NCO orchestra starts hopeful note with British pianist
By Gus Kairupan
JAKARTA (JP): Rachmaninoff. Together with Liszt, this Russian composer has produced the most fiendishly difficult works for the piano.
But pianistic fireworks do not music make. Singing does -- and when it comes to that Rachmaninoff belongs in the front rank of lyricists.
So to give him his proper due you need a pianist who is possessed of both physical power and a wondrous singing tone.
Someone like Antony Peebles, whose visit in Jakarta included a performance with the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra (NCO) of Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto in C-Minor, the best-known of the master's four compositions in that form.
An easy work it isn't, perhaps not so much for its pianistic fireworks, but the melodies it contains, melodic lines that instantly grip those who hear them.
Peebles is a master as regards giving them prominence, including secondary ones wrapped in outer lines. One doesn't often hear inner lines brought out with such clarity, especially within the dense structures of Romantic music.
It shows that polyphony is not the exclusive domain of the likes of J.S. Bach. Anyone present at Peebles' solo recital at the Widjojo Centre last Saturday knows what I mean.
His rendition of the Ballade in D, Op. 10 no. 2 by Brahms was one of the best I've ever heard.
Would that he had played more of this master whose compositions are so seldom featured in programs here.
The concert on Monday at the Jakarta Hilton's Golden Ballroom, the home of NCO, featured the world premiere of a composition entitled Prelude to Malin Kundang, a work based on a well-known legend from West Sumatra, and a composition by NCO's permanent conductor, Yazeed Djamin.
According to the program notes, a larger work is to follow in the form of a symphonic poem. Now here's one work of large proportions to look forward to.
What was presented on Monday was only a foretaste, so little can be said about the substance of the work, such as the parts of the story the composer focuses on.
The Malin Kundang tale shares some similarities with that of Peer Gynt by Norway's playwright Ibsen and has lots of material that contain possibilities for musical interpretation.
Incredible
The third work (actually performed first) was Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliet fantasy overture. NCO's playing of this work was the least satisfactory that evening.
Like the Rachmaninoff concerto, the work also contains an exceptionally beautiful and well-known melody, instantly recognized by lovers of classical music.
It seems almost incredible that the orchestra wasn't able to give these lovely lines their proper due. There are no technical knots to be unraveled because it is in truth an uncomplicated melody floating on a gentle figure in seconds.
What, then, does one want here? The answer is what music is all about: singing, recognizing what the message is based on, knowing and understanding the immortal story of the immortal bard about star-crossed lovers.
But quite apart from the weak wind instruments, which, as the main sections that carry the melodies in both Romeo & Juliet and the piano concerto, the NCO somehow seems to have problems with the kind of music that has a strong programmatic content.
One instance that springs to mind is Mendelssohn's overture to A Midsummer's Night's Dream (the bard again), which also fell quite short of expectations.
It wouldn't do the conductor and orchestra members any harm if they expanded their intellectual horizons a bit.
In fact, it is something of a necessity, seeing how so many composers derived inspiration from literature, painting and other art forms.
Wind section
Surely the time will arrive when a hearing must be presented of the works of, say, Hector Berlioz, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and others.
To get back to the weaknesses in the wind sections, I was told that an instructor from overseas is expected soon to do some upgrading work with the members.
This is a good thing, of course, and one hopes that afterwards the players will remain with NCO for a long time.
The reason I mention this is because the overall turnover of musicians seems to be rather large.
The constant appearance and disappearance of personnel can't be good for NCO's future, especially since this country is far from well-stocked with orchestra musicians.
Certainly the orchestra members may be in need of instruction in technique, but there is also the matter of musicianship which involves the development of the music-making individual -- the player as well as the conductor -- in a group situation.
Technical wizardry is only part of the answer.
All in all, NCO's concert, the first for 1994, was not entirely unsatisfactory.
There is at least one thing audiences can look forward to: the completion of the Malin Kundang symphonic poem. It will be one of the extremely few weighty works on a symphonic scale produced by an Indonesian composer.
Arrangements of folk songs are all very well and good, but that is what they are and will always remain: arrangements, not original works.
Unfortunately, there was one very unmusical irritation throughout the performance: the crackling noise of what I think was a loose wire in the sound system and, towards the end, the high-pitched beep of an over-amplified microphone.
The things should have been unplugged.