Conscious Choice: Meshing Musical Forms

December 2002

Meshing Musical Forms

What in the World is Gamelan?

by Garaud MacTaggart

According to Stephen Burns, he and a group of like-minded musicians began the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in 1998 "as an experiment in bringing classical music together with contemporary culture." The ensemble’s upcoming concert is another exercise in "the bridging of communities and bringing world music and classical music together," an attempt at "recognizing the richness of both traditions."

Burns has put together an intriguing musical program for December 16 that showcases the members of Fulcrum Point along with musicians from Friends of the Gamelan (F.R.O.G.) and the University of Chicago Gamelan Ensemble. Separately and together they will perform four compositions by Lou Harrison and a few traditional Javanese pieces, meshing the two seemingly disparate forms in pursuit of what promises to be a most impressive concert.

Eighty-five year old Lou Harrison has been in the forefront of musical exploration for decades. His numerous awards include two Guggenheim Fellowships, a pair of Rockefeller grants, and a Fulbright fellowship. Most recently, he was deemed Composer of the Year for 2002 by the prestigious Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts.

In the mid 1930s he studied with Henry Cowell, a composer and pioneering ethnomusicologist whose concept of tone clusters (playing a number of neighboring piano keys at one time) is now an accepted part of modern piano composition. Cowell introduced Harrison to the music of the Orient through various recordings and, along with Colin McPhee’s experiments blending Indonesian gamelan music with Western instruments and Harry Partch’s innovative approach to building instruments, influenced Harrison’s own approach to developing his art.

After studying with Cowell and (in 1941) with Arnold Schoenberg, Harrison engaged in a number of important musical activities. Among these were his labors on the debut publication and performance of Charles Ives’ third symphony and his work with John Cage in the creation of groundbreaking percussion pieces. Harrison, through his trips to Korea, Japan, and Indonesia, also became increasingly involved with bridging the gap between Asian and Western cultures. This eventually led to him adopt the Buddhist religion and inspired his in-depth study of Javanese gamelan music.

Nice Flow, Powerful Conclusion

The gamelan — an orchestra primarily made up of drums, bronze kettles, various members of the marimba family, and gongs — provided the pointillistic sounds which have influenced composers from Claude Debussy to Igor Stravinsky and beyond. Listening to this music also had a profound effect on Harrison and has resulted in his creating a number of scores specifically written for the gamelan, both with and without traditional Western instruments.

Fulcrum Point’s concert includes two of Harrison’s pieces for both combinations. The "Double Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Gamelan" and "Bubaran Robert" for trumpet and gamelan play off the contrasting audio colors between two musical worlds. Fulcrum Point also plays seasonal music from a pair of the composer’s ballets ("Solstice" and "New Moon") while the gamelan, under the direction of Carolyn Johnson, will perform some short traditional selections.

When speaking with Conscious Choice, Johnson noted that various members of the gamelan had taken part in earlier performances of Harrison’s "Double Concerto" and even played with the Mirecourt Trio, the group which took part in the concert and recording premieres of that work. However, she also cautioned that there will be differences between the recording (available as Music & Arts 1073 from Music & Arts Programs of America) and their performance with Fulcrum Point. "...Every set of gamelan instruments is it’s own unique tuning." The results, Johnson warns, are "...not going to sound exactly the same as on the (recording) because that is a different tuning." She also notes that this variable tuning, an inherent feature of every gamelan orchestra, is probably the major reason "why some of Harrison’s pieces don’t get played all the time."

Burns considers that part of his job as organizer of the concert "is to structure the event so that it has a nice flow and reaches a powerful conclusion." In addition to spearheading the concert’s production, he will also be the trumpet soloist in Harrison’s short processional, "Bubaran Robert." Originally written specifically for the gamelan in 1976 and dedicated to Robert E. Brown, director of the American Society for Eastern Arts, "Bubaran Robert" was revised by the composer in 1981 for trumpet and Javanese gamelan. Johnson says that the Bubaran form takes it’s name from the Javanese phrase for dispersal and "tells the guests that the concert is over."

Garaud MacTaggart is a freelance writer and music critic based in Buffalo, N.Y. He currently writes for the Buffalo News and CDNOW.

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