Chamber Music society celebrates Schubert

Chamber Music society celebrates Schubert

By Nicolas Colombant

JAKARTA (JP): The cast of the Yayasan Musik Internasional
chamber music society reads like the classical music version of
the Globetrotters: Coming soon to a recital hall near you.

Lead violinist I.G. Bagus Wiswakarma is unpacking his bags and
publicly showcasing his talents in Jakarta for the first time
after seven years in Germany, of which the last two were spent as
principal second violinist for the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.

Artistic coordinator Iswargia R. Sudarno is flying in from
France after a two-week European tour with the Trisutji Kamal
Music Ensemble, which took him from Italy to Sweden, and before
that he was performing solo in Bangkok, Thailand.

Pianist Halimah Brugger is performing her swan song, before
she embarks on a new career as associate piano professor at the
state university in Boise, Idaho.

If all planes land, nine regular members and newcomer Bagus
will reunite tonight to perform an all-Schubert instrumental
chamber music program at Gedung Kesenian, Jakarta.

This is the second of two concerts in the "Schubertiade"
series presented by the chamber society to celebrate the second
centenary of Franz Schubert's birth.

The first was an all-Schubert vocal program presented at
Erasmus Huis on Oct. 31.

The Austrian composer died at the age of 31, leaving behind
him the reputation of an introvert, roaming sentimentalist.

During his time, he performed mostly as an accompanist on the
piano, entertaining the 19th century elite Viennese society with
lyrical and romantic music. His specialty was turning the finest
poems of German literature into long sonatas.

Schubert was also known to write melodies on napkins in cafes
of the Austrian capital, for a beautiful girl just passing by, or
to reawaken a memory which tortured his soul.

He was a troubled idealist who dreamed of pastoral scenes with
virgin shepherdesses running through fields of edelweiss.

But since his death, especially in the last 50 years,
Schubert's stature has grown. His Unfinished Symphony is now
recognized as a part and parcel of the basic classical music
repertoire alongside Beethoven's Fifth.

Schubert left behind him more than 600 compositions, covering
all the genres and many themes such as the unfulfilled, the
circle and the cycle, pantheism and the triumph of death.

To reflect this versatility, the Yayasan Musik Internasional
chamber music society will be performing four pieces, starting
with a somber Notturno and ending with a triumphant quintet.

Notturno in E-flat Major Opus 148 will feature Halimah Brugger
on piano, Sulistyo Utomo on cello and Bagus on violin. For Bagus,
it will be his first performance with the chamber group, after
spending the last decade in Germany under the tutelage of the
violin's very best, Yehudi Menuhin.

Tonight, the home crowd will be able to determine if the 31
year-old Balinese from Yogyakarta is indeed, as touted, the most
talented violinist of his generation.

For Halimah, playing with Bagus and Sulistyo will be a
culmination of sorts, before she turns the page on her Jakarta
experience. She has been living 20-plus years in the metropolis,
teaching, developing and promoting classical music.

"This is what it is all about. Foreigners and Indonesians
coming together for the love of classical music. We are not many
so we need each other to make classical music vibrant and
progressive," she said.

Enjoying one of her last nasi bungkus (take-out rice) in the
week leading up to the performance, the departing academic
director of the music school explained that the chamber music
society has been established to give the many talented teachers
of the music school a chance to perform.

"For a classical musician who is alone, it's a very bleak
world out there. Like writing without being published, playing
the violin in the confines of your own bathroom is not a very
fulfilling experience. The chamber music society gives musicians
the opportunity to come together and perform."

The second piece under the soft lights of Gedung Kesenian will
be the fiery Arpeggione sonata in A minor D.821, with Sharon Eng
on viola and Ary Sutedja on the piano.

Eng will have the difficult task of playing a composition
meant for six strings with only the four strings of her viola.

Schubert wrote the three-part sonata with the Arpeggione in
mind, an instrument that has long been obsolete. The guitar-like
instrument, held between the legs and played with a bow, was
perhaps only mastered by his brother Vinzenz.

Eng will tackle a rearrangement written by her own mentor,
Austrian violist, Paul Doktor.

The complex and equally challenging Rondo in B Minor, Opus 70,
will follow, showcasing Bagus on violin, accompanied by Linny
Sugianto on the piano.

After a brief intermission, the concert will conclude with
Schubert's most famous chamber work, the boisterous quintet for
piano, violin, viola and double bass in A Major, called Die
Forelle, or less exotically translated as The Trout in English.

The title comes from another of Schubert's creations, about a
happy trout living in a turbulent river. The tune of that song
was inserted into the quintet's grand finale, and is therefore
the name for posterity.

On violin, 18-old virtuoso Utako Furuse will be giving her
final performance in Jakarta, before moving on to Tokyo, Japan.

She is one more globetrotter in the glorious cast of cross-
border musicians who will have to put jet lag on hold tonight to
give classical music lovers a fitting homage to the growing
legacy of Franz Schubert.