A new profession -- in classical music?

Well, you know that many new and prosperous professions nowadays didn't exist like 10 years ago, such as social media manager (or consultant) or anything to do with mobile phones and apps. That's how I feel now in Indonesia as a (classical music) composer. My European colleagues who are reading this might feel strange .... but yeah, classical music, in spite of its term, is something new to us Indonesians, starting from the second half of the last century. We do have pioneers of classical music composers, such as Amir Pasaribu (who died a few years ago with 92 years of age, after around 30 or more years of his last years not composing anything) or, still very much around us, the 80-year-young Trisutji Kamal. But now that the classical music scene is so robust in Indonesia, I am working with so many young (and not so young too) musicians who are playing my music, either as part of their educational purposes or with the intention of performing it professionally. ............................................................................................................................................. Before this, classical musicians are faced with music by dead composers only. You have all the materials provided, besides the music sheet. Now with the existence of youtube, you can even have all the historical recordings, you name it, Glenn Gould, Artur Rubinstein even going back to the recording of the composers themselves such as Rachmaninov or Prokofiev playing their own music (which sometimes are not so brilliant as other pianists performing their music. Even Rachmaninov admitted that about Vladimir Horowitz, as you know). So, you pick a Bach French Suite and you can listen to a few hundred different recordings, most of them artistically of high quality. You choose the best according to you, or the one you feel closest too, and there you get a clear concept of the music. You might not be able to imitate it (who could imitate Gould?), but you work on that piece of music with the sound of your favorite recording in your head, but mostly not your own idea. So, you are already conditioned to a specific interpretation of the music, not the music itself. ............................................................................................................................................. With newly written music, you are demanded to have a clear idea YOURSELF of the musical concept and its character. It's perhaps (a bit) easier if you are a singer, since you have the words to start with, although sometimes a poem could be so complex that it's the music that helps you feel the atmosphere between the words. But if it's a piece of instrumental music, well, it does need your musical sensitivity to grasp its idea. ............................................................................................................................................. This is why a new piece of music is very important in music competitions. It's much easier to perform a piece of music that has a "history" ---and like any history, it has so many different versions--- but it is through an interpretation of a really new piece of music that we can really see the artistic abilities of a musician. Nowadays we don't need more musicians who can read notes so well and play it with the nimblest of fingers; it is already expected from any musician. We need musicians who understand what lies between those notes, even though (s)he has never heard that music before. ............................................................................................................................................. So, for you who are performing my piano pieces in the next Ananda Sukarlan Award competition, you might have acquired my newest CD, A Virtuosic Christmas. I play some of the works that you could choose among the obligatory works to play there. But remember, I am counting on YOU to play it better. You've gotta be able to see other points of views, other ideas, other musical concept of it. I played it as an INTERPRETER, not as a composer anymore, as any pianist-composer could tell you when they are performing their own works. I have heard my music performed differently than I had in mind before, and many times. And some of them, I must say, are excellent. There are fresh approaches in some pieces on Henoch Kristianto's recordings of some of my Rapsodia Nusantara, and some performances of Edith Widayani were also more than artistically very admirable. And I must say that until now, nobody (I include myself here) matches the brilliance of Anthony Hartono's performance of Rapsodia Nusantara no. 10. I am just sooo much looking forward to hearing a mindblowing performance of some of my works in the next competition next July.

Foreword to Alicia's 4th Piano Book

Yup, it's now being printed! We plan to release it in about 2 weeks time. This is what I wrote for the introduction. .............................................................................................................................................. Although practically all of the pieces in this book are not for my daughter anymore (to play on the piano), she still plays an important role as my muse and inspirer. You see, Alicia is now 15, and we can talk about things of the adults : friendships, relationships ... and romance. Yup, as a 15-year-young lady, she already has her shares of the beauty and pain of love and passion. It's only nowadays, during our loooong and intense conversations through the night, that I find the real beauty and meaning of life. That beauty that can't be exchanged with all the success, money or anything else in this world. 5 years ago I wouldn't believe that I could learn so much about life from my very young Alicia. And yet she belongs to a generation that tweets, being immersed in their smartphones during a big chunk of the day and have short attention spans. Even the pop music written today are much simpler then those written during my generation to adapt to the limited musical brain of today's generation. No more poignant recitatives of Whitney Houston or Queen. No more breathtaking harmonies of The Beatles. And of course, goodbye to those incredible riffs n rhythmic inventions of Michael Jackson. Alicia, like her friends, listens to the pop music of today. And yet, she has so many inside her to inspire and teach me. .............................................................................................................................................. Therefore, pieces like "Call me but love .." (this is the longest, and perhaps most complex piece in this book) was born from our conversations, analyzing the balcony scene of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, when we delved into the theme of passion and the whole divine madness. The title came from the lines of Romeo, responding to Juliet's : .............................................................................................................................................. O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet. .............................................................................................................................................. And Romeo answered : Call me but love, and I'll be new baptis'd; Henceforth I never will be Romeo. .............................................................................................................................................. Many of the pieces here are also written for friends either for a special event in their lives, or just because I wanna write them, because I believe that everyone that came to my life is there for a reason. And my music is the manifesto of that reason, since it is thanks to those dedicatees that I could give birth to the music. Therefore, Alicia's 4th piano book is more like a collection of my short piano pieces, a musical diary of my day-to-day life, sometimes with no educational purposes in mind. Unlike my longer pieces, the pieces in this book are more intuitively written, therefore I don't really think about their technical difficulties. It is thanks to pianist Henoch Kristianto who has recorded most of my piano music (including many of them in this book, and all of my heavily virtuosic Rapsodia Nusantara, yes, all of them!) and his team at the Clavier Music Academy that these pieces are now graded according to their pianistic levels of difficulty. He even found pedagogic values and educative purposes in those pieces! I will leave you now with his words while he worked on them. And thank you again to all of you who have made the music in the previous Alicia's Piano Books part of your musical life. Hope you all still enjoy studying these modest pieces, either for educational or teaching purposes, repertoire for your concerts, or just for plain fun playing them at home during rainy days :) . .............................................................................................................................................. Ananda Sukarlan, April 2014. .............................................................................................................................................. Introduction by Henoch Kristianto .............................................................................................................................................. Those who were fortunate enough to hear Ananda Sukarlan's piano music in live performance would agree that his music is very close to the ears of his Indonesian listeners or those who are Indonesian at heart. It cannot be disputed that his compositions comprise the greatest variety, from the deepest pathos to most sparkling humor. As a prolific performing pianist and composer of variations, rhapsodies and other small-scale works for piano, Sukarlan claimed that he always felt more at home when composing his vocal works. Perhaps due to this personal preference, you may find many of the pieces in this Alicia book very "cantabile" in the sense that they are very much singable. This feature of course is an excellent tool for the musical development of any young pianists. Intended primarily for the cultivated amateur, these works are abound in attractive melodic ideas and brilliant instrumental writing. Indeed, their study will lead to higher realms of imagination and it shall prepare for all that can be found in piano literature. ~Henoch Kristianto

Inspired

The word, as where it comes from, remains a mystery. Just as the whereabouts of the Malaysian Airlines MH 370 which has been lost for exactly 7 days now. Inspiration is a word that is both under- and over-valued in the art world. .............................................................................................................................................. I am a true Indonesian, in the sense that I need the sun in my life. Winter always makes me gloomy. Spring officially arrives next Thursday the 20th, but we already feel it here. It brightens my days, it brightens my brain. 3 days ago I had an idea, which quickly turned out to be a pretty vivid musical structure, of a piece, a Rapsodia Nusantara-like one, based on that beautiful long melody by Indonesia's celebrated songwriter, Ismail Marzuki. His song, Rayuan Pulau Kelapa (The seduction of the coconut island) came to my mind, perhaps a little bit due to some homesickness (yes, I still call Indonesia home). I immediately set aside my present work, and started working on it. These last 2 nights were quite productive, and I almost finished it. It's a set of variations on the melody. Since it's originally a loooong melody, divided into the main and the "refrain" as we say in pop songs, at the moment I couldn't make more than 6 variations. In fact it's 5 variations, plus 1 short interlude which perhaps can't be called a variation, preceding the last variation. As you know, the more elaborate the theme, the less we can develop it. But I am not doing so bad. Perhaps after I try the whole piece on the piano I'd decide to write more variations .. who knows. And it's pretty strange that I am attracted to a long, winding tune to develop something out of it. Usually I am more attracted to simple themes, like the folk melodies I developed in my Rapsodia Nusantara. .............................................................................................................................................. Maybe these highly inspired 3 days are not only because of the bright spring days, but also due to my friend Henoch Kristianto's deadline to record my second volume of Rapsodia Nusantara. I asked him 3 days ago if he would like to replace the last Rapsodia which he hasn't recorded or even started practising with this new piece, and he agreed. I dunno if I can give away to you which Rapsies he is recording (maybe I'll let Henoch do it, it's his CD so I should not say too much about it now), but I can tell you that the no. 8, yeah that now very popular one, will be included in this CD. In fact, I have heard his recording of it, and my reaction was just "wow". I wish I could play it as he'd done it for this CD. So, I am gonna send him part of my new piece, Variations on Rayuan Pulau Kelapa after I finish writing this entry. I finished the 4 last variations, and that's what he'll receive from me for this moment. Yup, I have this habit writing a piece from the end. So he has a material to start working with, while I can take a break this nice afternoon. Spring is definitely coming, and I'm gonna take my usual sunset walk, with a light jacket for the first time this year. In fact, many of the chords and atmospheres in this new piece (like the interlude before the last variation) owe their colours to the numerous sunset colours around this valley where I live that I recorded both visually and aurally.

Virto .. virtuo.. what? (Thoughts on development of pianistic techniques)

The last few days have been grueling for me, practising my Rapsodias, some of them I've never played before. No no, not because I feel "examined" by the young pianists who are coming to my concert next Sunday who, most of them, have played or studied at least one Rapsodia of mine. They should not expect the composer to be the best interpreter of his own works, especially if we talk about the virtuosity (oh, oh, what an excuse eh, some of you might be thinking right now). We composers usually are too lazy to practice our own pieces, I personally feel much more responsibility in playing other people's work, not because they aren't mine, but because I always admire them more than my works. And I don't think this is due to the fact that the neighbour's grass is greener (except if your neighbour put lots of sh*t to fertilize it!), but because I always learn a lot from those works of Haydn, Rachmaninov, Busoni etc. They inspire me. The only thing I learned from studying my own pieces is what NOT to do in my next pieces :( .............................................................................................................................................. I have heard incredible performances by young(er) people on my Rapsodia, or other works of mine. And I haven't got used to Henoch Kristianto's new CD of my works, it is, for me, still admirable. Indeed, their virtuosity is stunning. But is that so unusual these days? Perhaps not. ............................................................................................................................................ The overall level of technical proficiency in instrumental playing, especially on the piano, has increased steadily over time. Many pianists and piano teachers friends of mine have noted the phenomenon, which is not unlike what happens in sports. Records keep being broken, barriers are renewed all the time. Something similar has long been occurring with pianists. And in the last decade or so the growth of technical proficiency has seemed exponential. ............................................................................................................................................ What long-term effect this trend will have on the field is not clear. Unlike in Asia, especially Indonesia where audience is growing, classical music in Europe is facing its challenges, including declining appreciation among the general (especially young) public, and not all segments of the audience are noticing the breakthrough in technical accomplishment that is apparent to insiders: pianists, concert presenters and piano freaks. Because so many pianists are so good, many concertgoers have simply come to expect that any soloist playing the Liszt or Tchaikovsky Concerto will be a phenomenal technician. A new level of technical excellence is expected of emerging pianists. I see it not just on the concert circuit but also at conservatories and colleges. In recent years, at my masterclasses or recital programs at some conservatories that I visited as guest teachers, I have repeatedly been struck by the sheer level of instrumental expertise that seems a given. Certainly a phenomenon is taking place. I remember back in 1990s when the movie “Shine,” about the mentally ill pianist David Helfgott, raised curiosity about Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto, a Juilliard professor Jerome Lowenthal was asked by reporters whether this piece was as formidably difficult as the movie had suggested. He had two answers: “One was that this piece truly is terribly hard. Two was that all my 16-year-old students were playing it.” ............................................................................................................................................ What role do composers play in all this? A lot, I think. Along the history, composers always push at the boundaries: Someone creates a work of extraordinary difficulty that seems unplayable and then, simply because it exists, people rise to the occasion, and we find that it was indeed possible. But of course, it has to be the composers themselves first who had to prove it, unfortunately : at least Liszt and Busoni did. But has it always been like that? Nope, don't think so. Rachmaninov said about Vladimir Horowitz's playing of his 3rd concerto: "This is the way I always dreamed my concerto should be played, but I never expected to hear it that way on Earth" (I quote it from freerepublic.com, but apparently this statement appears in other pages too). Britten's excellent piano concerto, too, relied on Svjatoslav Richter for its formidable interpretation (by the way, do you know that the incredible recording that we know now was taken during a live performance?). It didn't take off that brilliantly when Britten himself premiered it. .............................................................................................................................................. I think a reason that pianists are getting technically stronger is that as in sports, young pianists are just learning to practice the craft better, becoming better conditioned and getting better results due to the toughness of competitions, and that pianists are rising to the challenges of new music that push boundaries. If we see it in historical context, the first several decades of the 20th century are considered a golden era by many piano buffs, a time when artistic imagination and musical richness were valued more than technical perfection. There were certainly pianists during that period who had exquisite, impressive technique, like Busoni and Rachmaninov. And white-hot virtuosos like the young Vladimir Horowitz wowed the public, but the audience tolerated a lot of playing that would be considered sloppy today. Listen to 1920s and ’30s recordings of the pianist Alfred Cortot, immensely respected in his day. He would probably not be admitted to any European conservatory now. Despite the refinement and élan in his playing, his recording of Chopin’s 24 études from the early 1930s is, by today’s standards, littered with clinkers. These days playing the Chopin études with comfort is practically a basic requirement for passing the first round of any competition. ............................................................................................................................................ There is a danger in pursuing perfection. After Van Cliburn won the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition and became a household name, every young pianist saw competitions as the route to fame and success. A new generation worked tirelessly to achieve technical flawlessness. Critics found that many of these young pianists had “competition chops” but not much else to offer. During every era of the piano there were players who were superb artists with more on their minds than dazzling virtuosity. You might divide pianists into two basic groups: those who have the technique to play anything and those who have all the technique they need, thank you, to play the music that is meaningful to them.And now, since only in China itself there are more than 1 million young pianists who can play ALL the right notes, a new breed of pianists are searching something new. A new expressivity, a new kind of artistry, and a new kind of REPERTOIRE. The fact that they are all active right now suggests that a new level of conquering the piano is taking place. You could argue that younger performers are expanding the boundaries of technique in other instruments as well. But singers are the exception to this trend. One obvious reason is that while the instruments themselves have not changed that much in the last century, every voice is unique to a person and a body. Though there are certain time-tested principles, each singer must come to terms with his or her own voice.But let me tell you my opinions about singers later, after I finish my concert this Sunday. Right now, I have to struggle with those crazy jumping chords, strange arpeggios, weird running notes all modulating to places where no man have gone before. And unfortunately, all those problems are all created by me. As John Lennon put it, you might say I am a dreamer. But I'm not the only one.

The truth about the number 12+1

Yeah I don't even dare to write that number, but I should openly, honestly tell you that that number terrifies me, and have had (negative) effects on me. There is even a name for the fear of number 12+1, and that is TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA. I suffer from it. I wanna write this entry after the correspondence with my pianist friend Henoch Kristianto whose CD of his interpretation of my Rapsodia Nusantara is just released and is the talk of the week at the moment, telling him that I was (and still not finished) writing both Rapsodia Nusantara no. 12 and no. 12A (I haven't made up my mind whether it will be numbered as such or 12+1). He wrote : 12A! Oh, come on, you believe that kind of stuffs? Hehe, why not even go with a horror theme for no 13? And I answered in my next email : About 12A, yes yes, I am very afraid of that number, 12+1 . And if Shakespeare, Arnold Schoenberg and even JESUS CHRIST fell upon it, why shouldn't I? ............................................................................................................................................ Well I'm gonna tell you the facts, the real facts of what happened with William Shakespeare & Arnold Schoenberg. I don't have to explain about Jesus Christ since we all know that that number originally came from him and his disciples, which made a total of 12+1, and one of them (Judas) betrayed him. With Shakespeare, suicide occurs an unlucky 13 times in his plays. If I still should give you some examples, the most famous ones occur in Romeo and Juliet where both Romeo and Juliet commit suicide, and also in Julius Caesar where both Cassius and Brutus die by consensual stabbing, as well as Brutus’ wife Portia. And WS, I am sure, was very conscious about this unlucky number when he wrote Romeo and Juliet, which is a love story that ended in failure. Here we go: ............................................................................................................................................ Do you know how old (or better rephrase it: how young) was Juliet when she fell in love with Romeo, and then committed suicide just a few days later? As the story occurs, Juliet was approaching her fourteenth birthday. She was born on "Lammas Eve at night" (August 1), so Juliet's birthday is July 31. Her birthday is "a fortnight hence", putting the action of the play in mid-July. So, she was 13. And notice the inversion of that number with her birth date. Her name is JULIET CAPULET. Check how many letters does it have. And in order of appearance, Juliet was the thirteenth character to appear on stage (ok, ok, she comes out together on stage with her nurse, but still...). Romeo referred (or called her name) 14 times, and the last time he did was when he was dying. So you can count how many times it was before he killed himself. Now those facts I wrote just from memory, there are more things that involve this unlucky number. ............................................................................................................................................ And to top it all off, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre burnt down in 1613 after a cannon shot set fire to it during a performance of Henry VIII. OK, that year was perhaps just coincidental, but still .... ............................................................................................................................................ With the composer Arnold Schoenberg, it was more terrifying. He himself knew that that number would kill him. Indeed, he was born on September 13th 1874 and died on July 13th, 1951. His triskaidekaphobia possibly began in 1908 with the composition of the thirteenth song of the song cycle Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten Op. 15. Moses und Aron was originally spelled Moses und Aaron, but when he realised this contained 13 letters, he changed it. According to friend Katia Mann, he feared he would die during a year that was a multiple of 13. He dreaded his 65th birthday in 1939 so much that a friend asked the composer and astrologer Dane Rudhyar to prepare Schoenberg's horoscope. Rudhyar did this and told Schoenberg that the year was dangerous, but not fatal. But in 1950, on his seventy-sixth birthday, his friend, mentor, and fellow composer and musician, Oskar Adler wrote Schoenberg a note warning him that the year was a critical one: 7 + 6 = 13. This stunned and depressed the composer, for up to that point he had only been wary of multiples of 13 and never considered adding the digits of his age. He died on Friday, 13 July 1951, shortly before midnight. Yup, Friday the 13th, 76 years of age. Schoenberg stayed in bed — sick, anxious and depressed all day. In a letter to Schoenberg's sister Ottilie, dated 4 August 1951, his wife Gertrud reported, "About a quarter to twelve I looked at the clock and said to myself: another quarter of an hour and then the worst is over. Then the doctor called me. Arnold's throat rattled twice, his heart gave a powerful beat and that was the end". Gertrud Schoenberg reported the next day in a telegram to her sister-in-law Ottilie that Arnold died at 11:45 pm. I took all these data and some exact quotes from his biography by Hans Stuckenschmidt. ............................................................................................................................................ So now you have my reason of not writing my 13th Rapsodia Nusantara. In fact, I've been writing two Rapsies at the same time, and since I like to write a set of variations for my rapsies whose numbers are a multiple of 4, BOTH Rapsy 12 and 12A are a set of variations, and both are based on just 1 folktune, just like the 4th Rapsy is based on the song Buka Pintu, and the 8th on O Inani Keke. And I've been enjoying writing both rapsies very much, since all the pianistic ideas that can't be valid for 1 Rapsy can be applied to the other Rapsy. I planned to write both just 2 weekends ago, thinking that I would need a few days or a maximum of 1 week to finish them, but apparently I am still working on them. It's already 10 days now. But things are going well. And yeah, there have been some small misfortunes happening in this year that ends with the unlucky number, but overall, I am happy and productive. One of the happiest moments of this year is, of course the release of this CD by Henoch. Those Rapsies sound as I never imagined they could sound Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBKjNO2fm50 . And I am excited to give a solo piano concert again for the Jakarta public after almost 3 years not doing so. Jakarta public? Well, I heard from Chendra my manager that piano lovers from all around Indonesia are already booking tickets for it. Put the date in your agenda: Sunday, October 20th at 4.30 p.m. at Aula Simfonia Jakarta. Yup, when it's over, you go out of the hall and you still can watch the nice sunset. That's why I am playing my light n sweet Sunset pieces too, apart from 6 numbers of Rapsodia Nusantara. Which ones? I still dunno. It's still more than 2 weeks from now.

That's What Friends Are For

Friends, real friends, apparently are not only there when we need them. My friends are also my source of inspiration. Many short pieces of mine are dedicated to my dearest friends, and mostly they are written very quickly in a burst of inspiration. Those pieces count as those which are the closest to my heart, besides the numerous pieces i wrote for my daughter Alicia Pirena. As I always say, music (at least mine) is a record, or a still photograph of things, events and people that have happened and crossed our path in real life. ............................................................................................................................................... I am excited by the project which my pianist friend Henoch Kristianto is doing now. As I wrote in my previous entry, he is recording my Rapsodia Nusantara pieces. For now he is working on 6 of them : nos. 2,3,4,5,6 and 10. All 6 of them would take 40 minutes of the CD approximately. When Henoch needed several "lighter" pieces to fill up this CD, i immediately thought of these pieces from the series of Alicia's Piano Books. I myself put them in "cycles" or groups. "5 Friends" are those which are using my friend's names or initials as the motif to be developed in the piece, while the character of each piece was determined by something that I saw, felt or wanted to evoke from that particular person. The Germanic system of naming the notes starts from A to G (yeah, we've got only 7 notes, so it couldn't go further). I then had to continue further with the alphabet as the notes go higher (although i sometimes used the note B for the letter H, as the Germans call it as such).And then some exceptions, such as D for the letter R for Re, E for the letter M for Mi, and E-flat for the letter S pronounced as Es, the German note for E-flat. ............................................................................................................................................... Another continuing cycle will be "Love Songs". I have written about some of the pieces in my earlier entry of this year, check this out : http://andystarblogger.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-music-really-food-of-love.html ............................................................................................................................................... My "Lullabies" are, in fact, the most truthful representation of what is sounding in my brain. What is sounding there, in fact, is the twinkling music box. Most of my music is a transformation of that music box. In fact, THE WHOLE WORLD for me is a music box. Obviously, the last few weeks have been an intense correspondence between Henoch and me. I'd like to paste here some lines from my emails to him concerning notes about some pieces, hopefully it would be useful for you who would like to play them too : ............................................................................................................................................... And about the rest of the pieces for the CD, you made a good point there! I think then the crucial ones are the 5 musical names, the lullabies, and at least 3 love songs (Unexpected Turns, Differences Unite & the Little Variations which was written for the film Romeo & Juliet). They also have varied technical difficulties, so pianists from all levels would enjoy it (the lullabies are quite easy). Those ones in Alicia's book are the ones written for piano, the rest of "dedicatorial" pieces are for different instruments. So there you have them, quite complete. If there is more time, the sunset pieces would be nice, but let's concentrate on the musical names, lullabies & the love songs first. ............................................................................................................................................... I then have to tell you some interpretative & corrections on those pieces : For Adam G : the beginning section is meant to sound like 2 music boxes : one (the LH) is very very distant, and the other (RH) very close to your ear. So pls make the RH quite "marcato" (In fact I wanna say "percussive", like a vibraphone or so), not lyrical. Bar 4, still use the una corda so it gives the effect of unclearness, and please just take it off when the tune suddenly appears in bar 5. As much pedal as poss, just change when it gets quite disturbing, or when the chord changes. And it should sound like a machine (although yeah, of course a kinda phrasing is inevitable, especially for someone as musical as you). The effect is kinda like a lullaby, but more hypnotizing. Bar 23, the LH is cut off by mistake in the published score, all those are in fact chords with an interval of 5th, so from the 1st chord they are : B-F# , G-D, A-E, F#-C#, B-F# . This piece sounds strange, yeah, but it's one of my favorite piece hehehe .. yup, I AM that strange .... ............................................................................................................................................... A Little Light Music on the name EDITH : I would like to have a clearer difference of tempo between the introduction (like a slow waltz) and the Allegretto con tenerezza. ............................................................................................................................................... Lullaby for Jessy : one note missing at bar 32 : RH plays an octave D (the lower line of bar 31 should end in D in bar 32). ............................................................................................................................................... Two corrections on "Differences Unite" : the point of the piece is that everytime LH plays 2, RH plays 3. So, in bar 9, 2nd beat, LH should just be 2, not a triplet. And bar 14, also 2nd beat, the LH should also be playing only 2 chords. ............................................................................................................................................... And it goes without saying that all the lullabies have the purpose, literally, to make people sleep. They are not meant to be played in a concert, but recording them is a perfect vehicle to listen to them. So if you doubt about the tempo, then remember one thing : the slower one is always the better. ............................................................................................................................................... I should one day write a piece on H-E-N-O-C-H , but for now you are the dedicatee of my longest and most complex piece for piano anyway hehehe ... ............................................................................................................................................... And as I wrote in my last entry, that last sentence wasn't just a wishful thought ..

Busy ... doing what?

It's been a busy month so far! Am trying to recapitulate what has happened since the Ananda Sukarlan Junior Award. ............................................................................................................................................... Immediately after the competition finished I at last managed to work with Willy Haryadi, my sound engineer, in editing & mixing my orchestral work ERSTWHILE. It was the first recording of my orchestra, the Ananda Sukarlan Orchestra, and I must say it doesn't sound bad. The orchestra consists of young but very enthusiastic and technically accomplished musicians. The recording is still now in a studio for its mastering process. ................................................................................................................................................ We also did an audition, through youtube, for violinists who I'd like to be the soloist for the premiere of my Violin Concerto. The winner is a very talented 17-year-old Amadeus Giovani Biga ; he played my solo violin piece Relationships which is a set of variations, done for a violin with scordatura on the G-string. Check his playing here, and I am sure you'd be as impressed as I was. I guess, with his age, he has experienced some kind of complicated relationships that inspired him to understand this piece :) . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QlfNte4TC8 . He will perform my Violin Concerto with myself conducting on October 28th this year, and I am working hard in finishing it. ................................................................................................................................................ Wait, wait ... working hard in finishing it? Yes, but I am sort of stuck. Instead, I have been writing some "occasional" pieces, hoping that some of those pieces would trigger me to come back to the violin concerto. Apart from finishing & revising all my chamber works for strings to be published next week (it's in printing process at the moment), I wrote very quickly several pieces for piano. That's how funny life is: I am always inspired to write pieces which are NOT obligatory (read: commissioned, or paid). Money apparently doesn't inspire me, the lack of it does! Two of those short piano pieces are based on initials, one is "Randy Ryan" of which you can read in my previous entry, and the other is called, funny enough, Not a fugue, No, but they still complete each other. The title is a response to the emails that pianist Henoch Kristianto and me interchanged. He is busy recording 6 of my Rapsodia Nusantaras at the moment (I will tell you which ones they are when the CD is about to be published, hopefully in September or before), and he is recording my shorter piano pieces (all from Alicia's Piano Books) to fill up the CD too. I told him that I should one day write a piece on H-E-N-O-C-H , but for now he is the dedicatee of my longest and most complex piece for piano (Rapsodia Nusantara no. 4). He answered "Tune on my name? Well, better make it a fugue if you ever want to do it someday. I am having a lot of fun with some you've made." I wanna take a break from writing fugues that bore the listeners to death, and since we are doing groupings of some pieces which can be grouped together in Alicia's Piano Books, I had the idea of writing him a piece that can fit in all those groupings. Therefore, this piece can be included in the cycle "Friends", "Sunsets" ot "Love Songs". It can even be a lullaby, considering the repetitive figures made by his wife Yenny's name. Yeah, the piece is built on 2 motifs, on Henoch's and Yenny's initials. There is a photograph at Henoch's facebook, where he and Yenny were sitting in a beach (I think it was somewhere in Australia) and the colours of the sky and the sea (which are amazingly quite similar, a kind of greyish blue) triggered a sound of a chord which appears persistently throughout the piece, which is built on the interval of 4ths and their inversions and transformations. I remember feeling that colour too in England during the summertime, which made me feel like having a deja vu when I wrote the piece. ................................................................................................................................................ Back to the Ananda Sukarlan Orchestra, the Indonesia Opera Society commissioned me to write a short piece for piano & orchestra based on themes from Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries and Tannhauser. I decided to call it Wagner's Restless Nights and it is going to be premiered in his annual Opera Gala, sponsored by CIMB Niaga Bank, in September this year, by the fabulous French pianist Frédéric D'Oria- Nicolas, and I will conduct it with my orchestra. So, in fact I am working on 2 works at this moment: the Violin Concerto and this kind of short piano concerto. Wagner's Restless Nights is going very well, I just love doing fantasies and throwing somebody else's themes into a whirlwind, as I have been doing with my Rapsodia Nusantaras which has numbered 11 for now. It's the Violin Concerto which is stuck. But hey, I am a Gemini, and we Geminis like to have everything in pairs. And sometimes those pairs don't resemble each other at all, one is nice and tamed, while the other can be a problematic rebel!

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.

Brill ? Young ? Local ? Thanx, but no thanx !

(a reflection on the Ananda Sukarlan Award 2008)

Congrats to those brilliant young Indonesian pianists who won prizes at the Ananda Sukarlan Award 2008 : Inge Buniardi (1st), Edith Widayani (2nd) and the three Thirds all tied : Handy Suroyo, Randy Ryan and Stephanie Onggowinoto. As a curious note, both Randy and Stephanie are both under 14 years of age. Not that we, jury members, put special attention to the early teens, but still it is amazing how they could compete with other pianists under 25.

I must say, I don't like music competitions ("oops ! Shut up, Andy !!" - "Do i contradict myself ? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes" (Walt Whitman)) . But this is the system from which we built all our musical careers, and since I couldn't think of a better way, so well, here we are. There are at least 2 participants which I personally felt they should enter the final round (I think each of the jury members had one or two of their favorite(s) who didn't manage to enter the finals), and I must admit the jury had difficulty in determining which 10 "best" pianists should enter the final round. We had 4 highly reputable jury members, and especially I am glad to greet a new friend, Henoch Kristianto as one of the jury. He is a wonder boy, graduated from Missouri who just recorded Chopin's 24 etudes. Fantastic.

But let's talk about another thing, which is my favorite theme to talk about : public acceptance to our own local music (classical) talents. There was a good audience (both quality- and quantitywise) during the final round, but I failed in one thing in this competition : to get reporters and celebrity friends to attend the final round on the 26th. Well, I shouldn't complain. Many of them have flocked at my Birthday concert at Alila Hotel held the week before the competition, and they have contributed a lot (both in publicizing and in financial aids) for the Ananda Sukarlan Award. But I would like them to hear the young local talents. Why ? Simply, coz they are really brilliant. They are the future of our country (if we have a future, with all those corruptions around). Guys, you should check the winners name I told you above. Remember them, for just a few years ahead. What else do they have to prove, besides their virtuosity and artistry ?

Can I tell you one thing, guys ? Now, most of the international piano competitions throughout Europe are won by Asian pianists. And I see that the Indonesians are catching up. The artistic world is like the stockmarket, guys. You should bet on one when it's still not high up there yet ! Are you going to let go of this opportunity ?