Sing like the (Indonesian) Angels ! (The Jakarta Post, July 14th)

Not much edited this time, except that the exclamation mark (!) at the end of the title is omitted (why?). But anyway, this article is full of data, and my own opinions and statements are found in the beginning and end of the article. One curious thing: it was already in print to be published on the 13th, but on the 12th I got another news from the facebook of Rainier Revireino and his STP Trisakti, so I asked The Jakarta Post to include it at the last moment. And yeah, we managed ! Anyway, congratulations to the choirs of Indonesia! ............................................................................................................................................. SING LIKE THE (INDONESIAN) ANGELS ! ............................................................................................................................................. by Ananda Sukarlan, composer & pianist ............................................................................................................................................. Many of us still associate choir with church activities. Ask any European about choirs, and the first thing that come to their mind are titles such as Agnus Dei or Salve Regina; the most secular would be Beethoven's Ode to Joy or Gaudeamus Igitur, that academic commercium song usually sung during graduation days. In fact, the underlying idea of choir activity is togetherness, either in times of joy or sorrow. We celebrate joy together, we mourn together, we pray together. But the Indonesians have one great asset : we have a huge resource of folkmusic to be developed, arranged and adapted for choirs. Most folkmusic are sung originally in a group, they deal with all communal themes and issues of the tribe and society of all ages. The elaboration of folkmusic for choir doesn't involve only the music: it can be (therefore, mostly it is done) accompanied with specific costumes and choreography not necessarily to be presented in their original form, as the music is not presented in its original monodic melody either. ............................................................................................................................................. The first half of July have brought so much upbeat news on the achievements of Indonesian choirs in competitions abroad. Not less than 6 choirs have shown their excellence internationally. Observing their success, it is clear that the folkmusic category remains the strongest point for Indonesian choirs, with their uniqueness in melodic scales, harmony and intriguing rhythms, many still unfamiliar for the Westerners. ............................................................................................................................................. The latest news came from the "Laurea Mundi" International Choir Festival and Competition, Budapest. Gema Swara Pesona STP Trisakti conducted by Rainier Revireino won the 1st Prize for the Mixed Choir category, and 2nd Prize for Folklore Grand Prix last Tuesday, July 12th. ............................................................................................................................................. Pangudi Luhur Youth Choir was awarded 1st prize at the children’s folk song choir category, 3rd Prize for senior children’s choir category, and due to their high mark was also awarded the Champion Children’s Choir of the World at Llangolen International Musical Eisteddfod in Wales, UK, 7-10 July. Best Inspirational Conductor of this year's event also went to their conductor, Sonja Simanjuntak. ............................................................................................................................................. Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta Student Choir (PSM UAJY) conducted by Raymundus Leonardo excelled at the World Choir Games (WCG). WCG's 9th edition is held at the Bolshoi Ice Dome at the Olympic Park, Sochi, Russia. PSM UAJY amassed 2 Gold Medals (for categories of Mixed Youth Choirs and Scenic Folklore Choirs) and a Silver Medal for Scenic Pop/Show Choirs category. Their special attraction lies, apart from their vocal techniques, in their traditional Dayak (a tribe from Borneo) costume, and using the traditional instruments sape and jimbe to accompany them while singing Dayak traditional songs Oh Adingkoh and Bawi Kuwu Tumbang Rakumpit. ............................................................................................................................................. Universitas Parahyangan Student Choir (PSM Unpar) this year stunned the audience and judges at the Bela Bartok 27th International Choir Competition in Debrecen, Hungary, 7-10 July. They clinched the 2nd Prize at the chamber choir cat. and 3rd prize for mixed choir cat. Their conductor, Ivan Yohan received the Special Prize for Excellent Conducting Performance. ............................................................................................................................................. Closer to home, the Medan Community Male Choir (MCMC) was awarded Gold Diploma Grade III for Ensemble Category and Gold Diploma Grade II for Equal Voices Category at the Orientale Concentus IX Choral Festival in Singapore held on July 1st-4th. Not bad at all for this very young choir, founded in April 2015 by their conductor, Ken Steven who also received the Outstanding Young Conductor Award. ............................................................................................................................................. The Resonanz Children Choir (TRCC) was awarded 1st prize at the Children’s and Youth Choir category, and was awarded Gold Diploma Level II at the Claudio Monteverdi Choral Competition 2016 in Venice, Italy. But that's not all. They achieved the highest score (94,5) among all participants, so they were awarded the Grand Prix. ............................................................................................................................................. TRCC was founded in 2007. Its members are mostly students at the Resonanz Music Studio directed by Avip Priatna. Its patron and advisor is Mme. Giok Hartono, wife of the owner of Djarum cigarette, Budi Hartono. Their strongest performance was when they performed Yamko Rambe Yamko, a Papua folksong , arranged by Agustinus Bambang Jusana and wearing costumes based on the traditional of Aceh. Bambang used the tifa (a traditional percussion instrument from Papua & Maluku) prominently in his arrangement, which makes it attractively rhythmic and colorful. ............................................................................................................................................. In moments like this is when the role of the arranger become very crucial. Arrangers differ from composers, their task is not necessarily easier: when composers write original music, arrangers work based on existing materials, working on it without losing the original character of the (folk)song. Bambang has been leading many Indonesian choirs throughout these years, such as University choirs of Maranatha (Bandung), Perbanas (Jakarta), Lampung University and many more and brought them to achieve many awards in some international competitions in Greece, Germany, Spain, Italy & Austria. Furthermore, he was awarded as the Best Conductor at an international choir competition in Riva, Italy in 2009. ............................................................................................................................................. And last but not least, behind a successful choir there is always a hardworking, persistent conductor that needs a kind but firm leadership. Devi Francisca is at the moment studying Children & Youth choir conducting in Hannover. It was in that International Youth Choir Competition in Hongkong that she was awarded the Best Conductor award, and she has brought TRCC to other awardwinning participations such as in The Golden Gate Choral Festival (San Francisco) and the 10th Cantemus Choral Festival (Hungary). ............................................................................................................................................. Busy Bambang also led Borneo Cantata from Samarinda who deserves special mention in their first attempt to compete internationally at the Internationaler Chorwettbewerb in Spittal (Austria). Although they have yet to grab any of the top awards, they received high points in the two categories they competed : 81 in Folkslieder (Folksongs) and 80 in Kunstlieder (art song). They struggled with fundraising issues even just days before they left to Europe, as many other Indonesian choirs who competed and didn't receive financial backing from institutions or sponsors. ............................................................................................................................................. In fact, choirs are the best Public Relations material for universities or institutions, since it is a great way of presenting performing arts and entertainment to (potential) clients. They are also a suitable instrument to discover and preserve numerous folksongs, many of them are in danger of being forgotten. As Franz Liszt did with his highly virtuosic Hungarian Rhapsodies or my own Rapsodia Nusantara for piano, choirs have the advantage of presenting the original text of the folksong, therefore preserving the original language, dialects -- and costumes too. And as the recent winnings indicate, those folksongs provide excellent material to be arranged into stunningly virtuosic showpieces. They generate royalty from the performing rights too, since although folkmusic and its lyrics are public property, the arrangement belongs to the arrangers 100%. Having an abundance of folkmusic, imagine how much they would contribute to the economy when the Performing Rights problems are solved in our country!

Easy music, chamber music, nice music

Writing easy music is not easy. Well, we composers know that, so there are 2 types of us: the ones who avoid writing music which is easy to play, and the others who then delve into it and start trying to write it. I used to belong in the first club, but since I wrote for my daughter Alicia, I joined the second club. But there is something more difficult than writing easy music, and that is writing easy and GOOD music to be performed. Not that the music in Alicia's Piano Books are not meant to be performed, no no ... in fact it's just a collection of any kind of short pieces. ............................................................................................................................................. Believe me, everytime I wrote a new Rapsodia Nusantara, I always intended that this one would not be a difficult one, so it could be played by young(er) pianists. And I sort of achieved it, like in no. 6 and recently no. 16 which became quite popular with Indonesian pianists. I just finished a new one too, which become no. 18, a set of variations and passacaglia which I am not telling from which song at the moment ;) and it's quite easy(-ier) than the rest. And lighter too, with some humorous quotations of existing music. ............................................................................................................................................. Now that my friends in 5 cities are organizing a piano competition for young people, I regularly talk to them too about this. Especially Eveline Philips in Makassar who told me that in Alicia's Piano Books very easy piano pieces are not enough. I mean very, like, for real beginners, just a few months touching the keys. Anyway, it's been nice chatting with her while writing several very easy and short pieces. I don't always succeed, as I said above it's not easy writing easy pieces, but I got some for Alicia's 6th Piano Book. And yeah, it's a wonderful initiative those friends of mine have about this Piano Nusantara competition. The idea is each of them in their respective cities organize a competition, and then the winner of each city would be eligible to do the Grand Finale in Jakarta. And it's a very friendly one, unlike the Ananda Sukarlan Award, which is tough. The idea is to show the (very) young pianists that competitions are not meant to "kill" them. Everyone is a winner, they will receive comments from the judges, and they can prepare any kind of music they want. The 2 things they have to comply is that 1. They have to prepare 2 pieces, one by an Indonesian composer and the other by a classical international one, you know, Bach, Schumann and those guys. 2. The duration, which as usual there is a limit. You can check everything out at pianonusantara.wordpress.com . ............................................................................................................................................. Now that the Foundation for Autistic Children "EMPATI" commissioned me for a new piece based on a famous children song "Kupu-kupu" (by the late very popular children songwriter Ibu Sud), I gotta succeed in making a quite elaborate (I mean longer than the pieces in Alicia's Piano Books) showpiece but playable by intermediate pianists. And yeah, in the midst of orchestrating my opera Tumirah, I finished a Theme and 5 variations on it. I finished them just now, in a hotel in near the beautiful town of Arnuero. I am serving as the president of the jury for their International Chamber Music Competition this weekend. One thing which is nice about writing "not-so-difficult" pieces is that one doesn't need a piano to try everything, unlike writing the Rapsodias where I constantly had to go to the piano and check whether something is (not) playable by our poor overexploited fingers. And there is a feeling of accomplishment afterwards, different than finishing my other "difficult" pieces, therefore I write these lines :). ............................................................................................................................................. And talking about the Chamber Music Competition, I just acquired immense pleasure listening to all participants. I am double happy that my Indonesian musician colleagues "Duo Schoko" could enter the final round. Nothing to do with me being the president of the jury, mind you! Ah, and also it was such fun playing with my colleagues during the opening concert, where we premiered my new Trio for flute, viola & piano. Just search it on youtube if you wanna hear it, it's in 3 videos but you can get them all if you search with the keyword "ananda sukarlan trio". ............................................................................................................................................. Millions of young pianists aspire to become soloists, but most forget how important it is playing together, either with instruments or with vocalists. The joy and fun is inexplicable, because we share the music together. Chamber music should be introduced at a very young age .... and now I am thinking to write easy pieces for chamber music!

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.

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.

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!

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.

Rapso and not so rappy

The winner of Ananda Sukarlan Award last year, the just-turned 21-year-old Edith Widayani had a big success in her short visit to her home country during the turn of the year with concerts in Makasar and Jakarta. She has played my 4th Rapsodia Nusantara several times during this visit, and now that it's uploaded to youtube the interest is even more mounting. She performed that piece quite well during the ASA competition in July 2010, but it is only now that the piece has really matured in her hands and that its virtuosity flourished in her performances. She had made a paper for her school (now she's studying at the Texas Christian Univ. under the guidance of Tamas Ungar) about my Rapsodias, and we did an interview through email several months ago.

Before you read this, you might like to refresh your memory with another entry of mine here: http://andystarblogger.blogspot.com/2009/09/yeah-title-isnt-mine-but-music-is.html

So, here is an excerpt of our interview:

How would you describe your compositions? Like for example, Liszt’s are more of improvisational pieces. What compositional technique do you use composing these Rhapsodies?

I try to experiment new kinds of forms and ways of "marriages" between the two folksongs in one Rapsodia. My only Rapsodia until now which is based on one (instead of two) folksong is Rapsodia no.4. Its form is variations on the theme "Buka Pintu".

But characterwise, I always try to make the lighter and improvisational ones (hence true to its title, "rapsodia") in the uneven numbers (1,3,5), and more "serious" or adventurous (or someone has defined it as "rather weird pianistic stuff") in the even numbers. It also means that the even numbers are usually longer in duration and more complex in its forms, and the uneven numbers more "flashy" and more a showpiece to end a concert with. I know that it is diametrically opposed to its title, "rhapsodic", but in my case I think "Rapsodia" becomes just an excuse to my way of tinkering new ways of treating the basic materials, in this case, main melodies of folksongs.

Does the Indonesian pentatonic scale affect you in any way for composing the Rhapsodies? Do you think that it sets a parameter in which you have to work in?

Not until now, although it existed in disguises in Rapsodia 2 and 4. Now it is magnified ( I would even say "glorified"!) in Rapsodia 8 which I am writing now, based on "Janger" , a Balinese popular folktune. In its existence at the moment it is exclusively based on the Balinese pentatonic scale, but using the most "un-oriental" form which is a passacaglia (therefore it doesn't sound too Balinese, or perhaps let's say that it could sound as if Bach had travelled through the time machine to the 21st century .. and finds himself in Bali !)

We know that there are a lot of Indonesian traditional instruments, of which the folk songs might have been performed by. Is there any particular Indonesian musical instrument that is presented in your Rhapsodies? If so, what are they, and do they make the music sounds more characteristically Indonesian?

It's the Balinese gamelan in the Rapsodia I'm doing now (no.8). Otherwise I treat the piano as it is, a simple western instrument called the piano!


How do you decide which folk song to be featured in your Rhapsodies? Is there any categorization in any way that makes you grouped them?

Well, I have to admit, having lived 23 years in Europe I don't know much of Indonesian folk music. So I listen to them through youtube (!!), transcribe the melodies and look for the melodic materials which suits well to my compositional technique in every Rapsodia to be worked on. I try to do each Rapsodia representing a province of Indonesia, but then I broke that rule in the 2nd Rapsodia : I used Tokecang (from West Java) and Cublak Cublak Suweng (from Central Java) : just because I had the idea of making a double fugue and needed 2 themes with a common intervalic motif. Coincidentally those 2 songs are both children folktunes (but Rapsodia 2 turns out to be one of the most difficult technically, nothing to do with children to play it!)

(You can watch Edith Widayani perform my Rapsodia Nusantara no.4 here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoD4hTz1_Ws )

The sound of .... music?

These last few days am putting finishing touches to my work Stanza Suara for big choir, orchestra and angklung which I mentioned here in March. It's only about 8 minutes long, but it took much more time than usual for me to write, due to many things : my unfamiliarity with the angklung instruments and how to write for them and integrate it into my own language (it will be played by amateur players which always complicate the situation), my travellings and my musical intentions which also complicate my own life. The poem by Hasan Aspahani is a wonderful one but strangely enough it didn't immediately "sound" in my head --which turned out to be a good thing, since this long process matured the music in my head. This angklung business isn't easy stuff either, since it will be part of its presentation to the UNESCO (the UNESCO director is planned to come to its premiere in Bandung during the ITB International Choir Festival who commissioned the piece) to establish it as the Indonesian National Heritage. So I should show the world that it's not just children's toy, it's a musical instrument as serious as a french horn!

I want to emulate the evolution of sound since its creation throughout this 8-minute piece. It was too big an idea, I know ... and in fact I am toying the idea to extend the piece in the future, since there are lots of underdeveloped materials in the piece, although the underlying foundation is simple : from unpitched noise, through the most basic intervals (fifths, thirds to the most "recent" interval of tritone) reaches the triumphal tonality in the end. Basically the interval of perfect fifths appear as the motif throughout the piece. Inevitably the piece goes through a lot of styles, from the baroque polyphony up to ....ehm, Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams type of epic film music and even a touch of Shakira sexy rhythms. All those are served on one tray of "Western" orchestration mixed with bamboo instruments, my usual chords and dotted rhtyhms and even constructed with the fractal geometry principals in mind (by changing the word "space" into "time", and "size" into "duration") so hopefully one can find a unity of musical language throughout the whole piece. I mean, Palestrina, Schumann, John Williams and Javanese gamelan players all exploited the interval of fifths and major/minor thirds, right? Same intervals but different usage and different perceptions by different people & culture. That's the point I wanna say in the piece.
Anyway, I do learn a lot from writing Stanza Suara. One of them is that this is the first time I write music (I mean a structurally complex one, not a 3 minute song or piano piece) really from beginning to end! However, I couldn't break the habit of writing backwards during finishing the orchestration of the piece, so I sent it to the players (ITB Choir) starting from the last section. And for your information, I still read all books (especially fiction stories) jumping to the end after the first pages. And then finish the rest of it, obviously. Oh well, old habits never die. I wonder what psychologists would say about this.

As usual, I work on 2 pieces at the same time, so these days I am also working on my opera Pro Patria to be premiered around the same time of Stanza Suara (and coincidentally both have repeated letters for their initials!). Am gonna write about my opera in my next entry. When Stanza Suara is completely finished (hopefully in a few days), I'll need another piece to write together with my opera, and almost certainly it will be a new Rapsodia Nusantara.Part of it is already written. Its ending, of course, is already complete.

A rhapsodic blackout

Thanks so much to all of you who have come all the way to the fantastic World Theatre at Bintaro (South of Jakarta) to come to my piano concert last Sunday. I do feel rather guilty to make you all travel that far, but I hope I've made your odyssey worth it. And sorry for the blackout (electricity, not my brain!) during and before the concert; I should say that the timing of the blackout was very precise, eh? Right after our great tenor Dani Dumadi finished his performance. Imagine if it had happened during my sporty running and jumping fingers during Rapsodia Nusantara.... Anyway, that blackout was the second time that it happened during a concert of mine. The first time was during my first concert in Moscow, back in 1995. At that time, the timing wasn't that good: it was in the middle of my playing of a Rachmaninov Prelude. It was almost the end, so I just creeped to the last note ... and then started making jokes waiting for the lights to turn on again. Nobody laughed at my jokes, so either : 1. My jokes weren't funny. 2. The Russians didn't understand English, or 3. Those serious Russians came to see me play and not joke around, so they thought I should've stopped making a fool of myself and meditate in the darkness instead.

Oh and I would like to congratulate my guest stars in that concert: the 12-year-old (you won't notice it when you hear her play) Victoria Audrey Sarasvathi (the youngest finalist of the Ananda Sukarlan Award (ASA) 2008) and Dani Dumadi, the tenor who fantastically sang my 6 songs for high voice. Their contributions to the success of the concert were invaluable. Both are newcomers here, Dani since he just came back from the US, and Audrey because of her age, but you should remember their names coz they'll gonna hang around up there, and very high above!

Anyway, I must admit that I had a hidden agenda performing my RN #4. As you know, it's the obligatory work for the Ananda Sukarlan Award next July. I have received many complaints about how difficult it is ... and me performing it last Sunday was also to proof that it is not that difficult. I hope you got my point.

A friend of mine, Johannes S. Nugroho, a highly respected pianist and also Dean of the Music Faculty at the Pelita Harapan University couldn't make it to the concert due to a bacterial infection in his digestive system (it's been like a week that he'd been suffering, but he's recovering well, as I learn from his emails. Play lots of music with vitamin C major, Johannes! Get well soon!). He is very familiar with, and has worked with his students on a couple of my RN's. And here is what he said:

I think technically more or less is about the same as Rhapsody 1. And I even think musically this should be simpler since it is in a much less "rhapsodic" nature compared to the 1st one. So participants should be able to have less hardship in digesting #4. But both do require exceptional imagination from the pianists and somewhat an ability to grasp the structure beneath zillions of notes, otherwise, so sadly, these Rhapsodies can be more rhapsodic than you intended them to be:)

Thanks for the wish! I do need to get well, and well soon. J.

Well, there is one thing that I can tell. RN #4 is a bit longer (about 2 minutes, but it could be less if you play it faster! he he ...) than the obligatory work for ASA 2008 : RN #1. Well? So?

Are they really outdated?

Music, as everything else nowadays, is changing so fast, and it just feels so strange that the most "radical" composers who wanted to boldly write what no man has written before during the 20th century becomes now outdated and their music become "expired" and in their worst case, obsolete. But are they really ? Would you say that the generation starting with Schoenberg and his 12-tone method and ends with ... --err, is it ended already?-- ...produced completely useless music ?

Well, not really, at least for me. Up till the 1960s, or even 70s, there was this catchy phrase popular among the composers : "Tonality is dead. Music should now be atonal" (This phrase was originally uttered by Arnold Schoenberg in 1920s ; you see how much he was so ahead of his time?). Now, 50 years later I look around and tonal music is everywhere ! In fact, there is ONLY tonal music everywhere. But sure, people say that academic composers in the US still writes atonal music, even using a "more advanced" serial method of Schoenberg and Babbitt. Needless to say, they are only heard (better said: analyzed) inside universities by the nerds. And I guess in some developing countries it is considered a novelty to start writing 12-tone or atonal music, eh ? Well, I remember that the Indonesian composer Trisutji Kamal (b.1936) wrote 3 short pieces for piano in 12-tone method back in the 1960s. But then they were the first and her last piece in atonal style. I guess she opened a door ... but didn't enter it herself. I wonder if there were some idiots afterwards that would enter that open door ...

I started my compositional career writing with that 12-tone method, and I did learn quite a bit from there. I still keep some atonal music of mine which I consider not sooo bad. Who knows that I'll write an opera about a haunted house or something, and they will be quite useful there he he ...
One thing I learn about twelve-tone method is that I have to win this battle between my own music and my willingness ; I mean, sometimes I want my music to sound one way, but the method insisted that I go another way. Now, in my Rapsodia Nusantara series those methods of retrograding, inverting and all the cutting and pasting motifs proved to be useful. And I can proof to myself that that method can be applied to tonal music. I couldn't believe it myself when I completely inverted a folk-tune backwards ... and it worked! I also used that method a lot in my cantata LIBERTAS : you might have noticed the most obvious one that "Requiescat"'s tune is turned upside down and become the solo baritone that opened "Krawang Bekasi". And I do find turning melodies upside down quite erotic ...

I haven't blogged for a few weeks since I was busy with the Jakarta New Year Concert and then some travelling, among others to Makassar (Sulawesi Island) for the first time (yeah it was memorable! And I loooove the food! And everyone's great too). Now I am back at my appartment listening to all the music I have performed during these days, while trying to figure out whither my music is going. I have some big pieces ahead of me to write, and honestly, I have no idea about anything. I remember that my sister who is a doctor once was so confused that she bought a book "What to do if there is no doctor around" .. well, I feel the same at the moment. Perhaps the most scary thing is my next opera, commissioned by the same institution, Bimasena, who commissioned "LIBERTAS". I'll write about it in my blog when I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Again and again, with all the compositional techniques that one has under his sleeves one cannot be sure what to write. One might know HOW to write, but WHAT to write remains always an unsolved mystery, even to the composer himself ....

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 !

To boldly CHANGE that we can believe in

Now that's very fine, Mr. President, what you said about change. Most people are so conservative that they are afraid of any changes. In fact, one gets older in order to get settled down, and "well-established" instead of "seeking change, new life and new civilations". If one is comfortable with something, why change it, right? But what about this thing that happens to me now ? I am feeling a kind of change ... in my music. And it's not me who wanted this change. Now, that's ok, considering that I've been in and out writing music for the last 20 years, and I did have some changes in my musical language in the past. I do envy Rachmaninov who had been so consistent throughout his life. Even all his 4 piano concerti ends in the same manner: pam papapam !! (as if there are no other ways to end a piece of music). Oh yeah, I just finished my Rapsodia Nusantara no.4 a few days ago, and I was making sure that the ending is different from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd he he ..

Now back to change .. the thing is that I think I like my music more and more. I still am a Britten and Stravinsky wannabe, but hey, I write music because I want to listen to it and nobody has written it, that's why I write it down, right ? And then I know that many people also likes my music, and although I keep on telling this bulls**t to myself that "artists write not for people, but to express what they believe", I do feel flattered every time I realize that my music can "move" someone. Together with this change in my musical language, I also realized that I like new kinds of music which I wasn't really fond of previously. Two "H" composers have been my favorite lately : Hindemith and Hans Werner Henze. In the latter case, I even know him personally, and still wasn't a big fan of his music. Until recently, for the last few weeks.

So, what kind of change is happening ? First of all, with my 4th Rapsodia, I did something, an experiment if you like to call it so, which I never did before. I wrote about my method of composing in this blog about last month. At last it has 10 variations, but I couldn't avoid feeling rather jittery when I finished writing the variations, having 10 pieces of puzzle to construct. Even some silly questions popped up, such as "Why should the bare & naked theme appear in the beginning?" I still don't know if my "4th" would work as a solid construction, but that's the risk if one wants to "change". A work of art is never finished, said Paul Valery, and this phrase could serve as a big consolation in times like this ..

Another change is the harmony in my music : it's getting darker, and even thicker. Now usually when one gets older, his music tends to be simpler, more transparent. Just listen to all those guys : Beethoven, Liszt, oh well, most of them. And the bad news is ... I think you won't like it, folks. It's less "accessible", and shall we say, more "difficult listening" (in need for a better opposite of "easy listening").
Oh well, enough for now. Let me just go and boldly change. To seek out new music and new ideas .. Make it so, Number One! Energize !!

Rapsodia Nusantara : Jakarta is no. 1

I stayed awake until 5 a.m this morning, finishing, revising and copying my First Rapsodia Nusantara—the first of a collection of Lisztian rhapsodies based on Indonesian folk tunes. In fact the idea of these rhapsodies came from conductor/composer/pianist Yazeed Djamin (1951-2001), with whom I often spoke about the identity of Indonesian classical music in general. The first piece will be premiered by myself in the concert to celebrate the newly elected governor of Jakarta, Fauzi Bowo who is a classical music lover and the dedicatee of the piece. It will also be the obligatory piece for the contestants of the Ananda Sukarlan Award, a piano competition founded by Mrs. Pia Alisjahbana (founder of Femina Group) and Mr. Dedi Panigoro (one of the founders and directors of the petroleum company MEDCO Energi). Besides this piece, I will also require the contestants to play another piece by another Indonesian composer, besides the standard repertory. Rapsodia Nusantara no. 1 is based on two folk tunes from Jakarta, “Kicir-Kicir” and “Jali-Jali.” It is also influenced by the inversion and retrograde techniques of Schoenberg, as well as Salvador Dali’s idea of the transformation of two elements. Like the Liszt rhapsodies, Rapsodia Nusantara (and those that follow) is meant to end a recital with virtuosity and flash. But for this one in particular I concentrate more in the different colours of the piano sounds, although certainly the piece doesn't lack virtuosity. I only enjoy listening to musicians who has a wide palette of sound colours, and that is what I would like to hear from the participants of the AS Award .

The Ananda Sukarlan Award for young pianists (under 26), by the way, will be held in Jakarta on the 24th- 27th of July 2008.