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Music in Nineteenth Century Java: A Precursor to the Twentieth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2009
Extract
Only recently has it become possible to attempt to reconstruct a history of Javanese music in the nineteenth century. The relevant primary and secondary sources, including Javanese poems and treatises, colonial writings and scattered references in various historical tracts are only now beginning to emerge from cold storage to be published, translated, and made more widely available. This article is a preliminary attempt to draw together from them an overview of Javanese music in the nineteenth century, adopting a musicological, cultural and historical approach which is based partly on my own fieldwork over the past twenty years. An understanding of nineteenth century musical developments is clearly important not only in its own right but also as a means of facilitating our comprehension of the contemporary artistic scene.
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References
1 The Centini is a wandering student's romance written by several authors in the early nineteenth century under the supervision of Paku Buwana (1820–23) when he was Crown Prince. Several versions of it appeared, based on older editions of the poem [see Pigeaud, Theodore G., Literature of Java, vol. I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1967), p. 229Google Scholar]. The original of the major version referred to here is held in the Institute in Leiden. For a romanized transliteration, see Anon., Sêrat Cênthini (Suluk Tambangraras), 3 vols. (Yogyakarta: Yayasan Centhini, 1985)Google Scholar.
2 Raffles, Thomas Stamford, The History of Java, vols. I and II (London, 1817; reprinted Japan, 1965)Google Scholar; Crawfurd, John, History of the Indian Archipelago, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: A. Constable & Co., 1820; reprinted London: Cass, 1967)Google Scholar; Crawfurd, John, A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands and Adjacent Countries (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, first edition London, 1856; reprinted 1971)Google Scholar.
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7 Lindsay, has drawn together these sources in the sections of her “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary: A Study of the Javanese Performing Arts” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Sydney, 1985)Google Scholar. This thesis deals with the history of wayang wong.
8 See Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, pp. 206–210Google Scholar.
9 See Ricklefs, M.C., Yogyakarta under Sultan Mangkubumi 1749–1792: A History of the Division of Java (London: Oxford University Press, 1974)Google Scholar.
10 Raffles, who was Governor of Java from 1811–15, arranged for a number of his subordinates to compile materials and write for his book.
11 The Yogyakarta manuscript is attributed to the reign of Hamengku Buwana V (1822–26; 1828–55). The Cenṭini groups genḍing according to laras (tuning system) and paṭet (mode), while the Yogyakarta manuscript also classifies them according to genḍing type and prominent instruments (Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, p. 207Google Scholar). In addition, a collection of references to genḍing in an explanation of gamelan history and practice is found in the Wédha Pradangga by Projopangrawit, a Surakarta musician. Though dated 1943, it represents a “culmination of a long period of recording knowledge gleaned from discussions with older musicians” (Lindsay, ibid., p. 208). The problem with these sources is that they give us knowledge only of names of genḍing; we cannot know for certain which pieces are actually designated by the names. But a comparison of the lists does suggest a substantial continuity rather than a loss of genḍing. Some did disappear from the repertoire only to be recalled later (Lindsay, ibid.).
12 See Kunst, Jaap, Hindu-Javanese Musical Instruments (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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17 The gamelan munggang mentioned in Raffles probably consisted of four sets of kettles (rancakan), one large kettle (kenong), two small kettles (bende), two great gongs, one pair of cymbals (rojeh), one large drum (kenḍang), one small drum (ketipung) and one very large barrel-shaped drum (bedug).
18 The gamelan koḍok ngorek has basically the same instrumentarium as the munggang, except that the bell-tree is present and it contains several extra kettle-gongs.
19 References to the use of a gamelan carabalen made by Paku Buwana IV in 1878 are made in Warsadiningrat. See Becker, Judith, Karawitan, Source Readings in Javanese Gamelan and Vocal Music, vol. 2 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1987), p. 147Google Scholar.
20 Another practice which at least until recently was still carried out in the kraton of the Surakarta, is the tembang pendapa, during which a guard (prajurit) sang elaborate macapat songs all night in front of the door of the prince's bed-chamber. It is likely that many such customs have been lost in the last two centuries, and particularly since the 1930s. And according to Kunst (Music in Java, p. 343Google Scholar), a definite sequence of paṭet (musical modes) were associated in each of the kraton with particular times of the day and night until the early twentieth century.
21 Kunst, , Music in Java, p. 113Google Scholar.
22 According to Kunst, (Music in Java, p. 244)Google Scholar, the greatest density of gamelan in the 1930s was in Ngawi, an area which possessed an average of one gamelan per 590 inhabitants. Ubud (in Bali), had, by comparison, one gamelan per 250 inhabitants.
23 Fagg, William [The Raffles Gamelan; A Historical Note (London: British Museum, 1970, p. 20)]Google Scholar notes that this illustration was probably drawn from an orchestra in Java. In Raffles, (The History of Java, vol. I, p. 469)Google Scholar it is mentioned that the wayang klitik was also accompanied by a gamelan miring (‘deviating’ gamelan), with its instruments drawn from both slendro and pelog ensembles.
24 The Crawfurd, drawing shows only eleven instruments (History of the Indian Archipelago), vol. 1, p. 326)Google Scholar.
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26 Ibid., p. 230.
27 Crawfurd, , History of the Indian Archipelago, vol. 1, pp. 330, 336Google Scholar.
28 Raffles, , History of Java, vol. I, p. 470Google Scholar.
29 Crawfurd, , History of the Indian Archipelago, vol. 1, p. 332Google Scholar.
30 Crawfurd, , A Descriptive Dictionary of the Indian Islands, p. 179Google Scholar.
31 Ibid., p. 183.
32 The MS is identified as KITLV Or. No. 231 (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde Oriental Ms.) of the collection of the Institute in Leiden.
33 According to Rijklof van Goen, see Kumar, , “Javanese Court Society”, p. 5Google Scholar.
34 Sinḍen usually means vocal music sung by a lady accompanying dancing. Suluk either means the set songs sung by a ḍalang (puppeteer) during a wayang performance or a separate repertoire of songs with texts on philosophical or religious topics.
35 The best known of the court baḍaya dances is performed by nine girls, but male dancers also performed dances by the name of baḍaya. The srimpi is a court dance which is usually performed, as in this case, by four girls.
36 Kumar, , “Javanese Court Society”, pp. 18, 24Google Scholar.
37 Raffles, , History of Java, vol. I, p. 311Google Scholar.
38 Ibid., vol. II, p. 205.
39 Ibid., vol. I, p. 469.
40 Kunst, , Music in Java, pp. 293–94Google Scholar.
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42 Translated in Becker, , Karawitan, pp. 153–54Google Scholar.
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44 Raffles, , History of Java, vol. I, p. 471Google Scholar.
45 The title of this piece may be related to a Javanese ancestor myth. Rassers, W.H. [Pañji, the Culture Hero, a Structural Study of Religion in Java (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959), p. 84]CrossRefGoogle Scholar refers to Kebo milih and Kebo ngraweg as the two ancestors of the Javanese people, the two phratries who created the world.
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48 Ibid., pp. 319–20, 341–42.
49 Warsadiningrat, Raden Tumenggung, Wédha Pradangga, trans. S.P. Walton, Karawitan, vol. I, ed. Becker, J. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1987), pp. 143–45Google Scholar.
50 Ibid., pp. 147–48.
51 Wayang purwa, wayang beber, wayang gedog and wayang klitik are mentioned. See Raffles, , History of Java, vol. I, p. 336Google Scholar.
52 This hammer is the ketok or keprak, used primarily for cueing the gamelan in a wayang show. See ibid., pp. 337–38.
53 Ibid., p. 336.
54 For descriptions of jaran kepang and reyog (or barongan) respectively in contemporary Java, see Kartomi, Margaret J., “Music and Trance in Central Java”, Ethnomusicology 37, no. 2 (1973): 163–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Performance, Music and Meaning of Reyog Ponorogo”, Indonesia, no. 22 (1976): 85–130Google Scholar.
55 Raffles, , History of Java, vol. I, pp. 333–34Google Scholar.
56 The Sundanese Kingdom of Pajajaran lasted from approximately the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. See ibid., p. 472.
57 Wilet is the relatively freely-performed melody by the rebab, suling, gender, gambang or solo voice.
58 In its broad meaning, genḍing means gamelan piece. More specifically it comprises all forms of gamelan pieces which omit the kempul.
59 Translation from Kunst, , Music in Java, p. 277Google Scholar.
60 Cenṭini, Canto 276, translation from ibid., p. 59.
61 Translation from ibid., p. 276.
62 Ibid., p. 319.
63 Canto 160, stanza 20 (Vol. V/VI, 164). The reference, as translated in Kunst, (Music in Java, p. 36)Google Scholar is as follows: “Penghulu, who is it playing the gamelan there? It is one of the medium range with nyendari tuning. Might there be someone giving a wedding feast? Or, would it be the petinggi (village chief) causing the gamelan slendro to be played?”
Nowadays the term sundari refers to embat, the nuance or temperament of a tuning system. One of the factors of embat is high, medium or low tuning; it is determined by certain intervallic patterns.
64 Kunst, , Music in Java, p. 184Google Scholar.
65 Bem is a right-hand stroke on the kenḍang. The kempyang is a horizontal gong.
66 Kunst, , Music in Java, p. 211Google Scholar.
67 See Kartomi, Margaret J., “Music and Trance in Central Java”, Ethnomusicology 37, no. 2 (1973): 163–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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75 See Becker, , KarawitanGoogle Scholar.
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77 Kunst, (Music in Java, p. 4)Google Scholar was of the opinion that Central Java has “become gradually, and just in time, conscious of its own cultural values”.
78 “Thus”, the quotation continues, “both the Susunan and Sultan are furnished with large gilt carriages, after the fashion of those used by the Lord Mayor of London. When the former drinks wine with the governor, the rest of the company are offered white wine, while they alone drink red, and a flourish of trumpets sounds as the glass approaches their lips” (Raffles, , The History of Java, p. 311Google Scholar).
79 Becker, Judith O., Traditional Music in Modern Java, Gamelan in a Changing Society (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980), pp. 8–10ffGoogle Scholar.
80 As Sartono Kartodirdjo wrote: “The history of nineteenth and twentieth century Java provides a remarkably clear picture of traditional peasant society disintegrating under the impact of colonial domination” [Kartodirdjo, Sartono, “Agrarian Radicalism in Java”, in Holt, Claire et al. (eds.), Culture and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1972), p. 76Google Scholar].
81 Pigeaud refers to “the probability of a relative scarcity of iron and other base metals in fourteenth century Java, as a result of which some implements that at present are made of iron may have been made of wood or bamboo” [Pigeaud, Theodore G., Java in the Fourteenth Century — A Study in Cultural History, vol. 1 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), p. 508Google Scholar].
82 Some other forms of wayang, such as wayang beber, which may have originated as part of the court tradition of poetry recitation using a painted scroll of wayang scenes [Anderson, Benedict, “The Last Picture Show: Wayang Beber”, papers presented at the Conference on Modern Indonesian Literature(Madison:University of Wisconsin,June 1974), pp. 28–29, 33–81Google Scholar] are also rarely performed today, mainly because the performance skills have not been transmitted across the generations.
83 See Kartodirdjo, , “Agrarian Radicalism in Java”, pp. 71–125Google Scholar.
84 Choy, Peggy, “Texts Through Time: The Golèk Dance of Java”, Aesthetic Tradition, ed. Morgan, S. and Seares, L.J., p. 51Google Scholar.
85 According to Ki Wasitodipuro, mentioned in Choy, , “Texts Through Time”, p. 72Google Scholar.
86 Langendriyan theatre, played by all-women dancers who sing songs in macapat metres based on the Damarwulan stories, is still performed in the Mangkunegaran court and elsewhere. According to the Langendriya Mandraswara (Bale Poestaka, 1939)Google Scholar, a book containing a complete text of the dance drama Langendriyan, a gamelan pelog was used to accompany a full production.
87 Soedarsono, , “Classical Javanese Dance: History and Characterization”, Ethnomusicology 13, no. 3 (09 1969): 503CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
88 Susilo, Hardja, “Wayang Wong: Context Technique and Music”, Aesthetic Tradition, ed. Morgan, S. and Seares, L.J., p. 117Google Scholar.
89 Soedarsono, , Beberapa Faktor Penyabab Kemunduran Wayang Wong Gaya Yogyakarta (Yogyakarta: ASTI, 1979/1980), p. 20Google Scholar.
90 Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, p. 87Google Scholar.
91 Narrative texts were written down before that, however. Copies of texts which had probably been used in wayang wong had been carried off by the British when they sacked the Yogyakarta palace in 1812; they are now held in the India Office Library.
92 Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, p. 96Google Scholar.
93 Ibid., p. 97.
94 Ibid., p. 98.
95 Groneman, , De Wajang Orang Pregiwa in den Kraton te Jogjakarta in Juni 1899, p. 10Google Scholar.
96 Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, p. 99Google Scholar.
97 For example, see Brandts-Buys, , “Het Wajang-feestspel te Jogjakarta”, p. 95Google Scholar and Holt, , Art in Indonesia, p. 160Google Scholar.
98 Soedarsono, , “Wayang Wong in the Yogyakarta Kraton”, p. 185Google Scholar.
99 Some writers [Schrieke, B.J.C., Wajang Wong, Djåwå, no. 9, Weltevreden (1929): 5Google Scholar; Soedarsono, , “Wayang Wong in the Yogyakarta Kraton”, pp. 3–4Google Scholar] have suggested that modern wayang wong represented a direct line of development from tenth century wayang wwong, but we cannot presume that the two forms had the same combination of characteristics, or “that the characteristics which came to define wayang wong had the same significance in different contexts and times” (Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, pp. 86–87Google Scholar).
100 Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, p. 90Google Scholar.
101 Ibid., pp. 88, 90.
102 See Kumar, , “Javanese Court Society”, p. 17Google Scholar.
103 This is according to a verbal communication from Ki Wasitodipuro of the Paku Alaman court.
104 Kunst, , Music in Java, p. 161Google Scholar.
105 These included the titilaras rante (‘chain’ notion, 1888), the titilaras anda (‘checkered’ script, 1890) and the titilaras kepatihan (number script, about 1890). The latter notation method is most prevalently used today. The Pakem Wirama (1889), which contains notations of Yogyakarta genḍing, was the checkered script, which seems to have developed from an earlier system of writing out the name of each note with the keṭuk, gong and kenong strokes marked next to them (see Lindsay, , “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, pp. 204–205Google Scholar).
106 Warsadiningrat, , translation in Becker, , Karawitan, p. 148Google Scholar.
107 Raffles, , History of Java, vol. I, p. 471Google Scholar.
108 “Klasik Kitsch or Contemporary”, p. 201 ff.
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110 In Becker, , Karawitan, pp. 146–47Google Scholar.
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113 See Schuchardt, Hugo, “Űber das Malaioportugiesische von Batavia und Tugu”, in Kreolische Studien, vol. IX (Vienna, 1891)Google Scholar. Only a handful of kroncong instruments still exist in Java; they were (and still are, occasionally) made by hand in the village of Tugu (in present-day Jakarta).
114 Kornhauser, Bronia, “In Defence of Kroncong”, in Studies in Indonesian Music, ed. Kartomi, Margaret J. (Clayton: Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University, 1978), pp. 104ffGoogle Scholar.
115 See, for example, the disc Missa Javanica, Philips 840 2788.
116 Brandts-Buys, J.S., “Over de ontwikkelingsmogelijkheden van de muziek op Java”, Djåwå, Praeadviezen II, vol. I (1921): 13Google Scholar.
117 McPhee, Colin, “The Decline of the East”, Modern Music XVI (1939): 160Google Scholar.