Classical music symphony with a focus on youth

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.