The Classical Music Book

273

See also: Parade 256–257 ■ Quartet for the End of Time 282–283 ■

4 ́33 ̋ 302–305 ■ November Steps 314–315

G

amelan is an orchestra

that plays the traditional

music of the Indonesian

islands of Java and Bali. It is noted

for its wide use of percussion, such

as drums, gongs, and chimes. The

music was first exposed to a wide

Western audience at the 1889 Paris

Exposition, where a gamelan from

Java inspired composers such as

Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Elusive sounds

The freedom and constant variation

of gamelan music made it difficult

to capture. Therefore, in 1928, the

German Odeon and Beka record

companies sent agents to Bali to

make gamelan recordings. A year

later, Colin McPhee, a Canadian-

born composer and follower of

“absolute music” (music that exists

for its own sake), heard one of the

recordings. He was so mesmerized,

he set off for Bali and spent much

of the 1930s there studying the

island’s music.

McPhee’s three-movement

symphonic work Tabu-Tabuhan

was first performed in 1936. In

Balinese, tabu-tabuhan refers to

the rhythms and sounds of the

percussive gamelan instruments,

which McPhee sought to recreate

using a Western orchestra. In 1941,

McPhee and the young Benjamin

Britten made a recording of some

gamelan transcriptions for two

pianos. Britten would continue to

draw inspiration from Balinese

music, along with other composers,

including Olivier Messiaen, John

Cage, and Philip Glass. ■

MODERN 1900 –1950

BALINESE MUSIC RETAINED

A RHYTHMIC VITALITY BOTH

PRIMITIVE AND JOYOUS

TABUH-TABUHAN ( 1936 ), COLIN MCPHEE

Gamelan musicians perform in Bali.

The pitch of gamelan music varies

between instruments, with most

orchestras using a five-tone scale rather

than the seven tones of Western music.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Gamelan influences

BEFORE

1882 French composer

Louis-Albert Bourgault-

Ducoudray writes Rapsodie

cambodgienne, which includes

gamelan instruments.

1890 Erik Satie’s piano pieces

Trois Gnossiennes echo the

Javanese gamelan music he

heard at the Paris Exposition

the previous year.

AFTER

1945 John Cage’s Daughters

of the Lonesome Isle is one of

many gamelan-inspired pieces

written for “prepared piano”—

a piano in which the sound is

modified by placing objects

on or between the strings.

1951 American composer

Lou Harrison writes Suite

for Violin, Piano, and Small

Orchestra, which includes

movements that reproduce

the sounds of a gamelan.

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