Gamelan of Central Java I: Classical Gendings - CD Home Page | Newest Releases More music from Indonesia

Search for music Need Help?

Gamelan of Central Java I: Classical Gendings (Dunya/Felmay)
$17.99

Program
1. Gending Anglirmendung 8.23
2. Gending Tunggul Kawung 10.07
3. Gending Danaraja 31.28

Musicians
Nyi. Cendaniraras - voice
Faculty Members of the music conservatory Sekolah Tinngi Seni Indonesia, Surakarta

See other recordings in this series: Gamelan of Central Java

From the record label:
Classical Gendings is the first in a series of CDs which feature the finest expression of the traditional music of Java (Indonesia), a musical culture whose rich and complex history dates back more than a thousand years and which first began to fascinate Western ears at the end of the 19th century. During the 1889 Paris Universal Exhibition Debussy was profoundly struck by the variety of polyphonies produced by a gamelan orchestra who were performing in the Indonesian pavilion, leading him to write that "Javanese music demonstrates a use of counterpoint beside which that of Palestrina seems mere child's play.

The three pieces featured on this album form part of the repertoire of the central region of the island, in particular that of the Surakarta (also known as the Solo) court. This music is quite different from that played in the court of Yogyakarta and even more so from the style typical of the Western Sundanese region. Competition between these styles has always been fierce, yielding a wide variety of sounds. In general musicologists, as well as stressing the difference in the type of instruments used, have tended to define the music of Yogyakarta as harsher and noisier sounding while that of Surakarta, considered more refined, favours softer atmospheres.

The originality of the gamelan orchestra is a fundamental characteristic of the Javanese tradition: these ensembles may comprise up to 40 instruments, among which bronze percussion (subdivided into three families: gongs, either hung from a frame or placed horizontally, the delicate sounding gender and the saron, marimba-type instruments which are struck with wooden hammers); the rebab (a type of vielle); the suling (a bamboo flute) and the kendhang, the drum whose job it is to conduct the orchestra, indicating variations in dynamics and tempo. Equally important as you can hear on Classical Gendings, is the role of the solo female vocalist (pesindhen).

The gamelan music of the central region of Java uses two basic scales: the first of these, comprising five notes is called slendro while the other of seven notes is called pelog. Each piece is based around one or the other of these two scales which means that in order to perform the whole repertory the gamelan orchestra must have two sets of instruments at its disposal, one tuned to slendro the other to the pelog.

Listeners to Classical Gendings are sure to be enchanted by the circularity of the sounds produced by the gamelan orchestra as well as by their timbral qualities and the polyphonic patterns they create. Even those who at first have difficulty in attuning themselves to the music will soon marvel at having discovered such a rich and fertile musical world.