Sepuluh Jari (Preview)

Sepuluh Jari (1996)
A work heavy in bravura, Sepuluh Jari is the result of a commission Farr received from New
Zealand pianist Michael Houstoun for a toccata. Here, Farr takes the toccata’s traditional
emphasis on dexterity and melds it with the cross-cultural influences that enrich so many
of his works. Drawing on the Indian saraswati scale and Balinese pelog scale for its harmonic
material, Farr creates cascading scalar passages that eventually arrive at joyous declamatory
moments. Its challenging passages require swift finger work, its insistent pulsed material
interspersed with elastic rushes of energy and brief snatches of stillness and reflection.
In articulating the range of stylistic influences that were mixed together to produce Sepuluh
Jari, Farr imagined the work as something Bach may have produced in an alternate life in
which the famed composer had journeyed to the lands of India and Indonesia:
From a recently-unearthed letter, apparently in the hand of of J.S. Bach:
“…and here it is, my recently completed toccata, Sepuluh Jari — it means “ten fingers” in the
native language here on the island of Bali.
I’m forever grateful to you for persuading me to take leave from my position as church organist
and spend a year in the Hindu lands of India and Bali. I have found the rhythms and scales of
the music here so inspirational that I could not stop them from creeping into this piece.
You must forgive me, though, if it gets a little crazy at times; a strange potion offered to me from
a coconut shell may be to blame — it made me feel quite queer…”
The rest of the letter is illegible.
Sepuluh Jari was commissioned by Michael Houstoun, who gave its premiere performance
at the Ilott Concert Chamber in Wellington, New Zealand on 12 March 1996 as part of the
New Zealand International Festival of the Arts. A recording of this performance appears on
the Trust Records album Michael Houstoun – Elusive Dreams (MMT2010). A studio recording
PE014 – v