https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFFs81tAQhw
Ketawang Puspawarna is a famous gamelan composition from central Java, Indonesia, attributed to Prince Mangkunegara IV (reigned 1853-1881) of the Mangkunegaran Palace in Surakarta (known colloquially as Solo). Today the piece is played as the prince enters the palace, and at the end of an all-night Wayang, or shadow puppet performance.
"Ketawang" refers to the gong-structure format of the piece, and denotes it as having 16 beats between strikes of the gong ageng (meaning "largest gong"). The buka, or introduction, of the piece is played by the rebab, a two-stringed bowed lute with ancestry from the middle east. The kendhang (drum), who acts as the rhythmic leader of the ensemble, enters soon after and leads the ensemble to slow the tempo down. The pesindhen, the female singer, enters later on, accompanied by the gerong, the male chorus; they sing during the ngelik (chorus section) and add stylistic cries to mark the ensemble's position within the gong structure.
Within the context of the Javanese court, gamelan music is played in a Pendhapa, a large, open-walled structure similar to a pavilion (seen below). If you listen closely to the recording, you can hear birds nesting in the rafters of the pendhapa calling - in response to, or in spite of - the gamelan music below.
Gamelan music experienced a period of flourishing performing arts practice during the 18th - 20th centuries, as four rival courts in Surakarta and Yogyakarta (both in central Java) competed to refine the art forms of music, poetry, and dance. Today, central Java is considered by the Javanese to be a major hub for performing arts, even with the diminished feudal power of the courts. Indonesian performing arts - and their many regional and island variations - are a source of national pride for Indonesians, and today, government-sponsored events such as the Bali Arts Festival and Art Jog work to maintain popular interest in traditional and contemporary Indonesian arts.
Comments
It sounds like an amazing performance! I know you have been studying the gamelan for some time; is there any chance you might take part in this one day?
I didn't get a chance to play in a Pendhapa, but I did get to see a shadow puppet performance at the sultan's palace in Yogyakarta. I have learned the chorus part for Puspawarna while Danis Otnayigus was a visiting artist-scholar last semester, and he explained the meaning of the lyrics for most of the pieces we worked on. This piece is about kinds of flowers and how they compare to the Prince's wives and concubines. Natural imagery is a common motif in Javanese poetry, so certain words for flora and fauna are recurrent from piece to piece. One thing that all Javanese will be able to understand is the pesindhen's recurring call of "Ya, mas", meaning "Yes, brother". I'd like to do more research about the regional variations, as most of my study has been in the Mangkunegaran style from Solo. This is also the style most represented in recorded form, as Lokananta records (the first Indonesian recording company) is also located in Solo.
Wow. This is so cool, Zach! You musical interests and influences will give you such deeper insight into Indonesian culture. This is perhaps coincidental, but the structure of the Pendhapa itself looks a bit like a gamelan. When you were in Java, did you have the opportunity to play in one? Also, in the YouTube link you provided, are the chants comprehensible to you? They may be paralinguistic, but I was thinking they might be akin to opera where the melody and rhythm of the recited verses tends to supersede the communicative meaning of the message. I'm interested in learning more about the poetic tradition associated with gamelan music. While this level of detail probably requires additional investigation, are there dialectal variations in the literary works of the four rival courts? Did one rise to prominence as a central standard or canon?