Bagaskara's In Love

Still about Annanolli's Sky (please check my previous entry). I told ya that I wanna write this music which is just an exhibition of combining vibrant and dark colours, without so much sturm und drang. Sort of like the new Zhang Yimou film, The Great Wall which is a delight to the eye. In the architectural plan of the music, there is about 2,5 minutes of slow music, sandwiched between fast sections, and of course I thought "oh it will come". And the time did come, but "it" didn't. I just didn't have any clue what to write, or on the contrary, I had every possible motifs worked out, developed, exploited and with all the compositional techniques inside my bag of tricks, somehow it still didn't work. I knew what was the problem. I always know HOW to write, but I don't always know WHAT to write. I was clueless about the character, about what to express. I was stuck for about a week, a week spent writing other "useless" music, going out with friends, and oh yes, it was around New Year, and I got drunk for about 3 days in a row, until ..... A young friend popped up through Whatsapp. He asked me for some time to listen to his life problems. And yeah, he is in love. Not that tormented love that I used to have; this is plain, simple, straightforward love. The kind of love that I need to express in this particular music. Becoz ... u know how to write music, right? Fall in love, get your heart broken, analyze it, turn it into music. The greatest art are always made with a broken heart. But certainly this method doesn't work for the slow part of Annanolli's Sky, which is so vibrant and exuberant. And I don't want to involve my own past (which is painful, therefore always inspirational) in this music, coz memories are the worst enemy of the heart trying to heal from the wounds of the past. ............................................................................................................................................ And hey, he has a nice name too, Bagaskara which means Sunrise. What could be more vibrant than sunrises? And those 9 letters make a sweet 4 notes from the pentatonic motif connected with my first theme with an extra tritone, from A to (e)S, which makes it even more strangely exquisite. I start to believe in destiny ... and Ecclesiastes 5:11, you know, God makes everything beautiful in His time. And so I started to sketch the piece. I designed it to be playable as a separate piece for violin and piano, of course with the quintet in my mind. So, I finished Bagaskara's In Love, a 2'20 piece for violin and piano, and I will orchestrate it and link it to the first section of Annanolli's Sky. .............................................................................................................................................. I know, I know, you're gonna ask me, well this has nothing to do with Annanolli's works? No, of course not. But a work of art, though inspired by another work of art, is independent in itself. It is a diary of the artist's life, at that moment, and simply a development of a series of musical materials. And well, I could argue that this kinda love is exactly what is needed in my piece. Not a tormented, or unrequited, or dramatic one. In fact, I gave an advice to my young B friend, that while they are separated in distance, just look at the sky and remember that they both are looking at the same sky. The sky, as anything else in nature connects us, not those shitty Whatsapp Video call or Skype. Those are electronics, artificially made by man to give artificial closeness and togetherness. And then, Bagaskara's In Love was written very quickly and almost intuitively, just like many of Annanolli's works. It was written in the night right after I finished talking with B, took me about an hour and I revised a few things the next day after I tried it on my piano. ............................................................................................................................................ Thank you God for making this couple in love and solve my musical problem!