Nusantara Symphony Orchestra stays true to form

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): The above headline may create the impression that the Nusantara Symphony Orchestra (NSO) has existed for some time and that it has established a form anyone would recognize.

It is not the case, and its appearance on Oct. 22 and Oct. 23 could be called a debut. However, Nusantara Symphony Orchestra is the new name for what used to be the Nusantara Chamber Orchestra (NCO), so the "form" label actually refers to that of the NCO, whose last performance took place at the end of last year.

I did not attend that final performance and the three that preceded it. The reason? Well, its form had been known for years so there was not really anything worthwhile to review or comment about.

To say that I went to the concert on Oct. 22 at the Mulia Hotel in an optimistic mood would not be correct, but I did harbor expectations for something that would be, at the very least, satisfying in certain respects.

After all, NSO would be directed by Lim Yau from Singapore who has a string of accolades to his name and has earned his spurs as musical director and orchestra conductor.

As NCO had always performed marginally better under the direction of a foreign conductor, my unoptimistic mood was not altogether unjustified.

All of the works performed that evening are extremely well- known: Brahms' Tragic Overture, Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto, Prelude a l'Apres Midi d'un Faune by Debussy, and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances.

They are all standard items in concerts everywhere around the world, as well as collections of recorded music. There are people who only have to hear 10 seconds of any of them to know immediately what work it is.

The consequences are that anything going off in the performance of any of the works is noticeable right away, and many were the times of things going off that evening.

Proper tuning of instruments still seems to be out of reach of the orchestra members. This is one of the things that had always been the bte noire even during NCO days when, as now, the concert master spent an interminable time to have musicians tune their instruments.

Pipin Garibaldi used up, I would say, three minutes of making the players bow, blow, pluck and beat the A note without getting the necessary results, as was quite evident the moment the orchestra sounded the opening of the Tragic Overture.

Shouldn't players appear on stage with their instruments already tuned?

I have often written that when it comes to music composed after the classical or very early romantic periods, the NCO is at a loss. As far as the debut of NSO is concerned, I cannot revise my opinion.

The same defects are still there, especially unity of sound and coloring. Ten years have not sufficed to instill among players the need to listen to each other and make 10 violins sound as one. Ten years were not enough for them to be aware of the need for coloring.

Take, for instance, the overture. It was written by a man who is reputed to have said that his joy was a tomb, or something along those lines. So where were the colors of tragedy, the hues you would associate with tombs?

The title, Tragic Overture, points to programmatic music, but there was nothing in the performance and manner of playing that revealed the musicians' understanding of Brahms' title.

Then there was the rendition of that other programmatic music, also an extravagantly famous composition, Debussy's Prelude. Based on a poem by French symbolist Stiphane Mallarmi, it is probably the ultimate musical work on sensuality. It is a description of a mood, an atmosphere that is languid, almost lazy, but expectant nevertheless, and leading, inevitably, to the apex of what you would expect from a faun and a bunch of nymphs on the loose.

The atmosphere is set by a long, single line from the flute flowing out of seemingly nowhere; a line that does not conjure up any other image but the heaving bosom of an aroused nymph, a line that must not be interrupted even for taking a breath.

A flautist who is incapable of delivering that line in one breath must not be given the job to do it.

As for Rachmaninoff's concerto, the third one in d-minor, there was no coordination whatever between piano and orchestra, and the onus for this lies squarely on Yazeed Djamin.

The introduction of the theme -- played at a rather slower tempo than usual -- is later picked by the orchestra and that is when I was startled when, without any build-up whatever, the pianist increased the tempo almost twofold, so much so that it threw the orchestra and conductor into confusion.

Yazeed was playing by himself, and thus created the impression that the orchestra was something incidental, something optional that can be dismissed. If that were the case, why would Rachmaninoff bother writing an orchestra part?

Not once did Yazeed establish eye contact with the conductor, and his interpretation of Rachmaninoff's most difficult piano concerto was sloppy. The work (like so many of this Russian master) is rampant with big, expansive and powerful chords.

But though chords are big in range as well as volume, they are nevertheless lucid, with all elements (note, tone, harmony) as clear as so many bells. The chords in Yazeed's rendition were often muddled with sounds of one still audible in the next, a matter that points to improper pedaling.

Interpretation, as everyone knows, rests with the conductor. True enough, provided the conductor has the right material to work with. Lim Yau arrived on Tuesday, rehearsed twice with the orchestra and performed on Thursday.

This would be enough if you are performing with, say, the Shanghai or Seoul symphonies. But in the case of NSO, which is not -- repeat not -- a professional orchestra, he would have needed half a year of teaching, tutoring, drilling, coaching, whatever, even before getting together and thinking about rehearsing (never mind performing!) a program.