Proto Minimalism
(UCLA Gamelan Room, photo from Ostimusic.com)
Gamelan is one of those musical forms that had an incredible impact on music worldwide. For the record, it is not a single instrument, but an actual orchestra of metallic percussion instruments that combine in various scales to create its signature hypnotic texture. It sounds like this:
Notice how shimmering and impressionistic it is. So yes, it was a huge influence on Debussy (who heard it in Paris in 1889). Notice how repetitive and pulsed it is rhythmically. So yes, it was a huge influence on the minimalists, in particular Steve Reich who studied it extensively. Basically, it emerged as composers were looking outside the West for musical inspiration, and particularly in Asia.
But the most influential Western figure in gamelan is Colin McPhee. The man was a gifted composer and a jazz critic as well. He spent the 1930s largely in Bali, where he learned and catalogued gamelan music. When he got back, he not only had a new compositional style but he also brought the gamelan itself. He joined the ethnomusicology faculty at UCLA (still one of the best places in the world for that field) and helped bring one of the first gamelan to America. In fact, you can still see it today in what is dubbed the Gamelan Room.
The following is recording of McPhee himself at the piano with composer Benjamin Britten performing a transcription of a gamelan piece called Tabu Telu.
I blogged this earlier, but it merits repeating…Lou Harrison was a friend of Colin McPhee and did much to take the gamelan to another level compositionally. He incorporated the Balinese orchestra into many musical works, most of the time accompanying Western instrumental soloists.
Threnody for Carlos Chavez (mp3) - Lou Harrison Buy
What makes this music great is the amazing richness of overtones you get in the striking of the metal. They resonate in a distinctly pleasing, almost ancient way. And with all the metallic objects around us in this society, it is a cool experience to recontextualize that as expressive music.
January 18th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Thank you for these (:
January 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 am
Are you familiar with Legong: Dance of the Virgins?
It is a 1935 silent film for which a new score was written for Gamelan and western orchestra. The new music was a collaboration between Richard Marriott and I Made Subandi, and was performed by Gamelan Sekar Jaya and the Club Foot Orchestra.
Movie: http://www.milestonefilms.com/movie.php/legong/
Gamelan Sekar Jaya: http://www.gsj.org/gsj/index.cfm
Here’s an essay about the production which was commissioned for the DVD: http://www.milestonefilms.com/movie.php/legong/ Discussion of the score begins on page 6.
I was fortunate to have been at the last performance, in Berkeley. It was an amazing evening.
Howard, I think it would have been right up your alley.