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
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Bela Bartok. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta Bela Bartok. Mostrar todas las entradas
sábado, 14 de noviembre de 2009
viernes, 18 de septiembre de 2009
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 !
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 !
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)