East is east and West is west: Never the twain shall meet
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A classical concert must be the least likely event at which to find Balinese gamelan and the traditional dance that accompanies it.
However, this is what transpired on Thursday at Balai Sarbini, The Plaza Semanggi, South Jakarta, during a performance by the Jakarta-based Nusantara Symphony Orchestra (NSO).
Billed as "the pre-concert Asia orchestra week Japan", the performance was a musical farewell before the band departs for Osaka and Tokyo to stage a two-date show in early October. The NSO is appearing at the invitation of the Osaka Symphony Hall.
Believing that indigenous tunes have superior, or at least equivalent, quality as classical or Western compositions, many composers seem to be obsessed with marrying the two styles in music -- sometimes with unpleasant results.
The marriage of pentatonic and diatonic music is indeed a tricky affair and the NSO only partially succeeded in that endeavor.
It would be unfair to say that the NSO delivered an inferior concert, but it could have been a much more memorable one if they had not been preoccupied with their East-meets-West experiment.
The concert got off to a flying start, with individual musicians delivering a stream of beautiful melodies.
Under the guidance of NSO conductor Edward van Ness, the musicians pulled off impressive pizzicato during Nyi Ronggeng, a traditional composition penned by late composer Yazeed Jamin.
Nyi Ronggeng is an orchestral work inspired by a folk dance popular in northern West Java.
By the composition's end, the sound of a hushed flute seeping through a wall of cellos gave way to a lengthy coda of kendang (traditional West Java percussion); a sense of impending doom began to take hold.
The kendang was followed by the second composition, Jangeran, a piece composed by Chris Watson, based on a melody by Otto Sidharta.
Starting with the dynamic sound of Balinese gamelan, performed by men in traditional costume, the composition appeared to get lost in a musical "black hole" -- territory where pentatonic and diatonic instruments sought to find firm territory on which to land.
The composition hung on to violins and an xylophone to deliver a "Balinese" sound, while an occasional horn simply reversed the hard-won accomplishment.
A Balinese dancer performed a janger dance to the composition.
Purists in the audience were observed scratching their heads, trying to figure out a way to appreciate the "exotic" composition.
It took a world-class pianist to bring much-needed order back to the performance: Indonesian-born Spanish pianist Ananda Sukarlan brought an element of grandeur to the event.
A guest pianist in the concert, Sukarlan was the driving force during a rendition of Piano Concerto no. 1 in G Major by French impressionist Maurice Ravel.
Sukarlan supplied tonal color and a variety of sounds to great effect while, behind him the NSO, now under the direction of Japanese-born French conductor Hikotaro Yazaki, painted a broad musical canvass by way of accompaniment.
Just before the 15-minute intermission, Sukarlan enraptured concertgoers at Balai Sarbini with a bravura rendition of the patriotic song Sepasang Mata Bola (Beady eyes).
One can only hope that the NSO will take Sukarlan along for its shows in Japan.