Search - Gamelan of Central Java :: Gamelan of Central Java, Vol. 6: Kraton Surakarta

Another great edition

D. Quinn | northern britain | 07/18/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Inspired by, and in homage to, a rare 1963 Philips LP entitled `Song and Sound the World Around - Gamelan Music from Java", itself recorded in the Kraton (meaning "palace") of Surakarta (known as "Solo" locally). The original classic 1963 recording is seemingly unavailable at present, but this release contains the same material, performed in the same setting, just over 40 years later, on the very same gamelan set. In addition we get the bonus opening track, perhaps as a warming up for the court musicians. Quite apart from this unusual concept it's an excellent release. The latter two pieces which originally made up the old Philips recording are very old and well-known traditional pieces. They appear in other forms on other cds in this series but most Javanese pieces are well worth recording and exploring on separate sets and tunings. Especially since it is actually considered an insult to copy the tuning of one gamelan set exactly for another so no two sound exactly alike even just in terms of tuning. The music on this release, taken as a whole, has a definite purity to it, as is often the case with traditional Indonesian music - it's hard to imagine this sort of music becoming entangled in the worst excesses of modern capitalism, and as such it comes across, at least to the Western ear, as not of this time - either ancient or timeless. Also the subtle birdsong in the background adds a nice and presumably unavoidable touch.

"Moonlight poured over the fields" is a beautiful description of Javanese gamelan, and an apt description of this music. When you can truly settle down, switch your computer and television and other distractions off, and give this music the attention it deserves (listening with headphones is a pretty good suggestion), the subtlety of the nuances becomes all the more prominent. The more you give to Javanese music, the more you will get back in return.

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