Nusantara Symphony Orchestra stays true to form

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.