RI's female composers lead the pack

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): Perhaps the recent presentations of compositions by Trisutji Kamal and Marusya Nainggolan-Abdullah could also be described as a concert by Indonesia's only composers, which would probably raise the hackles of composers of the male gender. But then so little is heard of the latter, whose appearances are few and far between.

The focus of these scribblings is on composers who have gone through the rigors of acquiring a thorough grounding in the art of (music) composition, to be specific, western music. This is a field that has never been accorded proper attention (let alone support) from the government, the corporate world and media organizations. Appreciation among the public at large could be described as infinitesimal at best, and is confined mainly to those who buy tickets to such events. However, the best of Indonesian classical music forms suffer the same fate. When was the last time you attended a good, authoritative concert of Javanese gamelan music?

This deplorable condition has fortunately not stopped composers from composing as well as presenting their works. But with the absence of recognition, their efforts are very much one- man/one-woman affairs.

The subject here is, of course, classical music, not western pop/rock music for which there is no lack of attention from above mentioned quarters. So the Slamet Abdul Syukurs, Otto Sidhartas and Trisutji Kamals of the world are doing everything on their own.

Especially Trisutji Kamal, who would easily be the most prolific and most active of the lot, male or female, not only in Indonesia but also abroad. Over the past three years she and her ensemble have performed in Scandinavia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, besides presenting her works in Indonesia.

The concert on Friday, April 25 featured three of her latest works and three by Marusya Nainggolan-Abdullah, who should be more active as a composer. I suspect, though, that running the music department of the Jakarta Arts Institute (IKJ) leaves little time for producing.

Now there's another strange thing which I've observed for more than a decade regarding the custom of IKJ of putting artists in charge of administrative affairs. Does it influence their creative capacities? Your guess is as good as mine where that is concerned, but certainly Abdullah's oeuvres performed that evening hover between very impressive (Five Songs From Basho Haiku) to pedestrian, even elementary (Fantasy no. 3 For Ensemble & Movement).

The Fantasy involved, beside the piano, violin, cello and percussion, two dancers who began their routine on the two small front balconies near the stage. The work is obviously designed as an audio-visual piece -- that may be where the snags were, in that there wasn't much coordination or any other indication of a relationship between sound and movement.

True, the use of themes in music and dance (even all art forms) is more or less outmoded these days, but that, I dare say, makes it imperative that composer and choreographer work closely together, if only to discuss the concept of what constitutes a fantasy. Dance and music appeared as two elements doing their own thing, the music following a path of conventional tonality, the dance performing movements largely based on modernish forms.

Nothing wrong with that -- I've seen a marvelous Balanchine creation in which he used music by Bach. But there are an awful lot of other aspects that must be worked out meticulously. They are not directly connected with the music or movements, but are indispensable nevertheless in enhancing the oeuvre - the use of space, lighting, costumes, makeup, whatever.

If Marusya Abdullah's Fantasy suffered from weaknesses, the drawback of Trisutji Kamal's Reflections was that of the strength of the elements, i.e. the two pianos, percussion, additional vocals and poetry reading. I cannot think of any composer past or present who uses poetry reading and music as one entity, and feel that one has to give way to the other. There are enough examples of poetry and music together, but in those cases it is always the poem that has been set to music.

In the case of Reflections, I couldn't help wondering where the message lay; the music or the poem? Declamation emerged clearly only after a segment of solo percussion, but having only a vague idea of what preceded it, the impact was minimal. So, at least to me, poetry and music work best when the poem is set to music, either as a duo as in Schubert's songs, voice and ensemble like Vaughn-Williams' On Wenlock Edge, or even the works for voice and orchestra by Mahler.

Reflections and Fantasy were large scale ensemble works which combine different forms of the performing arts. The smaller numbers fared much better, and were in fact of considerably high merit, such as Kamal's Moods/Suasana Hati (for cello and Indonesian percussion), Suita Idul-Adha (duo piano and Indonesian percussion), and Abdullah's Five Songs From Basho Haiku (soprano, flute and clarinet).

The concert may have displayed some shortcomings, but it was also a demonstration of the best there is in the field of composition in Indonesia. Both Trisutji Kamal and Marusya Nainggolan-Abdullah are two of its most important exponents.