CSO makes memorable stop in Jakarta

By Arif Suryobuwono

JAKARTA (JP): European music, performed by Chinese musicians inside a Javanese chamber that is normally used as a dining room may sound like asking for trouble. Besides the worthy cause and some beautiful music, it was.

The China Symphony Orchestra premiered in the Sahid Jaya Hotel's most prestigious and spacious dining room, the Puri Agung hall on Wednesday evening.

It dawned upon me that the beautiful Javanese room, less the rising tiers of seats, and the wonderful orchestra didn't compliment each other very well.

The hall, much like Yogyakarta palace's pendopo pavilion with its peaked joglo roof, had its azimuthal soul sidelined by a proscenium built on the left side of the hall's entrance.

This was made worse by the huge billboard behind the stage depicting the Great Wall and the organizer's logo.

The billboard helped remind me of tawdry street advertisements rather than evoking the image of majestic, silent beauty which should have paved the way for the audience to enjoy Beethoven's bright, explosive overture, Leonore No.3 Op. 72 -- a work which is too gigantic for a prelude.

After all, "this is not a concert hall," remarked Kuei Pin Yeo, the Indonesian star pianist and the first woman to earn a doctorate from the Manhattan of Music, New York.

However, when most of the lights were turned off, my ears took over from my eyes and the mixed-up atmosphere and the lost sacredness of the Javanese hall were gone.

The involuted third overture, once a fresh replacement for Bach's too sorrowful Matthaeus-Passion in Dresden's imperial chapel in 1840, was played with finest gentleness and accuracy. It reminded me of German meticulousness.

The trumpets were beautiful as they marked the overture's zenith. Don Fernando, the Spanish king's minister, arrives and spares Leonore's unjustly imprisoned husband Florestan, from the governor of the prison who has just entered to execute him.

The orchestra brought the audience from the dungeon to experience the haling, a Norwegian dance in duple time, as well as Kuei's fiery finger dance on the grand piano's keys.

Kuei's flexibility, her masculine mentality when it's time to strike hard and her maternal soft tones, was featured during a solo in allegro molto moderato of Edvard Hagerrup Grieg's piano concerto in A minor op. 16. It has been a pillar of the concert repertoire since its inception.

But it was the concerto's marcato, Italian direction requiring marked emphasis of the music's parts, which accentuated her attention to detail, crystal-clear clarity and skin-tight coherence to the guest orchestra.

Mochtar Embut

A few moments later, the impressive marcato ended the border of the Norwegian fjord and delivered us right back to Jakarta's doorstep. The familiar, yet somehow alienated medleys of Keroncong Kemayoran, Lenggang-lenggang Kangkung, Surilang, Sang Bangau, Langgam Jakarta and Jali-jali ended the journey.

These Betawi (native Jakartans) folksongs were beautifully arranged in classic orchestral style by Mochtar Embut, a prolific Indonesian composer at the Indonesian state radio station. He was deputy chairman of the Indonesian Music Foundation until his death in 1973.

It was delightful and surprising to enjoy his long forgotten work, which have never been done by The Nusantara Chamber Orchestra or the Twilite Orchestra recently.

The work shows Embut's sharp, scintillating ear for classical music. His brilliance shines in through his transformation of commoners' songs into something acceptable to high society.

Embut really deserves two thumbs up. And so does the China Symphony Orchestra, which was privileged enough to play this work using the original scores written by Embut himself.

Rehearsing the arrangement just in the morning, the orchestra blended perfectly with two Gambang Kromong musicians with additional Betawi instruments, producing an unforgettable memento that evening.

"Strangely interesting," said conductor Yu Feng, first winner of the international young conductor competition in Portugal in 1991, when I asked how he found the Betawi blend. It originally contained strong elements from Jakarta-born Chinese's culture in the early half of this century.

The lively Jali-jali was lingering in my mind when the orchestrated Chinese song Streams Under Moon Shadow was performed.

The melancholic melody, originally intended for two-stringed Chinese fiddle, is said to be the most successful work of a blind beggar known as Ah Beng. He wrote it while begging at the West Lake in East China's Zhejiang province, Yu Feng's birthplace.

Finally, Johann Strauss Jr.'s famous Voices of Spring closed the performance of the 44-year-old orchestra.

Good idea

The China Symphony Orchestra's performance was timely. The evening helped raise funds to help the people left homeless after last week's eruption of Mt. Merapi.

"Every forms of donation will be accepted, even postdated checks," appealed the master of ceremonies, a woman whose Chinese brought contemptuous laughter from the Chinese women next to me.

She announced, unthoughtfully, who had donated -- no matter how big or small.

The three-course dinner quickly turned into a one-upmanship contest. There was no way to mention all the donators by name, and even Sukamdani S. Gitosardjono, the owner of the hotel, generous donation of Rp 25 million went unannounced.