To the classical beat of inferior cassettes

JAKARTA (JP): Music hath charms to soothe the savage ... is it breast or beast? Well, never mind. I am here to tell you that it also arouses the beast, or savageness in breasts -- or whatever. Actually, I am not being fair to that noble art, because it is not music that's at fault here but commercial activities related to it, i.e, the sales of classical music cassettes.

I like Mozart, Schumann and Schuman, Weber and Webern, etc. What I don't like is them dressed up as somebody else. You still don't get what I'm driving at, do you? If I appear incoherent it's because the beast in me has been aroused by companies like Deutsche Gramophon Gesellschaft, Philips, Sony and Decca, or whoever, because of the inferior cassettes they sell here. If I buy a cassette that, according to the label, contains Beethoven's 3rd Symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler, I, on the strength of having shelled out Rp 11,000, am fully entitled to hear Beethoven's 3rd Symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler. What I do not want to hear is a concerto for five empty beer bottles and the Wagga Wagga didgeridoo ensemble conducted by Sheila Splott. What I mean is that what you read on the label may not have anything to do with the contents.

We have to go a bit into the dark days of intellectual piracy when condemnation rained down on Indonesia from the above mentioned companies, and resident bule from every corner of Jakarta went to music shops in trucks and carted away loads of cassettes which in their own countries were worth their weight in gold. The complaints about Indonesia tearing intellectual (music) rights apart took effect about a year or 10 ago, and what happened then -- if memory serves me right -- is that some kind of deal was struck whereby cassettes featuring recordings by, say, DGG were going to be produced here, but would be "for sale in Indonesia only" -- hanya untuk dijual di Indonesia. The price of the cassettes increased but was still considerably lower than in the recording's country of origin.

I know that I'm being unfair to DGG, Philips, etc., because I am sure that copying the music from a master recording did not take place in Germany (DGG), Holland (Philips), England (Decca), or Japan (Sony -- if it still owns those American music companies, that is). My trust in their knowledge and thoroughness in doing a job is unshakable. It wasn't in those countries where buttons were pressed to make masses and masses of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony at one go.

What follows now is a bit of conjecture, but I don't think it's that far from the truth. DGG, Philips and others appointed somebody or some company here to do the copying from a master tape, label the cassettes, pack them and toss them on the market. Nothing wrong with that -- chimpanzees and gorillas have been taught successfully how to press buttons. But little did they know that they were dealing with people and companies whose awareness of classical music equals that of a drunken idiot of five. And it's not just mistakes in packing. Sometimes the button presser starts a piece on the same tape which was used to record another one. Or he/she suddenly realizes that the wrong work is being recorded and hastily makes corrections. The result: a bit of one piece which stops abruptly, followed by the right (according to the label) composition. Some faulty cassettes appear at the end of these scribblings.

I bought the things at a shop on Jl. Haji Agus Salim, practically the only one in this town that has a wide range (strictly in the quantitative sense) of classical music recordings. My big mistake was losing the receipts, but the shop assistant said a wrong purchase could always be exchanged for the right cassette (same performers, same brand, same everything). But here's the snag: the tax seal cannot be broken, which means you cannot check the new one. Now, with packers packing hundreds of cassettes, all taken from one master tape, handled by the idiot who made the mistake, how do you know you're getting a faultless cassette?

Answer: you don't because you can't check them at the shop. Here is a list of three cassettes in question: Philips 420 862-4 (Beethoven violin sonatas). Content: guitar music; DGG 427 497-4 (Brahms 4th Symphony). Content starts with a strain from Handel's Messiah before beginning the symphony; Sony SBT 46-546 (Chopin Polonaises, Alexander Brailowsky). Content: orchestral music (this cassette was bought in another music shop).

I have another one but can't find it. It's a recording of Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Anyway, when buying classical music cassettes in Jakarta, be careful and keep receipts -- not that it really helps. And here's a message for DGG, DECCA, etc.: music shops here sell inferior stuff on your behalf.

-- Jak Jaunt