Zeitgenossische Musik in Indonesien: Zwischen lokalen Traditionen, nationalen Verplichtungen und internationalen Einflussen (review)

This is the first comprehensive book on the historical background and development of the music scene in Indonesia from the early twentieth century to 2004. As its author argues, the development of classical/traditional 'local' or ethnic music, new music, jazz, world music, and popular music scenes may be explained through examining the contradictions that exist between local traditions, national expectations, and international influences. Dieter Mack's claim that this particular dialectical mix is unique to Indonesia is well argued, though to advance a convincing case he would need to make it thoroughly cross-cultural, a task which he does not attempt.

The concept of individual composers creating new music as part of a worldwide movement is relatively recent in Indonesia. From the 1950s, composers such as Narto Sabdho and Ki Wasitodipuro created new compositions based on popular gamelan styles (see Judith Becker, Traditional Music in Modern Java: Gamelan in a Changing Society (Honolulu, 1980)), but they were not intended to be part of an international vanguard. New music began to be composed in score or improvised and established in rehearsal in the 1970s, when Gendon Humardani (head of the Arts Academy ASKI in Surakarta until he died in 1983) encouraged students not only to exploit a frozen view of the various regional traditional musics but also experimentally to explore regional musical sounds to create new musical styles in accord with the changing times and to write compositions that demonstrated originality; some pursued careers as composers, and some are mentioned in this book. The story of this development has been referred to but never told in detail before Mack's volume.

Early on, Mack identifies his own musical and academic background, experience, theoretical position, and musical predilections, in line with Clifford Geertz's plea for a constructive subjectivity in creative scholarly discourse. He attributes his approach to influences from his former composition teacher Brian Ferneyhough and the ethnologist Danker Schaareman as well as colleagues such as Michael Tenzer and various Indonesian musicians, especially Nyoman Windha, Dody Satya Ekagustdiman, Slamet Abdul Sjukur, and Harry Roesli, whom he foregrounds by writing convincing portraits of them in the book. He acknowledges the help of many important Indonesian and foreign artists, scholars, and administrators, including the ethnomusicologists Endo Suanda, Rahayu Supanggah, and artists/scholars-cum-art-administrators such as Edi Sedyawati (her name is misspelt on p. 10) and Saini KM, and he pays tribute to a recent book about new music in Indonesia (Musik Kontemporer Dulu dan Kini [Contemporary Music Then and Now] ( Jakarta, 2003)), by the clarinettist-musicologist Suka Hardjana.

Mack's broad interests and expertise have resulted in a wide-ranging book that covers aspects of Balinese music ethnography, musical issues, theoretical ethnomusicological topics, practical music educational issues, and music-analytical and compositional matters. He carried out fieldwork in Saba and other Balinese villages and founded a gamelan ensemble in 1982. After serving as a guest lecturer at the Institute of Education (IKIP) in Bandung and as a member of Jakarta's Curriculum Commission in the Education Ministry, he worked with the Ford Foundation to help develop music education in Indonesia. He was appointed professor of music theory in Freiburg, then professor of composition at the Lübeck Hochschule.

The book comprises two very large chapters: the first on music in the context of Indonesia's cultural politics in the twentieth century, including the search for a national music culture outside individual ethnic traditions, the history of music education in Indonesia, and music education in the church missions. In this last section he discusses musical enculturation in Catholic missions and the relationship of Protestant missions to music. The second chapter ranges equally broadly, covering 'tensions' between 'vertical' and 'horizontal' influences on contemporary composers, definitions of terms such as 'culture contact' for his purposes, the history of Indonesia's Young Composers' Festival ('Suita 92'), the Indonesian...