Classical music symphony with a focus on youth

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): "Pray for me, please", said 17-year-old Dominicus Levi Gunardi, who was about to play Liebestod, an excerpt from Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde, arranged for piano by his father-in-law, Franz Liszt.

Of course I answered "I will" though I doubted that this brilliant young pianist needed any.

Prayers are for those who are unprepared for the job they've taken on. Dominicus Gunardi was more than prepared to undertake this most difficult piece in every respect: technically, intelligently, emotionally and, most of all, musically. If there is one boy who must continue with music it is he.

But that applies to many of the other 23 pianists, ranging in age from 13 to 23, who performed at Gedung Kesenian Jakarta on Tuesday and Wednesday, in two concerts collectively called "YPM's Young Musicians in Focus."

YPM stands for Yayasan Pendidikan Musik (Foundation for Music Education), whose school has over the years produced some of Indonesia's foremost musicians, especially pianists. This year's crop is a particularly good one, so good, in fact, it left Aisha Sudiarso who is on the way to getting her master's degree in the U.S., speechless.

Small wonder. These youngsters displayed an exceptionally high degree of musical maturity. Listen to Milsa Said, playing Scriabine's Etude Op. 2 No. 1. Technically, it isn't one of the world's most difficult pieces, but it takes everything out of the interpreter to deliver the message of one of Russia's most mystically inclined, composers. The coloring Milsa exhibited, the clarity of all the lines in this polyphonic work, the exceptional control of dynamics, all these spoke of her great ability as an artist.

One would, perhaps, expect such maturity from someone who is 21 years old, but how about Aureine Wibrata, a 14-year-old high school student whose exciting Danza de la Moza Donosa, by Alberto Ginastera, elicited an equally warm response? Or Debussy's Prelude from his suite entitled Pour le Piano, faultlessly rendered by Prihatini Nur Indah, one of the babies of the group at 13.

She, too, should carve a career as a pianist, having begun at the age of three and a half. Or the impeccable interpretation of Poulenc's Toccata, played by the other 13-year-old, Irsa Destiwi.

Then there was I Gusti Agung Nyoman Lia Oktarini playing Chopin's Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1, a piece fraught with different melodic lines, all of which she picked out and displayed with a clarity and maturity that is downright uncanny for someone her age. Her Balinese background may account for so high a gift.

Thinking process

All these kids (for that's what they are), as well as the many other "below-18's" exhibited a maturity that matched those of the "old" ones. Whatever their age, though, they have already notched up about 10 years of study as far as schooling in music is concerned.

How does one rate maturity? One aspect is the way the per- former puts themselves into the composition played, a kind of thinking process that goes, approximately, along these lines: Beethoven wrote this sonata, but it's me who's playing it and this is how I see it. One may not like the way Ika Darmawan, 16, played Brahms' Rhapsody Op. 79 No. 2, but afterwards, one real izes that her interpretation wasn't so irrational after all.

She will, no doubt, be playing it again ten years from now, when she has gained more knowledge about Brahms and other facets that surround this German composer's life and times.

As the cream of YPM's students, these youngsters have com pleted, or are in the course of completing their conservatory preparatory level studies, i.e. three more years following the regular six-year course. Whether all of them will go to a real full-fledged conservatory is doubtful because, curiously, there is no conservatory of Western classical music in this country. There are tertiary art institutes that have music departments, but they are parts of an entity, not independent music academies. So if any of these kids want to go on, there is no other way but to leave the country.

It isn't only they who deserve congratulations. A salute must also go to their teachers: Maryam Rudyanto, Soetarno Soetikno, Linny Sugianto, Ina Sutisna, Adelaide Simbolon, Poly Hidayat, Eri Prabowo, and last but not least YPM's triumvirate, the country's noted pianists Rudy Laban, Iravati Sudiarso and music theory master Alex Paat.

The concert was billed as Young Musicians in Focus, but whether they are, or will be, musicians when they reach adulthood still remains to be seen.

Veronica Winarta, 23, is currently in her eighth semester as an economics student majoring in accounting. Rita Andriani, 20, is also an economics student. F.X. Adi Santos will one day be an electrical engineer, and while Ni Luh Ayustha, 21, in a few years from now, will concern herself with mankind's mental health (she's a psychology student), Frieda Handayani, 21, will be taking care of people's physical ailments.

Perhaps they may all be at the pinnacle of excellence as accountants, engineers, doctors, psychologists, sociologists, economists, whatever, but for now -- if not in the future -- they are, for their age, superlative pianists who, during those two evenings at GKJ, were in focus, as the program said. Who knows, some of them may well remain in focus, not just in Indonesia but elsewhere in the world.