'Kreasi Baru': A mixture of two musics

'Kreasi Baru': A mixture of two musics

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): The combination of gamelan with a symphony
orchestra is not a new one. The first time I heard such a mixture
was towards the end of the 1950s when a visiting American
conductor, Wheeler Becket, composed and conducted a piece for
symphony orchestra and gamelan. "Experimental" is probably the
only way to describe that piece which, as far as I know, has not
to been performed again since that time. All I can remember of it
is that it was pleasant enough, with the gamelan ensemble
providing the bit of excitement (different colors, different
pitches, etc.) one might expect from a dash of exotica in the
midst of ordinariness.

The same applies to Kreasi Baru (New Creation), a work by
American composer Robert Macht, which featured in the program of
Nusantara Chamber Orchestra's (NCO's) concert on Tuesday. In
Becket's work, however, gamelan and orchestra played together for
quite long stretches at a time, whereas Macht keeps the two well
separated. There were very short instances in Kreasi Baru when
the twain met and it was then that I almost began to see some
validity in Kipling's dictum about East and West, at least in
musical terms. Those short instances, just before crossing from
gamelan to orchestra, sounded awful, perhaps because of the
different tonal dynamics between do-re-mi and pelog/slendro.
Perhaps Becket's work (though I remember little of it) was the
more effective in that his perception and sensitiveness towards
gamelan tones and how to shape western tonal systems in order to
fuse them successfully with the former, was more acute than
Macht's.

At any rate, Becket's composition has never been heard again,
at least not in Indonesia, and there's no guarantee that Macht's
New Creation will become an established number among works for
orchestra in this country. But maybe such is the fate of all
compositions that endeavor to mix two different musical
traditions and systems. I found Kreasi Baru rather disappointing.
Having studied gamelan, one would have expected Robert Macht to
have achieved a razor sharp sensitiveness to how gamelan sounds
can best be fused with western orchestral sounds. Maybe, indeed,
he has and (discovering that it is terribly difficult if not
impossible) that was why he kept the different musical traditions
apart, using only a short interlude of flute and harp (shades of
kecapi-suling) to lead from Javanese into western percussion,
followed later by the rest of the orchestra. The NCO was
conducted by American composer/pianist/conductor Louis Stewart,
who has visited Indonesia before as pianist, playing with the
orchestra.

Other works in the program were Vaughan-Williams' Prelude To
Farewell, Borodin's overture to Prince Igor and Beethoven's
Seventh Symphony. An ambitious program, but then, the NCO has
never been afraid of over-reaching itself. There were several
moments when the orchestra sounded quite agreeable, which
indicates that its members have surpassed their level of four
years ago. Technique, though very important, is probably the
least of the orchestra's problems. I've already gone over this
countless times in these pages; even so, at the risk of boring
The Jakarta Post's readers, I'll repeat what I've said before
regarding the NCO's grasp of music and what that entails.

When you see the name Vaughan-Williams, your first thought may
be something like this (provided you're familiar with Vaughan-
Williams): Ah! Here's one of Britain's (or Wales') composers
whose works are shot through with mysticism. And if the
composition has something to do with farewells, you'd expect
mystical elements to be even more prominent. Likewise with
whatever characteristics and colors mark Russian music. The
elements you would have expected in Tuesday's rendition were
largely missing, although (as I said before) there were moments
in which the orchestra sounded quite good. On the whole, its
members were reading but not articulating, not styling. As a
result, whatever there was in coloring did not differ from one
piece to the next, and this definitely won't do.

Another aspect which I have mentioned before is the turnover
of members. At the concert on Tuesday I again noticed the absence
of some members and the presence of quite a number of new faces.
I will have to be more careful about keeping programs in order to
see exactly what the turnover is like. But if this coming and
going is to be a permanent feature of the NCO, there won't be
much progress in all its efforts.