something terrifying in this opera. I mean, terrifying to myself. I am going to write lots of "arias" , but all of them will be without a finishing cadence. In fact, even sometimes without reaching a climax. The idea is to evoke desperation of a mother whose husband and son has gone. No hope is fulfilled. It is all dark, sadness and gloom. And anger.

I wonder how people will react with arias which just start and do not continue. Look, the whole idea of the original text is not meant to entertain. Seno Gumira wrote a very dark monologue. So, I treat this as one BIG aria, from beginning to end. Will I succeed ? I dunno. But one has to try things at least once in their lifetime.

Who's afraid of the number 5000? (More facts about facebook)

This is the continuation of my entry about facebook earlier this year.

Last week, seeing that the number of friends in "Ananda Sukarlan's friends" group at facebook is reaching about 4.500, I had the idea of giving a gift to the 5000th friend. The gift would simply be a free ticket to my solo piano concert at Goethe Haus, Jakarta on the 4th of March*. Both Chendra and me have discovered that the number of friends grows approximately 40 to 80 every day in that group, so I guess that in about a week from that date the group will reach 5000.

But now, instead of celebrating the 5000th, it turned out to be a disaster. A second disaster, to be precise. First of all, last year my personal fb could not accept anymore friends due to its maximum number, 5000. Now, the group (whose number is supposed to be unlimited) has said that fb CANNOT send messages to the members since the number has surpassed 5000. In fact, since a few weeks ago every time that Chendra or me sent a message to all members of the group, fb did it with a note "Your message is delayed since you are sending to a large group of people", and we realized that it took 2 to 3 days to reach the destinations.

So we made a quick decision of making another group, "Ananda Sukarlan's friends 2" (I can't believe that I am emulating Harry Potter, Indiana Jones or the dinosaurs at Jurassic Park) . The problem now is to get my friends at "1" to move to "2" . Even as owners and administrators of the group, we cannot decide who enters or who leaves the group. We can just invite people, or report people if they violate anything in the group, but it's all up to the fb big brothers to do it. So, may I ask you, friends, if you are a member of "1" to "move" to "2" ? Please make sure you MOVE, (which means that you get out of group "1") and not just be another member of 2, because then you are giving more problems !

Oh, some friends have suggested that we create a Fan Page for me. Now, that's against my will, since I don't feel I have fans. I am not a celebrity, I am simply a composer. There is nothing celebrational or glamorous in putting those beansprouts on music paper on a table.

* My concert at Goethe Haus will be on Wednesday, 4th of March at 7.30 pm. Its program triply celebrates the 200th year of Joseph Haydn's death, 200th year of Felix Mendelssohn's birth and 60th year of Jaya Suprana (one of Indonesia's prominent composer)'s birth. I will also give the first performance of my Rapsodia Nusantara no.3 .. if you wonder about no.2 , I will write about it in this blog later this (or next) week (or month) ..

Bersua dengan AMIR PASARIBU

(This is an article of mine which appeared at an Indonesian e-newspaper 2 years ago).

Suatu hari datang satu e-mail dari seseorang bernama Nurman Pasaribu yang ditujukan ke saya. Sungguh suatu surprise! Ternyata Beliau adalah putra dari komponis yang selama ini karya-karyanya saya kagumi dan sering dimainkan, tetapi saya selalu mengira Beliau sudah meninggal (Amir Pasaribu lahir pada tahun1915). Nurman sendiri telah berkeluarga dan tinggal di Belanda. Dari Latifah Kodijat, seorang pengajar senior di Jakarta, beberapa tahun lalu saya mendapatkan banyak partitur dari Amir Pasaribu. Dua sonata untuk piano (yang no. 2 hanya bagian pertamanya saja yang partiturnya saya miliki), karya-karya kecil lainnya seperti The juggler's meeting, Puisi Bagor, Capung Kecimpung di Cikapundung dan Variasi Sriwijaya. Dari karya-karya tersebut, ada sekitar 5 karya yang saya terus mainkan di berbagai penjuru dunia, sedangkan yang lainnya tersimpan di perpustakaan saya karena banyak not-not yang salah kutip ataupun meragukan.

Sejak email pertama dari Nurman, saya kemudian banyak bertukar e-mail dengannya, juga dengan putrinya, Gonny Pasaribu. Kebetulan, bulan Desember lalu saya diundang oleh Medan Musik untuk menjadi juri Samick Piano Competition di Medan. Nurman langsung menganjurkan saya untuk menyempatkan diri berkunjung ke rumah Amir Pasaribu. "Datang saja", kata Nurman lewat telpon, "Tidak usah telpon dulu. Pappie (sebutannya untuk ayahnya) sudah di kursi roda, dan tidak pernah kemana-mana, dan pasti senang dikunjungi Ananda. Beliau sering menyebut nama anda." Ternyata, pernah ada satu artikel yang ditulis kritikus dan musikolog Bintang Prakarsa di satu harian di Indonesia yang menyebutkan bahwa saya adalah satu-satunya pianis Indonesia yang tetap memainkan karya-karyanya di luar negeri. Apa itu benar, saya sendiri tidak tahu. Yang saya tahu, ya itu tadi, saya selalu memainkan karya komponis dari negeri saya yang saya kira sudah masuk club yang saya bisa namakan "Dead Composers Society" yang anggota-anggotanya bisa disebut dari Beethoven, Bach, sampai Toru Takemitsu atau Mochtar Embut.

Jadilah hari Minggu pagi itu, setelah saya tiba di Medan hari sebelumnya, saya bersama teman & manager saya, Chendra, naik taxi dari hotel menuju ke Karya Wisata, alamat yang kami dapat dari Nurman. Rencananya kami hanya akan sebentar saja. Setelah agak berputar-putar Medan dan bertanya-tanya (saya sebenarnya cukup kaget karena orang Medan, termasuk para siswa/i musik, tidak mengenal namanya. Itulah nasib seorang seniman musik sastra di Indonesia!). Akhirnya kami tiba, dan mengetuk pintu. Tidak ada jawaban. Ketuk lagi. Sama saja. .... "Tuh, mungkin sedang ke gereja," kata Chendra. Saya tidak menyerah. Mengetuk lagi. Tidak ada reaksi. Kami kemudian berputar, ingin bertanya ke tetangga apa benar ini rumah Amir Pasaribu. Ketika kami sampai di pintu gerbang, tiba-tiba pintu rumah bergoyang-goyang. Tapi tidak terbuka! Situasi ini mungkin hanya memakan waktu satu menit, tapi rasanya lama sekali karena kami bingung, kok surealis banget! Akhirnya, pintu terbuka, dan kami jadi mengerti kenapa hal itu terjadi. Muncul seseorang tua di kursi roda, memakai kaos oblong putih dan sarung. Langsung saya datangi. "Pak Amir Pasaribu?" "Siapa anda?" teriaknya. "Saya Ananda Sukarlan, Pak." "Siapaaa?" "Ananda Sukarlan, seorang pianis, Pak.""Siapaaa?" Membaca situasi lebih cepat dari saya, Chendra mendekati telinganya, dan berteriak "Ananda Sukarlan Pak, pianis yang tinggal di Spanyol!""Ooooooh!" Kegembiraan terpancar di wajahnya yang tadinya kelihatan galak. Beliau langsung menyodorkan tangannya untuk bersalaman. "Ik ken jouw naam (saya tahu nama anda)!" dan setelah Chendra memperkenalkan dirinya juga, kami duduk dan mengobrol di teras.

Terus terang, saya selalu grogi bertemu dengan orang baru, apalagi ini seseorang yang saya selalu kagumi, senior, dan notabene sudah tuli. Saya membayangkan menit-menit keheningan pasti akan terjadi, di mana saya tidak tahu harus omong apa. Ternyata, pak Amir orangnya banyak bicara, dan antusias sekali. Beliau lebih fasih berbahasa Belanda, jadi akhirnya percakapan berganti bahasa. Chendra yang tidak mengerti satu kata pun jadi gelisah, dan akhirnya mengambil kamera. Ceklak, ceklek ... Daripada nganggur dan tidak mengerti!

Sambil mendengarkannya berbicara, saya mengamati fisiknya. Luar biasa sekali orang ini. Umurnya 92 tahun, karakternya yang kuat masih bersinar di wajahnya. Yang menarik perhatian saya adalah telinganya yang besar, yang mengingatkan saya ke komik Tintin tentang patung-patung bertelinga panjang di Pulau Paskah. Masih ada sangat sedikit rambut putih dipotong pendek sekali walaupun sebagian besar sudah botak, dan sudah ompong. Kelihatan sekali bahwa pak Amir adalah orang yang tidak doyan berkompromi, keras dan punya pendapat yang kokoh dan sulit dibengkokkan tentang banyak hal.

"Saya menderita Alzheimer", katanya. Wow, saya hampir tidak percaya. Banyak sekali yang Beliau masih ingat. "Gimana guru anda, Oey Tjong Lee?" tanyanya. "Sudah meninggal, Pak" (Tjong Lee adalah Rudy Laban, mantan guru saya di Jakarta sebelum saya meninggalkan tanah air). "Ooooh", kegetiran, seperti semua ekspresi yang dirasakannya, langsung terpancar kuat. Raut wajahnya memang ekspresif sekali. "Usianya masih sangat muda." Kemudian, Pak Amir juga menyebut tentang "Tisna" (alm. Ny. Charlotte Sutisna, yang ditahun 60-an sangat berdedikasi untuk memainkan karya-karyanya. Rekamannya dari banyak karyanya yang dibuat di RRI akan sangat membantu saya untuk merekam kembali karya-karya tersebut, kali ini dengan teknik digital yang tinggi dan mikrofon serta studio yang 100x lebih canggih dan betapa Beliau kehilangan setelah ia meninggal. "Kawan-kawan saya terdekat kini sudah meninggal. Itulah kalau orang bertahan sampai usia lanjut, jadinya kesepian." Saya jadi ingat pernah membaca bahwa Stravinsky, semakin lanjut usianya, karya-karyanya semakin banyak yang berjudul "In Memoriam". Sebut saja: I.M. Aldous Huxley, Dylan Thomas ... itu semua ditulisnya saat ia berusia sekitar 80 tahun.

Saya juga kaget Pak Amir tahu tentang Michael Jackson. "Musik jaman sekarang, tambah lama tambah jelek ("verschikelijk"). Itu bukan seni. Itu bikin masyarakat tambah tolol". Terus terang, saya ada setujunya dengan pendapat ini, walaupun tentu saja saya tidak setuju tentang Michael Jackson, terutama hasil karyanya sewaktu ia masih berkulit hitam di tahun 80-an. "Beethoven, Brahms, Bartok, sudah tidak ada lagi komponis-komponis seperti mereka zaman sekarang. Musik pop dan rock itu sudah tidak dapat disebut musik lagi". Wah, Pak, untungnya tidak sempat mengenal musik-musik avant-garde model Stockhausen dan Boulez; kalau musik pop saja sudah tidak bisa disebut musik, lalu musik avant-garde disebut apa???

Beliau banyak tahu tentang saya. Salah satu buktinya seperti di atas, Beliau mengetahui dengan siapa saja saya telah berguru. Satu anjurannya (yang tentu saja saya sudah turuti) adalah "Blijf buitenland" (tetaplah tinggal di luar negeri). "Di sini seniman tidak dihargai," ujarnya. Beliau juga menyayangkan banyak partiturnya yang tersebar dan hilang, karena sering pindah rumah dan juga rumahnya pernah kemasukan maling. Andaikan saja maling itu tahu betapa berharganya kertas-kertas yang dicurinya!

Sulit sekali untuk pamit. Beliau sangat menikmati kunjungan dari siapa pun. Senang mengobrol, dan yang diajak mengobrol pun ketagihan. Tapi akhirnya kami pun harus balik ke hotel. Yang jelas, saya sudah mendapatkan izinnya untuk merekam seluruh karya musiknya. Lebih dari izin, Beliau "lega bahwa musik saya ada di tangan yang baik" (dalam dunia piano, kalimat ini bisa diterjemahkan secara harafiah). Pertanyaan terakhir dari Beliau, "Kapan saya bisa dengar rekaman permainan kamu? Jangan lupa, saya tidak punya banyak waktu lagi." Saya hanya bisa menjawab "Iya, Pak" .... Dan pamit pulang.

Yang masih merupakan misteri untuk saya adalah mengapa Amir Pasaribu berhenti berkarya pada tahun 70-an, di saat Beliau berumur 60-an? Usia itu, untuk jaman sekarang, relatif muda untuk berhenti berkarya. Inspirasi kering? Motivasi kurang? Bagaimana pun, tidak seperti Jean Sibelius yang berhenti berkarya saat usia 50 tahun tapi hingga kini tetap beredar gossip-gossip bahwa ada karya-karya yang ditulis setelahnya (seperti Simfoni no. 8), dalam hal Amir Pasaribu cukup jelas. Beliau memang telah berhenti berkarya sejak lama. Sebetulnya yang saya lebih sayangkan adalah partitur-partitur yang hilang entah kemana. Sewaktu saya bilang bahwa putranya telah berhasil mengumpulkan sekitar 25 karya untuk piano, pak Amir berkata "Sebetulnya sangat lebih dari segitu. Tapi, ada di mana musik-musik itu, tidak ada yang tahu. Sudah, lupakan saja." Wah, maaf Pak, tidak bisa saya lupakan. Itu aset negara sebetulnya. Sayangnya, hanya beberapa orang saja yang sadar betapa bernilainya itu. Sayangnya, nilainya bukan berupa uang, dan kalau bukan uang, di abad 21 ini namanya bukan nilai .....

Ananda Sukarlan,
komponis & pianis.