Rapsodia Nusantara 6-10, after a lapse of 3 years

Now that the Indonesian pianist that I admire a lot, Henoch Kristianto is preparing his recording of my complete (yes, complete!) Rapsodia Nusantara's, I will have to publish the score. He is until now (that I know of) the only Indonesian pianist who managed to play all the 24 Chopin Etudes (and those aren't the only Chopin pieces he has played), and he played them with such a high musicianship, not only getting all those difficult notes correct! As with my Rapsodias, or Rapsies as I call them dearly, Henoch didn't play them as I imagined how they should sound. He plays them BETTER than I imagined them. He managed to paint new colours, squeeze different nuances from different pianistic textures and see them from different points of view which I myself haven't seen before. I plan to write at least 33 Rapsies, each dealing with folktunes from 1 province of Indonesia, but I have broken my own rule. There are already 2 Rapsies based on music from Maluku (no. 3 based on "Rasa Sayange" and "Sarinande" and no.4, based on "Buka Pintu". I don't know how many Henoch will record for this first CD, but anyway he will add some short pieces of mine in this CD too. .............................................................................................................................................. The scores of Rapsy 6-10 will be published at the beginning of July, hopefully. Here are the program notes for them. By the way, Henoch has made a meticulous analysis (which revealed many things that made me, the composer, surprised too!) of Rapsy 1-5 in his blog. Check it out if you want to know : http://henochkristianto.blogspot.com ............................................................................................................................................. Rapsodia Nusantara no. 6 is perhaps the most "French" in terms of its "impressionistic" sound from the keyboard. Durationwise it is the shortest of all my Rapsodias (it's not just the real duration, it's how it FEELS) and one can even call it a "Mini Rapsodia", since it's in form of an etude and lasts approximately (hopefully less than) 4 minutes. Basically it's a continuous transformation, or "growth" from the character of the beginning (hazy, soft, "feminine") to the end (percussive, dry, loud, "masculine"). One can even think of a "growth" of a nice, harmless sweet baby up to a 14-year-old "bad boy". It is based on a song from Aceh, Bungong Jeumpa. The song itself is very simple, just containing intervals of major 2nd and minor 2nd. There are no bigger intervals than that, which makes it unique. OK you can say that Tschaikovsky used the descending major scale as his main motif for The Nutcracker, but what a development did he do in that piece! No, no, Bungong Jeumpa has only 2 intervals, no more. I don't know another piece of music which is as economic as Bungong Jeumpa, apart from those Gregorian chants of course. And as I always say to my students, the more limited your material, the bigger possibilities there are to develop it, and therefore the freer you can be in developing it. Well, a melody with only a whole tone and semitone intervals obviously cannot provide you with an elaborate motif, that's why I decided that in this Rapsodia I'll have to exploit the other musical elements apart from melody. Rhythmically, Bungong Jeumpa doesn't provide much either. So that's the reason why I wanna experiment with textures here, just like those impressionist painters. One sees the score and there apparently are as many notes as dots in a painting of Georges Seurat. The pianist should be aware that those notes should form a "bigger picture", so he/she should aware of the listener in hearing the "melodic figures" among those millions of notes. Henoch gave the world premiere of this Rapsy in Medan (yup, just a few hundred kms away from Aceh) on June 8th this year. ............................................................................................................................................. The 7th Rapsodia uses the technique employed more in visual arts than music (Stravinsky, I believe, was the first composer who applied this technique in music). It is the "pastiche" but all broken into little pieces which was done by the cubist painters. In a Rhapsody, a pastiche is of course a perfect method to be applied, since the composer works on existing materials anyway. But what I refer to is the pastiche paintings of Picasso which was drawn from Goya, or like the Damoiselles d'Avignon or Guernica. In this Rapsodia I took two songs from the island of Papua, Yamko Rambe Yamko and Apuse, picked all the small motifs and present them as such. So the listener won't here the complete melodies until much later in the piece. With this technique, the spaces between the materials are carefully measured, so the pianist has to be rhythmically very precise, even (or I should say especially) in silences. Both silences and sounds are equally important, since they should be proportionally correct. Of course there are sections (especially dealing with the song Apuse, which by nature is lyrical) which are more free that the pianist could apply more rubato. Certainly this is the most strict -- proportionally, structurally and rhythmically speaking -- of my Rapsodias to date, which perhaps would make it the least "flashy", yet it is not the least difficult technically and intellectually. ............................................................................................................................................. If no. 6 is "French", then the 8th Rapsodia is perhaps "Austrian" or "Germanic". When I wrote it, Beethoven's second movement of Appassionata did stay on my mind. But its influence doesn't go further than the 2nd variation, and afterwards this Rapsodia takes a life of its own. This is based on O Inani Keke, a folksong from North Sulawesi. It is perhaps the easiest of my Rapsodias, not only technically and interpretatively, but in terms of my compositional process. I didn't recall any difficulty in writing it: I wrote a set of variations everytime I had free time from other big pieces, and one fine day I collected those variations and put them together, wrote the last variation and ... there you have it! ............................................................................................................................................. I have been, and still am, a huge admirer and fan of the music of Mozart, but since I became very active in composing around 8 years ago, my admiration shifted poco a poco to the music of Haydn. For me, he was more innovative and full of surprises. Since then I spent around 1 hour every day, if possible, practising many of his marvellous sonatas for keyboard. My 9th Rapsodia is perhaps my music that most reflects my studies of his music. It is based on 2 songs from South of Borneo, Ampar Ampar Pisang and Paris Barantai. Not only how I split and put the materials together is very Haydnesque, but also the character & touchee of the whole piece is more "classical" than most of my works. Therefore the pianist should bear in mind the sound of the harpsichord while playing this particular Rapsodia, even in the "lyrical" parts which is more "baroque" or "classical" than "romantic". The Australian pianist Daniel Herscovitch (whose fantastic recital I attended last year) is planned to give its world premiere on July 24th this year at the Piano Institute in Surabaya, founded by his talented and beautiful Indonesian student of his, Catherine Tanujaya. ............................................................................................................................................. I started my 10th Rapsodia in 2011 by planning its overall structure: a virtuosic introduction, some variations and ending in a passacaglia. This is perhaps the loudest of my Rapsodias until now (the last chord of the first section depicts the bomb, so one can never play it too loud!) , and it has a unique element : it is my only piece in my life that doesn't modulate AND only employs 5 notes. Those 5 notes are from the Balinese pentatonic mode, since the material for this piece is the Balinese song "Janger" which is very popular. I then abandoned it after just 2 or 3 days work in favor of other urgent pieces, and in October 2012 I came back to it again after watching the 10th anniversary of Bali bombing ceremony, which triggered me to dedicate this piece to the memory of the victims. I then realized that this horrible event is full of number 2: it occured on the 12th of October 2002, there were 2 bombs exploded and overall they killed 202 victims. I was toying on some palindromic phrases but it was too late since the structure (and many notes of it) has been established, so I concentrated in number 2, or pairs. Therefore most phrases are built on 4 bars, with the second half as the complementary of the first one. Number 2 also plays an important role in the last passacaglia movement. Again, after 2 or 3 days work I abandoned it again and only when I visited Bali a few weeks ago (where I was invited to perform for the inauguration of the Foreign Ministers Conference and then spent 3 days for holiday afterwards) that I finished it, working on it in the darkest hours of the nights when I was still suffering from jetlag.

Tourette Syndrome and how much I suffered from it

Earlier this week I was taping an interview for one of the most popular talkshows on Indonesian TV, "Tea Time with Desi Anwar". Desi is one of the top reporters in this country, and meeting her in that session convinced me that she deserves her reputation. During the breaks I quickly decided that I will talk about a subject which I never talked publicly before (although everyone who looks at me knows that I suffer from it) which is the Tourette Syndrome (TS), and how I suffered from it. In all the hundreds of interviews with reporters I've done throughout my life, I haven't opened up this matter to any one of them, and they were all nice enough not to touch this matter. At Desi's program, it was me who decided to talk, not her. .............................................................................................................................................. I had TS since as early as I could remember. My mom took me to some psychologists on this matter, but they proved useless, which only much later in life I realized that this is a syndrome that still has no cure for. Needless to say, I got bullied a lot at school with this thing with me, and even now some people look at me in a strange way. TS is a "cluster" disorder: because it is made up of separate symptoms, no two Touretters are the same. It consists of physical twitches, vocal twitches, obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. You can control the obsessions and compulsions for a time, but eventually they have to find an outlet, like an itch that has to be scratched. .......................................................................................................................................... TS automatically brings different side effects in each person. The most common are depression, anxiety (nervousness), seclusion (anti-social) and hyperactivity. In my case, I remember that my mother thought that I had abnormality in my talking or hearing, because until the age of almost 3 years I still wasn't able to speak. Apparently this is quite common, because people with TS tend to be introverted character even from a very early age, so we are not interested in getting in touch with the outside world. This character is also a cause of depression, because often we think about things too deeply, often repetitive due to the muscles and nerves in the brain that works without control. .......................................................................................................................................... Learning deeper about TS, I realized that it not only give disadvantages, but also advantages. Since TS not only affects outer body movements but also inner, it affects how our brain work. Most TS sufferers are hyperactive at some times which then are compensated by strange obsessions. In my case, when music sounds in my brain, it just cannot stop. I just gotta write it down, and sometimes I became so tired (or I had been so tired from working something else) but I couldn't stop myself from writing. And I am obsessed with each and every note; those notes may not be the BEST notes, but those ARE the notes which HAVE TO be in my piece. After writing, obviously I became dead tired, exhausted beyond belief, and I need hours of rest. During that rest I still need to do things extramusical, like reading, blogging or for the last 3 years tweeting (which I admit, am quite addicted to it). Months later I could just forget totally how the piece sounds, but at the time of its writing I couldn't take my focus and attention off it. It was simply Goodbye, world. .......................................................................................................................................... Another obsession of mine is being alone and lonely. I do need so much time to be both. It is ok if I am lonely by being alone, but if I am in a crowd (and mostly when I am performing) this loneliness become unbearable. It is a strange thing that I suffer from being lonely, but I enjoy it on the other hand. It's a kind of mental sadomasochistic attitude. This is one of the reason that I cut many of my performing activities. While my brain cannot stop being creative (I'd rather to call it as such, than call it being obsessed), mentally I can't stand too much being in, or exposed to a crowd. Being a composer really helps in keeping me mentally sane. ............................................................................................................................................. If you have friends or relatives who have TS, although it still can't be cured, much can be done to help them. The most important is your understanding, that we don't want all the tics and we can't suppress it. The symptoms of TS are unstable; it may be reduced depending on the state of the patient, and therefore a calm situation without the pressure / stress overload is very helpful in this regard. During my life, I have also observed that caffeine and sugar somehow exaggerate those tics, that's why I rarely consume 2 things mentioned above. Due to excessive brain nerves work, the majority of people with TS have higher than normal intelligence and a certain creative potential that can be (far) above the average; this can be developed which can be useful for us and the society around us, but we need participation and understanding from the society too. There are so many (I do not know exactly the data) MENSA member (the club of people with IQs categorized as genius) around the world with TS. The role of teachers at schools are very important to explain to students that this disease is "normal" although it's still often considered mysterious. .......................................................................................................................................... The icon of TS sufferer in the music world is W.A. Mozart. My theory is that his father "abused" him of working the whole day and night not only to get money from his work, but also to cool him down of his numerous uncontrolled (and sometimes aggresive or even self destructive perhaps?) body movements. I might be wrong. Of course during his time the syndrome wasn't named as such, since Gilles de Tourette himself (who first diagnosed this disease) was born in 1857, while Mozart died in 1791. There is a good article on TS and also on Mozart here : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2117611/ ............................................................................................................................................. If you suffer from TS, or know someone who suffers from it, let's have a chat and share your stories! Tweet me at @anandasukarlan , ok? And why not write your own story in a blog like this?

Is Music Really The Food of Love?

There are several pieces in the 3 Alicia's Piano Books that deals with love. But how do we express love in music (apart from the composer's obvious intention -- sometimes failed -- to make it sound beautiful)? For me, love is about uniting the differences of 2 persons. Remember this, young pianists who will experience (or just entered into?) your first love: you don't ask your partner to be the same as you. You should love your partner because who (s)he is. And that means that (s)he is different from you, and let him/her be that way. You are a lover, not a boss who tells people how they should act and should be. That's the power of love : it’s the unity of 2 people IN SPITE OF their differences. .......................................................................................................................................... But enough of love talk, let's analyze my music in a formal way. Keeping that concept above in mind, it is not difficult to write "love music" for piano: just make the right and left hand do different things! And that's what I did, mostly in rhythm. But of course, this is for the pieces with educational purposes. I'm making it rather simplistic, and if you listen to my other "love oriented" music, they are much more complicated than that! Until now I have managed writing those (easy) love music bi-rhythmically. I would love to do one bi-tonally, it would be really wild! Falling in Love (Alicia's 1st piano book) started from my wish to explain to my daughter the difference between a 6/8 and a 3/4 bar. So I wrote a piece where the left hand is in a 6/8 bar, and the right is in 3/4. The result is a flowing melodious piece, not a rhythmical one, since the melody is supported by an accompaniment which is different from its rhythm. No love involved initially, besides my love to my daughter. But then it turned out to be pretty romantic, so I gave it its title, and since I was commissioned to write for the film "Romeo & Juliet" at that time, the piece found its way to be one of the background music of one scene. .......................................................................................................................................... Since Alicia doesn't play the piano anymore, Alicia's 3rd Piano Book became more varied. I put many pieces that don't have any relations to Alicia and/or dealing with piano techniques into this book. One of them is indeed called Differences Unite, written for my dear friends Nathania Karina & Christian Oscar. It was written just because I chatted through Yahoo Messenger to Nathania, and suddenly felt like writing it (noooo, no fixed date for the wedding yet, at least that’s what they say hehehe). In this piece, the polyrhythm of 3 and 2 is changed in every beat, therefore it becomes a not-so-easy piece. The melody also appears not only in 1 hand but in both, so in most part of the piece it is clear which hand is more important. In the beginning, the melody in right hand even comes in exactly inverted from the first time it appears in left hand, kinda saying that two statements could be diametrically opposed but they both can be true (if you remember John Keats saying that “Truth is beauty”, ... and if you consider my melody beautiful). Only in the end both hands play equally important melodies (it also symbolizes that in a relationship, both parties are equal, if both are in love). .......................................................................................................................................... Unexpected Turns is a wedding gift for my dear childhood friend Laksmi Pamuntjak who has now become a prominent writer (and a stunningly beautiful lady, as if she turned into a butterfly from the caterpillar who I used to know!) who was marrying her second husband. Her most recent novel "AMBA" is enjoying immense success, and I feel guilty that for the 1 month I've been here in Indonesia I haven't managed to get hold of it. But I will, and the book will perhaps will accompany me during the flight back to Spain later this month. The title of my music refers to her life experiences too, and its differences lie in the sections which go to unexpected turns, although all of them are built on the same motif. .......................................................................................................................................... Mother's Love is different. It uses the motifs that I employ in my music for the film "Air Mata Terakhir Bunda" (Mother's Last Drop of Tears), to be released at the end of this year. After I finished writing its soundtrack, one day I felt like tinkering on one of its motif to make a rather virtuosic short piece. Anyway, a mother's love surpasses all differences; it's just the greatest love of all. .......................................................................................................................................... Talking about my music, of course we can’t avoid talking about motifs, since that element is the most crucial thing in my creative process. My music without motifs is like the world without atoms. I mentioned several times in my lectures that I have a “love” motif, but I am not sure if I have written about it in this blog. Anyway, it consists of an interval of a perfect fifth, plus a minor second (with its derivatives such as a major seventh or minor ninth and so on). That symbolizes my idea that love can make you understand perfection through happiness, but it can create the most dissonant chord too. Have your heart been wounded deeper than by the knife of love? Anyway, if you want to hear how this motif is so exploited, you can listen to my song Dalam Doaku and Ketika Kau Entah Dimana where it appears naked in the very first 3 notes of the singer. It then appears in a more elaborated figure in “Echo’s Whisper” for oboe and piano, and in many many places in my recent orchestral work ERSTWHILE: A communion of time (which is about love being postponed for 7 centuries. That motif can’t help but being very much elaborated, naturally!)

A Secret Sky

I dunno how many times I've tweeted that it's wonderful to have wifi on board of the plane, but we need electric plugs! Otherwise, how do we solve the problem of the battery of our laptop, especially in long flights? .... I just arrived in Indonesia, this time I went directly to Surabaya where I gotta give some masterclasses for hundreds, yeah literally hundreds of piano students. They are mostly enthusiastic and ambitious here in Surabaya, so it's nice to work with them. On board of the plane I googled many things about Rumi, my new favorite writer, and even his writings translated in English have that strange beauty that never fail to move and inspire me. One phrase totally struck me : “This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.” .......................................................................................................................................... Immediately music sounded in my head: music of low notes from "low" instruments trying to reach the great heights. And there I was, in the sky, alone, lonely with the other passengers with their own past, pains and problems. I managed to write 2 minutes of the first section of my new piece for viola and piano, and its title in progress is A Secret Sky. I fell asleep afterwards, watching a nice documentary of the early days of my all time favorite rock group, Queen. They are amazing, and certainly I consider Freddie Mercury my lifetime idol. I still don't know what I will do with A Secret Sky ... but I'm sure it will have a life of her own and create her own destiny. Hopefully a viola player would commission me, and if not, it will enter into a bigger piece of mine. Her future, as ours, are uncertain. But we have our past which determines our future, and she doesn't. ............................................................................................................................................ In Surabaya I worked with many many talented young pianists, among others at the recently created Piano Institute whose founder is a most charming & bright young lady graduated from Sydney Conservatory of Music (oh my visits there were always quite memorable; there were beauty everywhere, all kinds of beauty), Catherine Tanujaya. I suffered a huge jet lag problem, so I filled my sleepless nights with orchestrating the unfinished sections of Erstwhile. I regret that I couldn't leave Spain celebrating the total finished music of Erstwhile, but as Paul Valery had said, a work of art is never finished. I guess I will baptize it as "finished" only when I send the score to the orchestra. Meanwhile, I have to do several shorter and lighter projects, including finishing the second book of Rapsodia Nusantara. I plan to have Rapsodia 6 to 10 in that book, and it's too early to give away some details for now. This week will be a "social" week : the launching of the documentary video on autistic children by the Jakarta new honest governor (when did the last time we could combine that adjective with that noun?) Jokowi, and the big thing is the gala premiere of the film Hari Ini Pasti Menang (Today We Shall Win) this Thursday the 11th. I wrote the music for both films. You can check the "pop" theme song I wrote for that film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wnuHsn56ic&feature=share. Lots of events, interviews and ... GOOD FOOD! But meanwhile, here I am, struggling with all my pains and putting them on music paper. In my own secret sky, the sky I wish I'd never be in.

Program notes : on my marimba etude & "Jemari Menari"

My etude for marimba solo, written for my dear friend, the great marimba player Miquel Bernat will be published this spring, and they asked me for a program note. And Genie Tjahjadi, an Indonesian-born mezzosoprano living in the US will sing "Bibirku Bersujud di Bibirmu" and "jemari Menari" in her recital next April. I have written about "Bibirku" so she can use that article here: http://andystarblogger.blogspot.com.es/2009_11_01_archive.html , so I just had to write about "Jemari Menari", so here they are : .......................................................................................................................................... The Birth of Drupadi is the first of my trilogy on the Javanese mythology fascinating female character, Drupadi. The second is for guitar solo, The 5 lovers of Drupadi and the third is The Humiliation of Drupadi for 2 pianos. I am thankful to Miquel Bernat for his inspiring insight on his instrument that has made it possible for me to write this piece. .......................................................................................................................................... Drupadi was born of wrath & revenge and was destined to bear grudges in her life. She was born of fire, from the sacred fire ceremony done by the king Putrakarma Drupada of Panchala kingdom as a revenge to his friend Druna who had humiliated him in front of his disciples. The pain and resentment had driven King Drupada to hold a sacred ceremony. Drupada begged the gods to be blessed with the perfect child to avenge Druna. Drupada's prayer was answered. From the holy fire out came two figures that the gods bestowed to him. A handsome male figure complete with mighty armor was given the name Drestadyumna who would later be given the responsibility of the killing of Druna. And the beautiful maiden female figure with dark skin color was Drupadi. For her whole life, the element of fire remained within her. .......................................................................................................................................... Jemari Menari is inspired by, and therefore dedicated to, my friend "Tris" as he likes to be called. I met him for the first time through his "klappertaart" (a type of cake) in a birthday party of a common friend of ours as his present, and it turned out that he is a fantastic pastry chef. But what is amazing are his fingers; those 10 fingers are the most beautiful fingers I've seen in my life: they are perfectly shaped, long, agile and nimble. Since I've enjoyed his gastronomic masterpieces since then, I thought of giving something in return. Far from being a masterpiece, my song is just a tiny remembrance to celebrate those dancing 10 fingers of his producing those delicious cakes. I was fortunate that one of my favorite poet, Nanang Suryadi, has a short poem about that theme that really fits with the music I had in mind that I could use.

Saying yes, saying no, and to know the difference

"I wanna be a musician when I grow up". That sentence has been uttered by millions of children throughout the history of modern mankind, and has never let the parents be indifferent. Either it provoked horror, or the other way around, pride and happiness. In any case, it has a more powerful effect than "I wanna be an engineer / lawyer / pilot, or even a president". Those are "common" professions, while a musician is not. .......................................................................................................................................... But how does one become a musician? Well, we musicians now know that it's not as easy as you think. To have a musical career takes the same commitment, hard work and intelligence as those "common" professions, but unfortunately it is often still underestimated. But what is a musical career? My own definition of a "successful" musical career is not having lots of contracts and concerts, but it is when you can already refuse an offer for a project. In the beginning of my career, I said yes to everything, all projects handed to me. Even I accepted to perform some contemporary avant-garde music, which the majority as you know is total rubbish. At that time, in the 1990s, government subsidy in Europe was so big that they could accomodate all kind of trash, just for the sake of subsidizing the artist, and the more "crazy" he / she was, usually the more politically correct therefore he managed to collect lots of subsidies to promote his music and art through his close connections to the arts councils. But in the end, what we all want to do are the things which we like to do, not the things that give us money. When money is not an issue anymore, it is when we have the freedom to choose, and the freedom to refuse. But there IS an easy way out for having a career if it only means "fame" (although it doesn't last long, unfortunately). There is a tendency (in Indonesia, but I guess it also happens in other developing countries, even in the US) that classical music is a "status symbol" for the rich, therefore they PAY to perform a concert! And paying is not limited in performing, it goes further in recording, even having titles ... and even just BE yourself (who you are not, obviously). You see, there is nothing difficult if you have money, and lots of them. Yeah yeah, they say money can't buy happiness, but isn't it nicer to weep in a 5-star hotel room than under the bridge? I didn't have the opportunity, fortunately, to pay for anything in the past, simply because my parents weren't rich. And even now when I can pay, I will not do it for my daughter (who (un)fortunately is not interested in a musical career anyway), since I want her to go through all the difficulties in "climbing the mountain" as we say. .......................................................................................................................................... Competitions are the usual way of starting a musical career. One usually could only join competitions when they are under 26 or 27 years old. I never take a musician seriously if they never joined a competition in their lives. Even if one doesn't win, joining a competition proves that one is serious in pursuing one's musical career, or at least testing one's capability in music. For me, joining already means winning. Winning against yourself, winning against your own fear. If you don't fight for what you love, don't cry for what you lose. But I have noticed some common mistakes people made while joining music competitions : ............................................................................................................................................ 1. Choice of repertoire : although virtuosity is not a "must", in jury's subconscious mind, it is. You just can't join a competition with technically easy pieces. - 2. No try out before : this is suicide. Before you join a competition, you should do a "concert", even if it means just inviting your family and friends, and play the repertoire of your competition in front of them. That forces you to play the music right from the beginning to the end. - 3. thinking that the most important thing is the right notes, or being in tune. Diiinggg! Very wrong! Remember, music is to EXPRESS, not to IMPRESS. You can impress people with words (especially if they are lies), but not with music. - 4. performing the most "common" repertoire. Remember that the jury members have listened to at least 500 interpretations of Chopin's Ballades or Beethoven's Violin Sonatas. It makes them "compare" and not "enjoy", and more often than not, the odds are never in your favour. ............................................................................................................................................ But remember, the toughest competition is not against other musicians. It's against yourself. You are your worst enemy. The dark forces are within you, even if you are not the son of Darth Vader. ............................................................................................................................................ I am very much looking forward to the competitions this year, the Ananda Sukarlan Junior Award Piano Competition in July, and the "Tembang Puitik Ananda Sukarlan" Vocal Competition in September. May the force be with you!

The most powerful inspirer (continuing my previous article)

I always say, no matter how powerful someone, a piece of art or an event can inspire you to create an artistic product, the biggest inspirer of all time (and it never fails) is THE DEADLINE. Since Erstwhile is an intense essay about love, I have put the Valentine's Day this year for my own deadline to finish the voice parts. Well I missed 2 days, but since it's my own deadline, it wasn't as inspiring as deadlines which are imposed by external forces :) .......................................................................................................................................... Therefore all the soloists, even the choir, have received their parts through email by now. The orchestration, especially the orchestral sections without singers involved, is not finished ; I guess it will be finished just when I have to send the parts to the orchestral musicians next month, as I have this sick obsession of revising and re-re-re-revising my music before the musicians get the score. Oh, I didn't tell you the names of the soloists involved, right? Well, you would know their names since they are all the winners of the National Voice Competition "Tembang Puitik Ananda Sukarlan" (TPAS) 2011, but mostly not the ones who sang in my previous chamber comedy operas MENDADAK KAYA and LAKI-LAKI SEJATI. So, they are : Ivan Jonathan (as Rafael), Evelyn Merrelita (as Madame Vaillant) -- both are characters living in the 21st century, in fact they met aboard the Singapore Airlines. The ones from the 13th and 14th century are Albertus James Sofyan (as Picaro), Christine Tambunan (as Soléne) and Anggana Bunawan (who only sing 2 arias but playing the role of 2 characters, as Gajah Mada -- a historical character from the Majapahit era in Indonesia -- and as a priest at the Notre Dame Church). All characters of the story, except Gajah Mada, are purely fictional, and any resemblances with real life characters or happenings (such as a broken heart of 7 centuries!) are purely coincidental. As I wrote you before, Erstwhile is a work in progress, so at the moment it will just be recorded and performed in a "concertante" way, although I do ask the singers to do some very small gestures (such as shaking hands when they first met, and other things that connect each other at the duets). Will they wear concert costumes or theatrical ones in the premiere? I still dunno. .......................................................................................................................................... Ah, talking about the National Voice Competition, in case you are a vocalist, you might be interested in joining the next one, in September this year in Surabaya. The city is coincidentally very close to one of the locations where Erstwhile took place, but that's not the reason. It is simply because the initiator, founder and executor of the competition happens to be Amadeus Performing Arts, a company based in Surabaya. You can tweet them to @KompetisiTPAS for more info, and do be quick since I heard that the end of this month February is the last day to register for the "early birds" (this term couldn't be more appropriate for you singers who sing like nightingales!). Anyway, I am so proud and happy to know and work with the previous winners, they are amazingly and surprisingly brilliant, but am still curious in discovering new & unknown great new vocal talents. They are another source of inspiration for me, just like deadlines. And I love those inspiring vocalists. In fact, I love all people and everything else that inspires me, except deadlines. Unfortunately we have to know the difference between love and inspiration ; you don't have to love the people (or things) that inspires you. That, my friends, is what you call life.

Mahler and the Pharaohs: Death and Immortality

He Hath Made Everything Beautiful in its time -- Ecclesiastes 3 : 11 .......................................................................................................................................... Indeed. Even if it takes days, months, years .. and now I see it can happen even in centuries! That is the essence of the book that inspired me so much to write the music I am doing now, as I mentioned briefly in several entries in this blog before. In fact, the inspiration is so powerful that I would let my work now as a "work in progress" for the rest of my life. For the time being, I just concentrate for its premiere and recording which will be just short excerpts of the whole book. .......................................................................................................................................... The book, and therefore my music, bears the title Erstwhile, A Communion of Time. The book is clear, what is not clear is my music. Is it a lyrical symphony, such as Gustav Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde"? Is it an opera? Is it a cantata? I might say, in the long run, it is an opera, but for now, let's call it a symphony. I mentioned Mahler's work since Erstwhile will also have that dubious hybrid of half song-cycle half symphony, and in fact in my case it is also an opera. And it deals with the same issues of Mahler's work: pain, loss, love, life, parting and salvation. But Erstwhile was written by Rio Haminoto, a 21st century writer who happens, like me, to be a Trekkie (Star Trek fan, if you still don't know that word) and so the story spans for 7 centuries, which doesn't differ much from Mahler's last few painful years of his life if you believe that time is just the 4th dimension of space. .......................................................................................................................................... But there is another conclusion I took from the book. You see, the whole human life and psychology is focused on two things: the fear of death as our primal terror, and the longing for immortality, a yearning to live forever. I have touched this issue briefly in my only work for piano and orchestra up till now, a 5-minute overture called Fons Juventatis, or The Fountain of Youth. I didn't write it just for fun. It was a happy piece, of course, depicting the spirit of eternal youth (besides the fact that it was written as a birthday present for my friend Erza S.T., the founder of Indonesia Opera Society), but it was also the thing I, and I'm sure we all, painfully yearn. From this yearning for forever, this hurtful sense of passing time, springs most of humanity's greatest achievements, in art, music, literature and architecture. Paradoxically, it is the very awareness that life is fleeting on the wings of time that directs human activity towards the creation of artistic products that possess the durability their creators lack, images in carved stones and marbles and later in paintings and photographs, words in literature, beauty woven in sounds, ideas captured in books and films. Most of civilization is a by-product of the quest of immortality. Mahler's 9 great symphonies and Shakespeare's dramas serve exactly the same purpose as the Pharaoh's pyramides of 5000 years ago. .......................................................................................................................................... But on the other hand, have you seen the film "Highlander" and its fantastic soundtrack by Queen, "Who wants to live forever"? The reason we fear death, as much as we yearn for immortality, is love. We fear the loss of our loved ones, there is no use being immortal if we couldn't share it with our loved ones. As the Vulcans always say, "Live long, and prosper". Just a long life is not enough. And that's the essence of "Erstwhile". Our soul, but not our body, is immortal ... just to find our loved ones. .......................................................................................................................................... Every note of Erstwhile embodies that concept, with motifs that appear "in different clothes" during the whole piece. Time is not the only issue in Erstwhile, places are also important, and so is the music that cultivated the culture of those places. Thanks to the internet, for the last two weeks I've learned and researched history more than the 3 years I learned about it in my highschool. I've therefore discovered that historical documentation of my country is pretty poor, especially the musical ones. So I had to invent many musical ideas based on my incomplete researches and pretend that they are "authentic" so to say. And yes, the composition has started, which means writing those millions of notes. .......................................................................................................................................... John Fowles, the writer of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" interestingly commented that after he'd got half way through the text, the characters started "telling him what to do", as if they wrote their own lines. Well, that's what happening with me now. As usual in big pieces, such as in my two cantatas Ars Amatoria and Libertas I planned carefully the structure before writing the first note, but then the notes themselves determined their structure. And I think I am old (and wise) enough to let them "go their own way" as we say. A good leader is not one who keeps on telling his staff what to do. His staff should know what they are doing. The composer's staff are those notes, they have a life of their own, and I just put them together. They will guide me to boldly go where I have never gone before.