This is more a report of a performance than a review, as I do not know enough about gamelan or Indonesian music to give an informed opinion. What drew me to this concert was the chance to hear a Javanese singer, Heni Savitri, as well as a more frequent Pacifica guest, Ki Midiyanto, who played drums from the middle of the group and sang also.
Gamelan Pacifica, which performed a concert of Javanese gamelan music Sunday night at PONCHO Concert Hall, was formed nearly 40 years ago at Cornish College of the Arts and is based there, a well-regarded ensemble active in the US and Canada. It performs music from Indonesia with instruments which developed there and while other versions of these instruments exist in other countries—such as flute, lute, drums, xylophones—these are unique in design and timbre.
The instruments are beautiful to look at, the xylophones and metallophones (which look like large, lidded cooking pots) with elaborate carved casings surrounding them; the big gongs, several together, hanging from sturdy, carved golden stands. The backs of the small lutes, or rebabs, with long necks and bows with loose hair controlled by the fingers of the bowing hand, are covered with cloth. Only the straight bamboo flutes are simple, looking like what they are—a length of bamboo with a few holes. The performers sit on the floor or, at this performance, some on cushions.
Sixteen other players took on all the other instruments, moving around as needed between works, sitting in a square of gong-pots or a square of xylophones, or individually further back on stage with the drums in the midst and the rebab player in front next to Savitri kneeling, with three men behind her as back up singers.
The music has a regular four-square rhythm with one of the lower instruments keeping the beat and others changing out in an infinite variety of tones. There is no harmonic modality as we would recognize it in the Western tradition; it is harmonious on its own terms, never extremely high, never really low, and with equally temperate changes in volume, often beautiful, sometimes discordant to us.
In this performance, tempos fluctuated at times with everyone speeding up a little or slowing down together with no apparent sign as to when this was to happen. The gentle high-toned flute could only rarely be heard. The rebab, also soft-sounding, came in two sizes or tunings and began each piece with what sounded like aimless noodling, but clearly was intentional and shortly joined by first one then another instrument. Although a beautiful shape, it had a rather rusty sound quality with little resonance perhaps due to the cloth backing the body.
Savitri‘s vocal quality is clearly the product of careful training, specific to this music. Seemingly effortless, the sound is very pure, extremely nasal with a light vibrato some of the time, not loud but carrying, arresting to listen to. She used little body or facial movement while singing, almost deadpan, most of the time with her melodic line higher than the other instruments, though in her lower registers they tended to make her less audible. At times, the three men behind her joined in often in unison an octave lower, but without the nasal quality which distinguished her. Even when her countryman, Midiyanto, sang, he also did not use that nasal sound.
Ki Midiyanto (Photo: Gamelan Pacifica)
Midiyanto, a renowned musician in Java, has had a long relationship with Gamelan Pacifica and this time, Jarrad Powell, the group’s director asked if he might compose a work specially for them and to his delight, Midiyanto did. The work, titled “Sruti for Pacifica,” had Midiyanto and the three other men singing together in unison to the sound of drums and the flute above the other instruments.
The whole program had a very soothing effect. This is music one could listen to for hours, though surely at other times it can have the opposite influence. Gamelan Pacifica gives regular concerts here and it is worth watching to see when another one is coming up.
