{"id":1347,"date":"2019-04-09T22:23:47","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T02:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2019-04-09T22:23:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T02:23:53","slug":"music-from-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2019\/04\/music-from-paradise.html","title":{"rendered":"Music from Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Claude Debussy wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut my poor friend! Do you remember the Javanese music, able to express every shade of meaning, even unmentionable shades which make our tonic and dominant seem like ghosts? . . . Their school consists of the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand other tiny noises . . . that force one to admit that our own music is not much more than a barbarous kind of noise more fit for a traveling circus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debussy heard a Javanese gamelan at the Paris Exposition of 1889 \u2013 an epiphany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another such encounter was Olivier Messiaen\u2019s first exposure to a Balinese gamelan \u2013 in Paris in 1931.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is remarkably little known that the non-Western genre that has most influenced Western composers is not African or Chinese or Indian \u2013 it\u2019s Indonesian. Or that this is actually a double influence: separated by a strait of water less than 400 miles side, Java and Bali fostered remarkably different gamelan genres — the first mellow, the second brazen and metallic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most recent \u201cPostClassical<\/a>\u201d podcast on WWFM explores these differences in the context of religious belief and Dutch colonial history, as expounded by the gamelan scholar Bill Alves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosted by the inimitable Bill McGlaughlin, our podcast also includes musical highlights from PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s three-hour \u201cCultural Fusion<\/strong>\u201d concert<\/a><\/strong> at the Washington National Cathedral last January. The centerpiece of both the concert and the podcast is a terrific performance of the pre-eminent American concerto<\/a><\/strong> \u2013 Lou Harrison Piano Concerto of 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can hear it all here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LISTENING GUIDE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART ONE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 \u2013 Javanese gamelan; Debussy: \u201cPagodas\u201d (Wan-Chi Su)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:02 \u2013 Bill Alves on the Hindu roots of Balinese gamelan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:05 \u2013 Balinese gamelan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18:50 \u2013 Introducing Colin McPhee<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21:07 \u2013 McPhee: Two Ceremonial Dances (Benjamin Pasternack and Wan-Chi Su)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33:42 \u2013 McPhee: Nocturne for chamber orchestra (Dennis Russell Davis conducts Brooklyn Philharmonic)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

44:53 \u2013 Messiaen: \u201cVisions de L\u2019amen,\u201d movement one (Benjamin Pasternack and Wan-Chi Su) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

52:22 \u2013 Alves: \u201cBlack Toccata\u201d (Benjamin Pasternack and Wan-Chi Su)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART TWO:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11:37 \u2013 Bill Alves demonstrates how the layered textures of gamelan embody a \u201ccosmic hierarchy in sound\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 \u2013 \u201cStampede\u201d from Lou Harrison\u2019s Piano Concerto (excerpt \u2013 Pasternack and PCE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17:41 \u2013 Harrison Piano Concerto, movement one (Pasternack and PCE conducted by Gil-Ordonez)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

33:28 \u2013 Harrison Piano Concerto, movement two (Pasternack\/PCE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

45:04 \u2013 Harrison Piano Concerto, movements three and four (Pasternack\/PCE)

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1:00:24 \u2013 Harrison Suite (excerpts\u2014Wan-Chi Su, Netanel Draiblate\/PCE\/Gil-Ordonez)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1:07:14 \u2013 Statement by Indonesian Ambassador Budi Bowoleksono <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claude Debussy wrote: \u201cBut my poor friend! Do you remember the Javanese music, able to express every shade of meaning, even unmentionable shades which make our tonic and dominant seem like ghosts? . . . Their school consists of the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in the leaves, and a thousand other tiny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1347","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-lJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1353,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/1353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}