Indonesia guest of honor at Paris' Festival of Music

By Kunang Helmi Picard

PARIS (JP): It has become a "nouvelle tradition" here that the summer's solstice be celebrated by the Festival of Music. Despite this year's reluctance to actually produce summer temperatures and blue skies, 1995 is the 14th year in which the capital has swung to lilting melodies, or pounding rhythms, spanning the 20 arrondissements of the city and leaving daily woes far behind.

During the festival, it is impossible to travel by car as roads are transformed into impromptu concert halls. Meanwhile, all existing concert halls, auditoriums, cafes and restaurants are filled by various, and widely varying music groups. The selection ranges from rap and ethnic music from all over the world to French provincial and traditional chants, and from formal to frankly informal. The choice is overwhelming. Obviously nobody can enjoy all of the musical temptations, but at least everybody can find something to their taste. They can even participate actively and make music themselves.

The festival's logistics are centralized in the vast, modern spaces of the Cite de la Musique (National Music Academy) where this year's guest of honor is Indonesia with its five-day long celebration "Java-Paris-Bali". Opened on the same day as the festival of music, the celebration commenced with the launching of Catherine Basset's new partial introduction to the immense world of Indonesian music, Musiques de Bali a Java et la Fete attended by Indonesian ambassador Wiryono and his wife, together with the Indonesian community.

The book is published in the series Musiques du Monde, a co- edition of the Cite de la Musique and the publishers Actes-Sud. Basset takes the reader on a musical journey through the gamelan music of Bali, Java and Sunda, which has so intrigued western composers and musicologists such as Claude Debussy and Georges Asperghis. The book is accompanied by a compact disk of a choice of gamelan music. Basset remarked: "I actually went to Indonesia to follow some Indian musicians from India to Bali but then I stayed six years because I love the music, and not only of Bali, also of Java and Sunda. It is as simple as that!"

Later visitors listened to the Cite de la Musique's gamelan orchestra practicing in the hall under the expert supervision of Isabelle Carre. The students of all three levels obviously had fun singing the traditional sindenan and gerongan music and playing the gamelan to the great satisfaction of those present.

Then, after enjoying a wide range of Indonesian snacks, music fans stormed the free places in the huge auditorium to witness the rehearsal of the performance scheduled for the end of June. Dancers of Puri Taman Saba and gamelan musicians of the famed gong kebyar of Pinda in Bali, performed Liar Samas, Jobog, Tjak Solo, Barong, Semarandana and Topeng under the guidance of dancer and choreographer I Gusti Ngurah Serama and his 80-year-old father.

Noted contemporary composer Georges Asperghis stayed in Bali four times between 1985 and 1995 essentially studying the musical tradition of Saba and incorporating it in his works. Coming from the world of theater music, Asperghis inevitably stumbled upon the percussion of Bali together with three percussionists of the Trio Le Cercle and three productions ensued in Bali, in Avignon and in Marseille. Inspired by the role of demons in Bali, he sought to relate it to the story of Faust searching for eternal life and concluding a pact with the devil for eternal youth, thus Faust and Rangda was born a few years ago. In this special version commissioned by the Cite de la Musique, the Balinese dancers performed alone without French actors as in the original version in Avignon and Marseille seven years ago. The text was written by Christophe Husman and the music score by George Asperghis.

Briefly the synopsis of this joint East-West production is that God and Satan make a bet about Faust. Mephisto is sure that he is damned and God is certain that Faust's soul will be saved. Faust, in his old age realizes that he has not learned anything, that he has not helped humanity and that he is sure to die before accomplishing anything. It is then that the spirit of Earth appears in the form of a young Balinese female dancer who revives his enthusiasm for life. The Barong then enters and Mephisto leaps out of his huge belly and tempts Faust. Rangda, the goddess of evil makes her appearance and concludes a pact with Faust, his youth for the price of his soul. Faust transformed into a young Balinese man now appears on the scene and discovers the young girl. Faust continues to enjoy life even when Mephisto tells him that his time is up. The Barong and Rangda fight over Faust. God returns and saves Faust, the devil Mephisto has lost.

Questioned by noted French musicologist Francois Picard about how he relates to Balinese music, Georges Asperhis answered: "Since 1987 I had not really listened to Balinese music because I had really 'swallowed' it excessively so that I took a rest and now I listen to it differently. Now I have sufficient distance, it has become as familiar as a concerto by Mozart and I can tell what the Balinese will play next. Even though their music is not written, it seems that it is so because it is so fixed in its ways, hardly any improvisation occurs as in contemporary occidental music. They have such powers of musical memory that they can even find their way back into my music and enter immediately into its spirit."

The sight of the three French percussionists in their formal black and white tail-coats playing a huge battery of extraordinary instruments amid the gamelan orchestra in their red and gold traditional garb was indeed amazing. The experimental music seemed to predominate the danced theater and captured the audience's full attention.

The interest shown in the five-day celebration of Indonesia by the French public is reflected in the increasing knowledge about specific sectors of Indonesian culture sparked by such joint cultural enterprises as Faust and Rangda. The performance of Faust and Rangda was followed by two nights of Balinese wayang kulit staging Sutasoma at the Sacred Mountain and the final concert given by the students of the gamelan classes under Isabelle Carre at the center marking another chapter in the 50 Years Celebration of Indonesian Independence in France.

Meanwhile, the exhibition Gold of the Archipelago at the Musee Guimet is still drawing crowds of interested Parisians and will continue until the end of July.