Good Prospects for the Jakarta Symphony Orchestra
By Gus Kairupan [10 pts ML]
JAKARTA (JP): Listeners heard some good and some bad at the first concert for 1994 given by the Jakarta Symphony Orchestra (JSO), led by Yudianto Hinupurwadi, at the Patra Jasa building, South Jakarta, on Wednesday.
The event was held to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the Bakrie Group. The Group's chief, Aburizal Bakrie, is an active supporter of good music performances in Jakarta -- the Jakarta Symphony Orchestra and the Twilite Orchestra to be exact.
But to get back to the good and bad of JSO's performance. The "bad" should not be taken too literally, because the "good" provides the needed balance and points to the more-than-ample opportunity for corrective measures.
Compared to their wonderful performance of Albinoni's concerto for two oboes and strings, JSO had shortcomings in their rendering of Smetana's Die Moldau. And their engaging overture of Poet and Peasant was certainly better than Borodin's Polovtsian Dances.
However, Die Moldau and Polovtsian Dances are very difficult to master.
They are descriptive music, or compositions intended to suggest a sequence of images or incidents, also known as program music.
This genre came to full flower in the 19th century through the works of Berlioz, Liszt, Schumann (his piano cycles), Richard Strauss (no relation to Johann Sr. and Jr.), Mussorgsky, Mahler and a host of others.
The Jakarta Symphony Orchestra is by no means the only orchestra that doesn't do well with program music.
Die Moldau is one of six symphonic poems, written over a number of years, which Smetana united in one gigantic work called My Fatherland.
The music describes the birth of a river, the Moldau, from two small streams (represented by two flutes) that become one. The piece follows the river's course through the Bohemian countryside, past a hunting scene, a wedding party with folks dancing the polka, through a moonlit landscape, furious rapids, and finally, as it passes the Vysehrad castle -- the subject of the first symphonic poem, which echoes against the Moldau's melody.
These six different scenes require the deft handling of dynamics, tempi and coloring to make the work come to life.
In the opening scene, the effect should be of quiet from a distance, or, in musically correct terms, pianissimo come da lontano.
It should creep on you slowly, not jump on you as it did at JSO concert.
As for Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, they contain three different themes, depicting dances for girls, men and boys.
Originally intended as a ballet insertion with chorus for the opera Prince Igor, the work is better known as a concert piece.
Here, too, dynamics, tempi and coloring must be varied accordingly to effectively characterize the different themes.
As for the other dance, Strauss's Emperor Waltz, is party music for -- as the title implies -- emperors, kings, and their ilk to dance to.
The piece actually contains two (social) dance rhythms, an unhurried polka (or maybe a gavotte) in the introduction and the waltz proper.
How does one learn a dance? By doing it, of course. Please note that I'm not entirely unserious when I say this -- the conductor and orchestra members should study (if not to actually do) the waltz, polka, polonaise, etc. before playing these dance compositions.
Discipline
During the performance, Brahms's Hungarian Dances was replaced with the Javanese children's song, Ilir-ilir arranged for orchestra by bassoonist Siswanto.
With a rather extensive role for the brass instruments, the piece was quite heavy and suffered from somewhat weak links between sections, making the transitions awkward.
Of course JSO is still in the development stage. Dr. Fuad Hasan, who heads the Yayasan Adiswara, the umbrella foundation of JSO, believes the group needs more discipline.
The foundation, he said, is also "exploring exchange programs with Japan, enabling our musicians and the conductor to train there."
Such a program would offer good prospects for the JSO to become a viable symphonic ensemble.
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