Vega and Altair don't skype with each other

You might think that when Brahms wrote his Violin Concerto, Britten his great operas and other vocal works or Ginastera his Harp Concerto, they just got an idea out of the blue and then stayed home alone and wrote the music. Nope! There was always someone else behind the creation of those everlasting masterpieces. There was a musician who inspired and gave insights of his instrument to those composers : Joseph Joachim in case of Brahms, Peter Pears for Britten and Nicanor Zabaleta for Ginastera. The composers and the respective musicians kept in close contact in the creative process of the work.

I think that's why there are less great works in classical music written in the second half of the 20th century up till now : the musicians' enthusiasm towards living composers are decreasing, and communication between the two is not as it used to be. Most musicians now just wanna have an easy life, and they think they have enough showpieces of the past to exhibit their virtuosity on stage. They don't realize their real function and what they can contribute to the world of music. And in Indonesia I even see a stranger phenomenon : musicians seem to look down to our own composers, or at the very least, we (to be honest I shouldn't include myself) don't take our composers seriously. And sadly those musicians (who became teachers) pass this mentality to the young generation, although luckily there are too many young musicians today to be badly influenced by this. But still, from say 100 classical music concerts in Indonesia, just check how many of them include a work by Indonesian composers. You'd be lucky if you find 10. Of course now many young musicians study abroad, so they (as it happened to me) develop a better vision of the uniqueness of Indonesian composers and how their music could make our concerts more unique, or at the very least, we have something different to offer. So, the future of Indonesian music don't look too bleak. If they knew how proud the Spaniards are with de Falla and Albeniz, and the English with Vaughan Williams, Britten and co.! Let's leave this mentality to the older (read: my) generation, o fellow countrymen.

And that's why I am so excited in working on my piece these last few weeks : "Vega and Altair", a choreographic suite in 7 movements for flute, violin, cello & harp. It is commissioned by the young and very talented harpist Katryna Tan. She will premiere it with her friends Roberto Alvarez (a Spanish flutist), Cindy Yan (violin) and Junyan Natasha Liu (cello) at the Esplanade (Singapore) on November the 11th. It's not that she commissions it and asks for a finished product, she gives a lot of insights on her instrument and we practically keep in contact every day either through email or skype. It's very inspiring to work that way, and I had a great privilige to do this in several works of mine; the latest, and perhaps even more intense was with the guitarist Miguel Trapaga, since the instrument is more complicated and I know next to nothing about it. He even gave me his time for several sessions in Madrid in introducing me to the instrument. We work on the piece together, so to say. Yeah, Brahms stayed very close to Joachim at that time, and Britten, well, Peter Pears was his lifelong partner. Talking about the power of love! Nowadays a composer can live in Spain and work closely with a harpist in Singapore, thanx to the internet which is a huge advantage for the world of arts.

Katryna, who is the winner of the Young Artist Award in 2005 (that's a prestigious annual award given by the National Arts Council of Singapore) also shares with me her affinity with the mythology, and she drew my attention to old Chinese legends, which I am not very familiar with. She likes my music especially "Rescuing Ariadne" for flute and piano, not only the music but also the inspiration behind it. She told me about this legend of the two stars we see in the sky, Vega and Altair. Those 2 stars are separated by the Milky Way for the whole year, except on the 7th day of the 7th month of the lunar year (it is not always the 7th of July, since it is not based on the Gregorian calendar that we are using now) that they meet. So the legend says that it is the only time that those two lovers can meet. And of course, during the rest of the year, they can't communicate with each other since there is no Skype or Yahoo Messenger up there, so their annual meeting becomes something very special and passionate. Oh dear, if the Spaniards knew about it! On the 7th of July we celebrate the San Fermin, you know that day in Pamplona where all the bulls are let loose in the street and everyone is chasing (or being chased) them ... and of course not without victims of both sides (more bulls than humans, obviously).

Anyway, that day when Vega and Altair meet becomes the "Valentine's Day" in Asia. In China they celebrate it exactly counting on the lunar year and it's called Qi Xi, while in Japan they celebrate July 7th (just like the Spaniards although differently) as Tanabata. All about love. While in Indonesia, since we are so much oriented to the Americans (spiritually as well as capitalistically and junk-foodically) we celebrate the Valentine's, February 14th. At MacDonald's, naturally.

5 husbands .... and no babies yet

This time this entry is for my friend, the fantastic guitarist Miguel Trapaga, by whom I have the honour and great pleasure to be commissioned my first piece for guitar solo. I have written for guitar in the past, but none for a solo instrument, and quite an elaborated and virtuosic one. This is only possible thanks to him, his support, his continuing efforts to give me a thorough insight of the instrument, its wondrous sound world, its delicacy and huge possibilities which I wasn’t aware of until then. I don’t think that a composer should be able to play every instrument, but in the case of the guitar, I thought I had to so I did learn its basic exercises by myself. Its finger positions, rich and strange colours should “fall into the fingers” as we say. And I must say, I have never worked together with an instrumentalist as intensively as I have with him, and boy, it's very inspiring and useful!

The result of our collaboration is my piece, “The 5 lovers of Drupadi”. It's in 4 movements. Eh?? It doesn’t add up, right? Well, it is based on a very small episode from the epic “Mahabharata” from India, where Drupadi was --by natural force (and a long story behind it) and not by sexual temptation!— married to the 5 brothers of Pandava. And 2 of them, Nakula and Sadeva were twins. Now, it’s quite a contradiction I must say, that Indonesian culture in general, and Javanese culture in particular could embrace this mythology quite naturally, since by historical background we are quite, let’s say, “right-winged”. Even until now. I mean, you can talk to any people there in Java and they’d tell you that homosexuality is a disease that could be cured, for example. There are even some extremists who would go as far as telling you that it is a sin to have a facebook account!

Back to my guitar piece, I ask for scordatura for the VI, V and IV strings. They are tuned to F, G and C respectively. So, I was very thankful to Miguel Trapaga that he would made a version of the score with what is played, not what sounds. The poor guy had to learn the piece as it sounds, not as it is written! If you can’t imagine what he went through, well, imagine that you are playing the piano and half of the keyboard produces different notes than what you usually play. Yes, half of it, since I re-tuned 3 strings of the guitar, which are half of the 6 strings of the instrument. I admit that my knowledge of the guitar is not advanced enough to be able to write the fingerings and the scordatura notation. And now that he has finished editing the score, my my, all those strange symbols and numbers could be misinterpreted as a secret message from the KGB!

Miguel Trapaga has given the world premiere of The 5 lovers of Drupadi on the 10th of March at Juan Bravo theatre in Segovia in a concert of the Philharmonic Society. He will tour it to Asia & New Zealand starting next June.