NCO featuring a top-notch pianist

NCO featuring a top-notch pianist

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): Keep an eye on Stephen K. Tamadji. If his performance last Tuesday with the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra is any indication, this young pianist will reach considerable heights. Prokofiev's piano concertos, though a standard by now, belong to the most difficult in piano literature, the more so because of the precision work required between piano and orchestra, precision work in which split seconds make all the difference.

In this respect it is fortunate that during the performance of Prokofiev's 3rd Concerto (C-Major) Stephen had the upper hand and maintained his hold throughout. It was Stephen who led the orchestra, from the moment the short Andante that opened the first movement led into the Allegro and in a way masked the messy inequalities among the instruments. What we need now is a full solo recital by this young man. Unless my eardrums deceive me, it will be even more rewarding than Stephen's performance with the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra.

The piano concerto was the highlight of the concert at the orchestra's home, the Jakarta Hilton International's Golden Ballroom. Besides the concerto, the program also featured Ravel's Minuet Antique and Debussy's Prelude a lappers-mid dun fauna, both of which are standard concert pieces written by the two giants of the impressionist period. Impressionism was extensively covered in the program notes, which dwelled at considerable length on the differences between Debussy and Ravel but forgot to mention one fundamental aspect, which is that Debussy's composition is programmatic, while Ravel's isn't. It is quite important because when it comes to programmatic music the orchestra, as I have mentioned so often before, is at a total loss. Yazeed Djamin may, for instance, be thoroughly knowledgeable about Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream, but has not extended the knowledge and the implications of it to the members. The same applies to the art of painting, or at least the emotions it stirred in Mussorgsky's soul.

Are such aspects of secondary importance? I don't think so and in the case of Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun, they definitely aren't. The faun, a mythical creature, half-goat, half-man, that embodies everything related to sexual pleasure, or, at least, the promise or anticipation of it. And it is all there in Debussy's music: the lazy, languid descending and ascending chromatics for flutes over a stretch of just a major third; the heavy unequal breathing in the strings supporting the mating call of the horns, the dynamics of the entire orchestra working up to an unmistakable climax.

That, no doubt, is what was going on in Debussy's mind, but not in the mind of both the conductor and players last Tuesday. For sheer voluptuousness this Prelude has no equal in the entire repertoire of classical music, and though the piece was hissed at and roundly booed during its debut, it later became an unqualified success, especially when it was turned into a ballet featuring Nijinsky. So far removed was the orchestra's rendition from any hint of sensuality that you'd wonder whether any of the performers have ever experienced such a sensation. My guess is that they haven't, but even that is forgivable. What is worse is the lack of musical integrity or respect for someone else's compositions.

You see, the whole piece was botched from the very beginning. I did catch some of the message at the opening of the concert which said that the harpist, Maya Hasan, due to illness, could not appear. But having only half-listened to it, I can't remember what was said further. Anyway, what transpired was that the harp part was played on the piano. Another serious mistake. The harp, though it does not introduce the main theme, plays such an integral part as the scene setter in this all too-well-known composition that replacement by the piano cannot be condoned. Perhaps the thinking behind it was that the sound of a piano comes close to that of a harp. This is a matter of opinion, of course, but to me, and, I dare say, to others in the audience, they do not sound the same if only because the strings on one are plucked, while on the other they are struck. Or perhaps another line of thought was that the Prelude is not well-known in Indonesia. But then, it is even more of a reason why it should have been rendered in its proper form.

All this, in a way, does not reflect very well on Stephen Tamadji who should have politely declined from doing Debussy's foremost composition a disservice. Instead of the Prelude, the orchestra should have played another composition -- after all these years the orchestra would surely have a sizable repertoire on which to call in an emergency. Or Ms. Hasan, who is not the only harpist in town, should have been replaced.