Gutama Soegijo surprises in latest show<\/p>\n
Bintang Prakarsa, Contributor, Jakarta, ritornello@hotmail.com<\/p>\n
Meeting Paul Gutama Soegijo always brings surprises. Last
\nThursday, Oct. 30, at Bentara Budaya, Jakarta, he gave a solo
\ngamelan (traditional, ethnic Javanese music) performance at the
\nopening of a sculpture exhibition Jejak Perjalanan (Traces of a
\njourney) by his older brother, Gregorius Sidharta Soegijo, on the
\noccasion of the latter's 70th birthday.<\/p>\n
Even if a bit disturbed by the noisy audience who made him cut
\nshort his performance way sooner than the promised,
\nhe was upbeat, generous with smiles and enjoyed meeting people
\nwhile finishing his soto after the performance.<\/p>\n
No bother. His latest composition, Gefuehlsstau \"a pile of
\nfeelings\" (2002) for solo percussionist, dedicated as a birthday
\npresent to his brother, comprises self-contained segments to be
\nplayed randomly and improvised at the spur of the moment. It
\nmeans that there would never be similar performances in terms of
\ntiming, order or actual sound.<\/p>\n
This small composition is, nevertheless, very special. When it
\ncomes to note-taking and notation, Gutama is as scrupulous as any
\nWestern (ethno)musicologists or composers. One of his core
\nbeliefs is that innovation comes from detailed and systematic
\nstudy of playing technique and composition, made available by
\nfield notes and notation.<\/p>\n
He insists on the use of all these to transform traditional
\nJavanese musical forms and performances. Without writing, he
\nargues, no detailed analysis is possible. And without analysis,
\nconceptualization, and systematization, learning would be a slow
\nprocess and innovation never fundamentally possible. If one is
\nunable to identify the starting point, one would never be able to
\nmeasure real distance from it, and would end up going through the
\nsame path over and over again.<\/p>\n
While many Westerners would cringe at this in the name of
\nscholarly detachment and cultural non-involvement, Gutama's
\nargument is validated by history. In the last hundred years or so
\nchanges in Javanese and Balinese gamelan music often (if not
\nalways) had something to do with the incorporation of Western
\nideas, instruments, techniques, etc. into existing patterns. In
\nthe late 19th century, for instance, the Yogyakarta court
\nbegan to notate its music, and decades later it began to use
\nsnare drums and brass in gamelan ensembles.<\/p>\n
Now what Gutama does is more profound than that, because he
\nclaims to transform traditional structures anew. He began, for
\ninstance, by exploring the virtuosic possibility of the
\ninstruments, because he believes that virtuosity is one of the
\nkey elements of innovation. For ages there has been no
\nbreakthrough in playing technique.<\/p>\n
In Javanese gamelan, sarons (bigger metallophones), were
\nalways played slowly, while genders (smaller ones) played
\nmoderately fast with limited patterns. Learning Javanese gamelan
\nfor the first time in the late seventies, Gutama devised a study
\nmethod akin to Western exercises for instruments, enabling him
\nand his ensemble, Banjar Gruppe, to facilitate speedy learning
\nand develop a high degree of virtuosity unthinkable - and never
\npracticable - in traditional Javanese milieus.<\/p>\n
His early work Genderan (1979) for two genders shows the
\npossibility of creating a new form and logic and expanding the
\ntraditional \"tonality,\" timbre, dynamics and interlocking
\ntechniques. Even when listened to casually, this piece exudes
\nthat unmistakably gamelan atmosphere which is absent in many
\nWestern gamelan reproductions -- irreverently produced.<\/p>\n
This is what he later calls neue Urspruenglichkeitmusik, \"new
\nsource music\" (his translation; I prefer contemporary indigenous
\nmusic). This term is used in tandem with the German term neue
\nMusik, which is often translated to \"contemporary music,\" hence
\nmy translation.<\/p>\n
Contemporary music is the result of analytical innovation of
\nthe Western musical tradition, and contemporary indigenous music
\nis also rooted in tradition but renewed in the same way.<\/p>\n
What is so surprising then? When I saw him three summers ago
\nat his home in Berlin, he was more forbidding. At home in his
\nstudy, with neat, painstakingly written scores lying on his desk,
\nhe spoke about his hardship in conceptualizing the new source
\nmusic.<\/p>\n
He spoke about his decision not to compose in Western
\ncontemporary style anymore and to concentrate instead in learning
\nto compose in this new way, the ease of which he only felt very
\nrecently. He spoke of the race against time (he was then 66) and
\non the project of recording and documenting his compositions
\nwhich he had barely begun (and still continue).<\/p>\n
What is surprising is that he did not show an alarmist
\nattitude anymore. He is apparently more and more confident with
\nhis composition style, dubbing his earlier attempts as \"bad\" and
\nsaying that his masterpiece is still yet to come. In Gefuehlsstau
\nmore room for improvisation indicates his willingness to relax
\nthe written regime and plunge into the thicket of his imagination
\n- the concept might come from Cage's chance music, but the whole
\nfeeling is intimately native Indonesian: improvisation and
\nspontaneity (but with concept! - he hastily added).<\/p>\n
The Soegijo brothers are artists of international standing in
\ntheir own areas. They immersed themselves thoroughly in the
\ngrammar of Western arts - visual arts in Holland for Sidharta,
\nmusic in Holland and Germany for Gutama. Geographical and
\ncultural distance notwithstanding (the former in Yogyakarta after
\nretiring from teaching at the Institut Teknologi Bandung, while
\nthe latter live since 1964 in Berlin), they discussed for years
\nabout their burning urge to reclaim and transform their own,
\nparticularly Javanese, artistic roots. The result of this cross-
\nfertilization was a radical reorientation of esthetics from
\nModernism (Sidharta) or even the abandonment of Western style
\ncomposition (Gutama). This duo's exhibition\/performance was not
\nthe first one (they also performed at the CSIS building in 1996),
\nand likely will not be the last.<\/p>",
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