From Kuno to Kebyar: Balinese Gamelan Angklung by Ruby Ornstein (review)

With From Kuno to Kebyar: Balinese Gamelan Angklung, Ruby Ornstein has given us a rich and timely musical offering. Beautifully produced and annotated, the recording contains pieces collected in Bali by Ornstein from 1964 to 1966; together, these compositions present a variety of local repertoires, styles, tunings, timbres, and musical structures, giving pause to what Ornstein describes in her accompanying notes as the “most unassuming of more than the 20 types of Balinese gamelan. … [P]layed in the background during ritual occasions, it is often unnoticed” (1). The smallest and most portable of Bali’s gamelan, this ancient ensemble, with its small instruments, 4-tone scale (saih angklung), and quirky, sadly sweet melodies, is found everywhere throughout Bali, today performing many of the different repertoires needed for ritual, ceremonial, and public music events. This recording, released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2010, will, no doubt, bring this largely overlooked repertoire to an appreciative audience.

Arranged to highlight the historical and musical changes that affected gamelan angklung during the first half of the twentieth century, the collection brings together a beautifully varied sampler of pieces from gamelan angklung’s three overlapping repertoires: (1) traditional pieces (kuno, tracks 1–4) used today, as they have been for centuries, for village ceremonies, such as tooth filings and cremations; (2) pieces drawn from the early part of the twentieth century (tracks 5–7), showing influences from the older gamelan gong repertoire, lalambatan, performed today for temple ceremonies, such as odalan (temple anniversaries) and outside the temple for more general audiences; and (3) newer compositions (angklung kebyar, tracks 8–13), influenced by the growth and popularity of the gamelan gong kebyar in the early and mid-twentieth century. Of the 13 pieces on this recording, nine are taken from villages in the south of Bali and four from the north.

The notes accompanying the CD are a delightful mix of necessary historical and social documentation, guideposts for listening, and personal anecdotes recounting stories of Ornstein’s fieldwork and her interactions with her Balinese collaborators. The notes conclude with a helpful glossary and bibliography. Arranged thus, the pieces and notes not only take us through a period of tumultuous political upheaval and rapid musical change but also through a period of Bali’s alignment with Western “modern” values concerning music composition, performance, and context.

Major differences in tuning, timbre, register, and formal musical structures easily identify the three gamelan angklung repertoires presented here. Pieces such as “Sekar Muncerat,” from Samban village (track 1), and “Galang Kangin,” from Peliatan (track 3), both illustrate the tendency, especially in the older cremation pieces, to add or drop partial beats at the ends of long, wandering phrases, creating beautiful asymmetries that are perhaps the most characteristic melodic/rhythmic gestures of this repertoire. Track 2, “Tujang Biru,” from Mas, briefly illustrates another common characteristic of older angklung pieces: a short beginning rhythmic gesture coming just off the gong beat, often expanded into longer patterns, which become characteristic rhythmic motives used to signal new phrases and pitch centers.

I was treated to an unexpected surprise with track 4, “Kutri,” from Sayan village, where Colin McPhee famously resurrected the traditional bamboo-tuned rattles (also known as angklung) in the 1930s. Not only was this a welcome surprise; it was a nice reminder that Ornstein was a student at UCLA in the early 1960s and had worked with Mantle Hood and McPhee, producing the first in-depth examination of gamelan gong kebyar. Ornstein was able to record the rattles, still used in the 1960s—but only in Sayan—playing with the metallophone gamelan angklung, with which they were once associated. In this way, she connects her work not only to her musical ancestors but also to a wider musical and social heritage. The rattles reappear in track 8, “Gambangan,” also recorded in Sayan, where they eerily take on the quality of the sacred wooden xylophone...