German musicians perform humorous modern works

By Slamet A. Sjukur

JAKARTA (JP): The concert was to start in 20 minutes, but only a few people were seen in the auditorium of Erasmus Huis in South Jakarta.

"Where are they? I heard that the Indonesian Composers' Association has 212 members?" asked Goethe Institute Director Rudolf Barth, the event's organizer.

Like other Westerners, he must wonder about this strange phenomenon of time here. Indonesians are used to chaos -- something philosophers regard with respect as a high order beyond childish thinking of human beings.

However, the room suddenly filled up and the audience gave prolonged and enthusiastic applause at the end of each piece.

Indeed, the Linos Ensemble of Germany, consisting of five woodwind instruments and five strings and a piano, presented near-perfect sounds, both in the balance of intensity, tone color, timing and overall design.

Last Thursday they focused on one composer, Detlev Muller- Siemens, performing his Variations on a folk song by Schubert and Refuge, composed 20 years apart; Six Bagatelles for a wind quintet composed by G. Ligeti (one of Muller-Siemens' teachers) and the F Major Octet by Schubert (reworked into a number of variations).

Such a program certainly had a clear objective, but its main line was not apparent. Schubert's simplicity is reflected in Muller-Siemens' music which, unlike most contemporary music, is not aggressive. Ligeti's youthful work is full of touching humor, very different from his later works which are subtle and abstract.

The Linos Ensemble is an invaluable outlet for pieces which demand concentration in every detail and clarity in the overall contour.

On the next day, at Yamaha Music Center, Muller-Siemens spoke of his philosophy and methods. Thirty composers from Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya and Medan were in attendance. With the assistance of composer and musicologist Dieter Mack, who speaks fluent Indonesian, a most attractive dialog in both Indonesian and German took place.

Muller-Siemens felt he had problems with three dualisms: (1) between the planned music frame and the role of his intuition; (2) between things in order and entropy; (3) between what should be and unpredictable coincidences.

All of that was clearly shown in his work Refuge, and the Linos Ensemble played part of it as an illustration.

Some of the composers present thought that all composers always experienced the three dualism, consciously or not, although there were differences in form and content.

In the absence of the principle of a single grammar, in that Muller-Siemens, like Bartok, Messiaen, Ligeti, Xenakis and others, have their own musical language, what are the criteria to decide whether a work success or fails to attain a composer's ideals?

In Refuge an ideal is cast. A point must be found as a shelter (a refuge) to settle various problems arising from the intention to find a meeting point. In the search for it, such a point seems to come gradually closer but at the same time increasingly vague, finally effervescing into a wind that cannot be caught. This is not a failure of a work, but a work of an "admirable impossibility".

Muller-Siemens was actually not attracted to verbal explanations which often "disturb the perception". He quoted Ferruccio Busoni who at the beginning of this century wrote a very interesting book, Broad Outlines of New Music Esthetics, but what was its relation or relevance with Busoni's own music?

In response to that statement he was asked about Olivier Messiaen's explanations in his book My Musical Language.

Muller-Siemens said that Messiaen spoke of his musical technique in a very concrete way. He did not resort to appeals and slogans.

It was very absorbing to talk to a composer with high integrity. A pity there was no time to speak of the difficulties for musicians to play contemporary music and of the trends in the acceptance of contemporary music in Germany and Indonesia.

The strongest impression of Muller-Siemens was his ability to fight quietly against spiritual sleepiness.

It is certainly not what Arthur Koestler means in The Sleepwalkers.

The writer is chairman of the Indonesian Composers' Association.