The flute, all the flute and nothing but the flute

After a highly exciting concert (+discussions +lunch +gossipping) of JAKFlute (the Jakarta Flute Community whose members are always growing) at my place, the Ananda Sukarlan Center last Sunday July 31st, my sheet music with all my chamber & solo works involving the flute is now officially published. It was launched during that concert last Sunday. Its title is "Narcissus Dying and other works for flute(s)". It took me several days to decide on the cover. The most natural is of course using John William Waterhouse's painting of Narcissus as it was the painting that helped me shape the piece. At last I cropped the painting "Echo and Narcissus" of Waterhouse, took only the Narcissus part as its cover. All my flute music are connected with someone (mostly flutists), except "Rescuing Ariadne" which really just popped up from the blue. Well, Titian's painting was the trigger, but I didn't specifically write it for someone. There are 8 titles in that book: -Narcissus Dying (now becoming my most popular work for flute) -Rescuing Ariadne -My recently premiered "The Sicilian Diary" for 3 flutes -You Had Me at Hello (3 movements for flute solo, for Chendra Panatan's choreography) -Vega & Altair's Love Song (for flute & harp) -2 pieces for piccolo solo, for Rudy & Liz's 2 boys -Prelude & Intermezzo from my opera "Ibu yang anaknya diculik itu", which is original written for flute & piano. Therefore this is not an arrangement -Choreographic prelude to "Bibirku Bersujud di bibirmu". Now this title is missing on the score, but written down in the index of the book. This piece is a prelude (but can be performed separately) from my piece for soprano & piano based on the highly moving poem of Hasan Aspahani. Aaaand ... I will use this opportunity to thank my flutty friends: Liz Ashford, Wendela van Swol, Roberto Alvarez, Mesty Ariotedjo who is also the ambassador of our dear Indonesian Classical Music Foundation (YMSI), founders of JakFlute Metta F.Ariono & Marini Marnoto, my new flutty friend Andika Candra and many more flutists who have played my music. I learned a lot from listening to you all playing it, and glad that you include my music in your repertoire. Hope my music can enrich the tutti flutty world!

False start, lucky ending, Narcissus dying

This had happened several times in my composing life. No matter how well you plan a piece of music, sometimes one "steps with the wrong foot" so to say. Especially in a work of many movements like "Vega and Altair". One movement, which was planned to be a love song had a false start. It was planned for flute and harp only, while the cellist and violinist could have a break (but too short time to have a Kit Kat; it should be only about 2 minutes!). Apparently it turned out to be too sad to be a love song (except if the lovers are saying goodbye or even encountering death!) and it would fit better for a piano instead of a harp. I'd also like to have more than 2 minutes for its development, since the main melody is based on a small motif. The simpler the motif, usually the more potential the development can have. What I need for Vega & Altair's love song is a long and winding melody which would just be repeated.

Anyway, I had to discard what I have written and wrote a new love song. During my younger days, those discarded notes (and even entire pieces) would just end in the trash bin. Not anymore now. I know now what to do with it, especially I discarded it exactly because I want to develop it and bring it to another piece.

A few months ago I promised the flute-piano duo Wendela van Swol and Emilio Garcia a piece for them to complement my older piece, "Rescuing Ariadne" that they brought in their Spanish tour earlier this year and ended at the International Flute Convention in Madrid. It was them who introduced the work to Spanish audiences, and especially flutists. Apart from that, I always felt that "Rescuing Ariadne" is not really complete in itself ; it needs to be a part of a suite. Somehow the sections are too short and the ending needs to be "continued". Although if one likes, one can still perform it as an independent piece, as well as the new piece since they both don't share the same material.

So this is the exact material for "their" new piece. Every piece has its own time to be born, just like babies! This new 4-minute piece for flute & piano is slow, brooding and not techically difficult. The motif invites me to play with reflections : either imitations, not so exact canons or inverted ones, and it even begins with two same notes which go up a minor third and down in its inverted interval, a major sixth. In developing it I needed something visual to inspire me, which I later found in that incredible painting of Narcissus by Caravaggio. Not only the water reflection, but also I derived the curve made by Narcissus' hands which are not symetrical into my main melody.
The water on which Narcissus sees himself also inspired me to do a distorted reflection of the melody, sometimes appearing together both in the flute and the piano in different speed, which is quite new for me.
Anyway, "Narcissus dying" will suit young flutists and pianists, not only technically but also because of the "youth" theme : the incredibly handsome Narcissus who is suffering from love .... with himself. No, no, it's not autobiographical ! At least I hope not.

Ariadne Rescued ... in Spain

Next month my friend from our conservatory days --and now a reputable flutist living in Cordoba-- Wendela van Swol will give the Spanish premiere of my flute and piano Rescuing Ariadne, accompanied by pianist Emilio Jose Garcia. One of their concerts will be during the Spanish Flute Convention in Madrid where it will be a concentration of flutists around the world with 3 full days of concerts, discussions and masterclasses. And they made me realize that with several performances done in the past, I haven't written any program notes on the piece, so this entry is dedicated to them.

Rescuing Ariadne was inspired by a painting by Titian at the National Gallery of London. I don't know why that particular painting was particularly inspiring to me, among the other fascinating paintings hanging there. Its luscious colours certainly triggered some of the harmonic progressions in my piece, and I also had in mind the story behind it while composing. Therefore the piece was divided into 3 continuous sections :

1. depicting both anger and sadness of Ariadne being alone in the island of Naxos. There are many short flute cadenzas here.

2. the arrival of Bacchus. As one can expect when a handsome god meets a beautiful goddess, they immediately fall in love, and thanks to this process we get the story of him rescuing her out of the island. I especially like the beginning of the "love tune" where the piano repeats a figure twice and then the flute answers with the same figure : it's so kitch! As if one asked "Do you love me? Do you love me?" and the other answered : "Yeah I do love you". If you have this dialogue in mind, you'll get the exact rubato that's needed.

3. obviously their adventure of escaping from Naxos. I use my favorite meter of 10/16 as the ending.

I don't think one should bear this story in mind while listening to the music, since I hope that the music can speak for itself without any programmatic background, and I do realize that both Titian's painting and the story are too big for my 5-minute little piece. Some people have asked me questions why I didn't simply put Titian's title for my piece, hence "Bacchus and Ariadne", and my answer is that 1. Albert Roussel has done justice to the painting by writing his Third Symphony (yes, a whole symphony and not a 5+ minute piece) with that title. 2. I did concentrate on the figure of Ariadne, and not on Bacchus while writing my piece.

And somehow I had (and still have) the strange feeling that this piece would be the first movement of a kind of suite for flute and piano. It just feels that way. There are materials in the piece that can still be exploited to make it a complete piece of, say, 3 movements. But I haven't got the time, opportunity and inspiration to write another one (my "Prelude and Interlude" from my opera IBU, also for flute and piano, has nothing to do with this). Especially now, when I am extremely late in finishing my third opera. Rehearsals starting in mid-April and .. ehm .. nobody involved in the opera has received any note from me (sssh, don't tell!). Anybody got Mozart's phone number??