Balinese Pieces (Preview)
Music by Gareth Farr | Piano Works include Sepuluh Jari, Tentang Cara Gamelan, and Jangan Lupa
Music by Gareth Farr | Piano
Works include Sepuluh Jari, Tentang Cara Gamelan, and Jangan Lupa
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<strong>Balinese</strong> <strong>Pieces</strong> (1994-2003)<br />
With a tradition dating back well beyond 500 years, gamelan music continues to be an iconic<br />
feature of the Indonesian performing arts. The gamelan orchestra is comprised of bronze<br />
percussion instruments, ranging from smaller keyed instruments hit with hammers to large<br />
gongs struck with soft mallets which produce a deep resonance. New Zealand composer Jack<br />
Body notes that “gamelan reflects the character of the cultures; Javanese gamelan is more<br />
refined, reflective, and conservative while <strong>Balinese</strong> gamelan is more extrovert, dynamic, and<br />
open to exploring new things.” The three <strong>Balinese</strong> <strong>Pieces</strong> explore the exciting rhythms and<br />
beautiful sonorities of this music. Apart from Farr’s works written specifically for gamelan,<br />
this set of three pieces best exemplifies the significant influence of Indonesian music on<br />
his writing. <strong>Balinese</strong> <strong>Pieces</strong> appears on Horizon, a compilation album of Farr’s piano music<br />
performed by Henry Wong Doe (Trust Records MMT2070).<br />
Sepuluh Jari (1996) was the result of a commission Farr received from New Zealand pianist<br />
Michael Houstoun. Houstoun asked Farr to compose a toccata, which led the composer<br />
to write a virtuosic work that draws on two non-Western tuning systems for its harmonic<br />
material — the Indian saraswati scale and the <strong>Balinese</strong> pelog scale. Beginning in the rumbling<br />
lower register of the piano, a lurching, dissonant sprinkling of pitches is repeated before<br />
being joined by a comparatively clear melodic line that gradually draws both hands into<br />
a higher and more expansive range. Cascading scalar passages interject over low-register<br />
arpeggiations, which then arrive at joyous declamatory moments that make use of the<br />
exoticism of the work’s harmonic influences. The composer transforms these features as they<br />
recur throughout the work, rendering them as challenging passages that often require swift<br />
finger work. Insistent, pulsed material is interspersed with elastic rushes of energy and brief<br />
snatches of stillness and reflection. Sepuluh Jari was commissioned by Michael Houstoun<br />
(with financial support from Creative New Zealand) and received its premiere performance at<br />
the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts, in Wellington, New Zealand, on 12 March<br />
1996.<br />
PE128 – v
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