RI's female composers lead the pack

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.