French violinist plays arpegina
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
French violinist Jean-Paul Minali-Bella plays even the most complex classical music on his arpegina, the only one of its kind in the world.
"I can perform classical compositions from F. Schubert and J.S. Bach, as well as contemporary compositions," said Minalli- Bella in an interview with The Jakarta Post recently.
He said Japanese composer Megumi Tanabe, French Jazz Musician Jean-Remi Guedon and Indonesian composer Slamet Abdul Syukur had written music for the arpegina.
The latest member of the string family, the arpegina is rather like a large viola but with a distinctive, asymmetrically shaped body.
Minali-Bella said the five-string arpegina had a pitch and timbre between that of the cello, viola and viola de gamba.
"The arpegina's sound is different from the viola or cello. It has more tension due to its lower string," the 35-year-old musician said.
Minalli-Bella, who married an Indonesian woman, Sumaryanti, three years ago, performed compositions from Schubert, Bach, Marin Marais and Syukur during a concert at S. Widjojo auditorium on Jl. Sudirman in South Jakarta on Thursday.
"This is my first performance with the arpegina in Indonesia. I have performed here twice and played a violin," he said.
Born in the countryside near Paris, Minalli-Bella, whose mother is French and father from Cameroon, said that the arpegina was made for him by violin maker Bernard Sabatier in 1997.
Since then, he has played the arpegina in several concerts in Tokyo, Japan, in Austin, Texas, in France and in Germany.
"This arpegina is the only one in the world. Sabatier made it specially for me and decided not to make another," Minalli-Bella said at the office of the Indonesian Music Foundation in South Jakarta.
He said that he paid US$5,000 for the materials, mainly wood, to make the arpegina."Maybe it's not expensive for other people, but for me it's expensive. It's worth a lot now since it's the only one."
He said the name arpegina was taken from an 18-century musical instrument called the apergone (a traditional guitar shaped like a cello) and the name of Italian actress Gina Lolobrigida.
"The sound and strings of the arpegina are like those of the apergone but it has a good shape like the actress. When an official in a concert in Germany asked me about its name, I said it was arpegina," he said.
During Thursday's concert, part of a chamber music series organized by YMI, Minalli-Bella played alongside Indonesian pianist Ade Simbolon.
Minalli-Bella, who was a top-ranking student of the viola at Serge Collot music school at age 20, obtained a one-year scholarship to study at Yale University in the United States.
In 1993, he was appointed solo violist in the French National Orchestra. From 1995-1999, he was a member of the Arpegione Quatuor and helped create the "European Camerata", a chamber orchestra with which he appeared as a soloist.
In 1999, he was named music professor at the Bordeaux and taught viola at the Corbeil-Essona music school.
Minalli-Bella's made his first visit to Indonesia in 2000 when he played a viola solo in a concert with the Surabaya Symphonic Orchestra in Surabaya, East Java.
Two years ago, he performed in a concert at Erasmus Huis in South Jakarta and lectured at a music camp for an international school in South Jakarta.