A tribute to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Yesterday I lost, we lost, one of the greatest inspirational figure in classical music. The great baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau died at 86 (he was born in 1925). He wasn't a great operatic figure, since his forte lies in the art of German lieder, but it was exactly that facet which inspired me a lot. His recording with Gerard Moore of Schubert's songcycle Winterreise must have been the best recording of that masterpiece, and he had recorded it with other pianists (including Alfred Brendel) several times. Ah, those good old times when we could make countless recordings and could be appreciated by music lovers. Now it's all the downloading culture in the internet. --------- The baritone voice used to be considered as "the tenor voice who couldn't hit high notes", and then Fischer-Dieskau came to rescue its reputation. I am not going to post his biography, since one can easily find it now by googling him. I just wanna write about his impact on me, mostly when I was still studying in my early 20s. The first recording of his I heard was Gustav Mahler's Lieder eine Fahrende Gesellen, with Leonard Bernstein, taking the three movements usually sung by a mezzo-soprano and making them very much his own. But after several other recordings of his I listened to, two of them made a special impact on me. The first one was Britten's War Requiem, whose baritone part was written inspired by and especially for him. It became one of the landmark pieces of my life, not only musically but also an eye-opener to the real meaning of war, and therefore life. Oh and of course Britten wrote his Songs and Proverbs of William Blake for Fischer-Dieskau, a beautiful songcycle for baritone and piano which I still dream of performing one day. -------------- The other one was Sir Michael Tippett's The Vision of St. Augustine, a work for baritone solo, choir & orchestra. Sir Michael in that work attempts the "reach to exceed humanity's grasp" with the baritone solo, the metaphor for the present that follows Augustine's account of the vision combined with the chorus, the symbol of the past and future with its commentary on Augustine's narrative. Out of these disparate and conflictive forces, transcendence erupts. Tippett shows us that with effort, humanity has the potential to reach transcendence through music, and Fischer-Dieskau realized his aspirations. Sir Michael avoided any reference to the tradition of the Music of the Spheres in the Vision of St. Augustine so as not espouse transcendence as attainable through manipulation of patterns and numerology. Instead he turned to the music of the angels, those messengers of God whose language discloses the music of transcendence, and consequently, the connection to the Divinity. Tippett's principal vocal technique is glossolalia, those vocalizations or excited repetitions of vowels to depict the character of angelic singing. Glossolalia, a term from the Greek, are the wordless sounds and shouts accompanying ecstasy. Glossolalia is most prevalent in the vision of eternity, particularly in extension of the final syllables of "alleluia." Unison singing beginning with the lowest male voices extending through the ranges of the highest female voices creating vast arches, using short note values and antiphonal singing complete the angelic vocalizations, and require virtuoso singing from the chorus. It was this piece hanging in the back of my mind when I wrote my own (much lesser in scale and artistic quality, unfortunately) second cantata LIBERTAS which has the same (again, less quantity of instruments) formation. You can download the whole cantata if you have an iPad, iPod touch or even in your iPhone by just searching my name on appStore. By the way, in that app called "Ananda Sukarlan - Premium" you can also listen to many of my songs for baritone, sung by Joseph Kristanto. Some of those songs owe their existence to Fischer-Dieskau's inspirational voice, I must say. And now heaven is so lucky to have Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He is singing now for the angels. Requiescat in Pace, Maestro. You deserve to leave this world by saying that you left it better than when you found it. At least a humble Indonesian boy who dreamt to be a musician & composer could realize it, thanks to you. And you've made him love music more, and made it a big part of his life.

From A to A (that makes us the A-team, eh?)

If one wants it, then it's done. Among my busy periods recording for the film "Romeo*Juliet" as well as rehearsing & preparing for the "Prelude" concerts for the New Year Concerts, I managed to write 4 short pieces : one choral work commissioned by ITB Choir to celebrate the Golden Anniversary of their prestigious university, and 3 songs for baritone & piano. The ITB Choral work is a festive one, based on Sapardi Djoko Damono's breathtaking & majestic sonnet (also commissioned for this event) called KITA CIPTAKAN KEMERDEKAAN (We Create Freedom). Its sketches were done on the plane from Bilbao to Jakarta and Jakarta-Surabaya-Jakarta in the last days of last month, and then it was written out completely and finished 7 days ago on Chendra's computer whose Sibelius program had gone mad. Until this minute I still haven't heard one note of that music, which will be the explanation if suddenly one or more chords would sound "avant-gardish".

The three songs for baritone & piano were done on Friday and Saturday 12th and 13th, between two concerts of mine. I wrote them for my good friend, the always F-word (I mean fabulous & fantastic) singer Joseph Kristanto "Akis" who celebrated his 39th birthday on the 15th. To those 3 songs I added 2 more older songs, one written in London during one of my stays with Chendra last spring when one day suddenly it snowed, and another piece already written for Akis one day after we rehearsed. So, this new cycle for baritone & piano is called "A untuk Akis, Alam dan Angkasa" (translated (in-)correctly it will be : A for Akis, nature and the universe). The songs are :

1. Kesetiaan Pohon (Sapardi Djoko Damono)
2. Masa Kecil di Pegunungan (Eka Budianta)
3. Salju di Musim Semi (Chendra Panatan)
4. Selokan (Sapardi Djoko Damono)
5. Berkicaulah Burungku (Eka Budianta)

I am always touched how Akis loves nature. Apart from his love and dedication to music, of course. He always thinks of his fish, and once we rehearsed at the Jakarta Conservatory and he pointed out a peculiar tree which had been there, unnoticed by me, during these years. And this is a guy who lives right in the middle of Jakarta, the most unfriendly city in the world, full of bricks, mortars ... and greedy corruptors. So, what other birthday present is more appropiate than a songcycle about nature ?
And I am so grateful to his dedication to my music ; he practically has sung, beautifully, 90% of my music for baritone ( I wish he would sing the 10% of the rest), and memorized them (no matter how strange they are) . These 5 songs is my gratitude and my celebration to his artistry and to our friendship that I highly cherish.

PS : Thanks to Akis' sister Ita for her help in its "special delivery" after lots of hassle with the printer. And another PS : just 1 day before his birthday, his fish whom I baptized under the name Nijinsky died. Requiescat in pace ...