Iacobus Leodiensis [Iacobus de Montibus, Iacobus de Oudenaerde]

III. Central Java

The central portion of the island of Java, where wide, fertile lowland valleys lie between several large, active volcanoes, became the first centre of Javanese political and cultural power well over 1000 years ago. Explosive growth from the early 19th century to the mid-20th has made this one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Today most of some 60 million ethnic Javanese reside in Central Java alongside a significant Chinese minority. Islam is the religion of the vast majority of Javanese, many of whom also maintain significant animist and Hindu-Buddhist beliefs and practices. Various Christian sects have made converts mainly in the cities. While urban centres have developed around royal courts and elsewhere, the population remains predominantly rural and agrarian, connected to the cities through a complex patchwork of territorial and political allegiances. Extensive social stratification fostered by Javanese nobility is still evident in use of linguistic levels and deferential behaviour.

The music and practices associated with Central Javanese Gamelan, an ensemble of varying composition usually including numerous metallophones and gongs as well as other instruments, are the main topic of this entry. From the late 20th century other types of music have been performed and consumed in Central Java, yet while certain types of popular musics may receive great exposure (see §VIII, 1 below), gamelan music (karawitan) continues to constitute the distinctively Javanese medium of musical expression.

1. History.

2. Musicians.

3. Instruments and ensembles.

4. Fundamentals of gamelan music.

5. Regional styles and repertory.

6. Performance contexts.

7. Non-gamelan genres.

8. Research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Indonesia, §III: Central Java

1. History.

Little is known of music in early Java. Hood (1980) has speculated on the derivation of Javanese gongs and playing styles from Dongson bronze drums of mainland South-east Asia around 200 bce, though the transition from cast drums to forged gongs remains unclear. Indian influence, which lasted from the 5th to the 10th centuries ce, has not left obvious traces in the music but is central to literature and theatre, where the pre-eminent narratives are the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The term ‘gamelan’ does not appear until much later, but it has been argued that gendhing, used frequently from the 9th century, meant ensemble, not composition as it now does, and that gong was used similarly (Becker, 1993, pp.31–5). Early literary sources, dating mainly from the period when Javanese culture centred in East Java (11th–15th centuries), include numerous brief descriptions of music played for war, celebrations and rituals at the Hindu-Javanese court of Majapahit, centre of a large empire. Terracotta figurines of that period depict not only instruments that are familiar but also some that have continued to be used in Bali but not in Java (such as two small gongs mounted on either end of a pole and a keyed instrument played with two forked beaters), as well as some that have left no direct descendants (such as lutes). Because Bali was under the rule of Majapahit and because Javanese nobility are believed to have fled to Bali when Majapahit fell to Muslim kingdoms from the north coast of Java around 1500, it is widely presumed that archaic aspects of musical instruments and practice maintained in Bali today are closely related to the music of Majapahit.

Little musical evidence survives from the centuries following the fall of Majapahit, although some court instruments still in use are believed to date from that period. Following a tumultuous succession of coastal kingdoms, the centre of power shifted back to Central Java, where Sultan Agung founded a new empire in the 17th century. Reports by early Dutch colonial figures, such as Van Goens, ambassador to Sultan Agung’s court in 1656, give little detail but indicate the existence of a variety of ensembles, including a loud one with gongs, cymbals and drums, as well as ensembles featuring singing and some softer instruments. In this period Chinese and Europeans entered the area in numbers, with the Dutch gradually gaining control of Javanese territory and Chinese providing both middlemen and labourers. In the next centuries the Chinese minority patronized Javanese performing arts as well as Chinese forms and syncretic combinations. The 200 years of Dutch colonial presence (with a brief British interregnum during the Napoleonic wars) have also affected the arts in complex ways not immediately discernible (see Sumarsam, 1995). The Dutch-imposed treaty of Giyanti split Central Java in 1755 into two kingdoms with rival courts (kraton) located in Yogyakarta and Surakarta (also known as Solo). Further rivalries led to the creation of a minor court in each of these cities: the Paku Alaman in Yogyakarta and the Mangkunegaran in Surakarta.

By the 19th century many composition titles known today were already recorded in court manuscripts such as the famous Serat Centhini, and there is reason to believe that there has also been substantial musical continuity. Pélog and sléndro ensembles may not yet have been combined into one large gamelan, but most of the instruments known today were included in each, and the two were united in the now standard sléndro-pélog gamelan later in the century. The number of kenong (horizontally-suspended bossed gong) and kempul (vertically-suspended bossed gong) has since grown, a few instruments (such as the gambang gangsa, a multi-octave metallophone) have dropped out of use, and at least one, the gendèr panerus, has been added (about 1850). Current forms of dance and theatre can also be traced to this time, though considerable change has occurred.

From the middle of the 19th century to World War II, there was tremendous activity in all performing arts. The four courts marshalled large numbers of musicians, dancers and dalang (shadow puppeteers), vying with one another (perhaps in lieu of warfare, which the Dutch suppressed) by presenting numerous spectacular performances and sponsoring creation of new genres and compositions. Attribution of works to rulers began to give way to naming actual composers and choreographers; various village practices, such as particular dances and drumming styles, were adopted and adapted at the courts. Court practices also spread to villages and urban performers through schools for dance, wayang (shadow play) and music established by the courts in Surakarta and Yogyakarta, as well as through radio broadcasts, which began in the 1920s. Vocal compositions proliferated, and innovation mainly involved creating parallels to existing forms (similar activity may have occurred earlier, but probably not to such a degree). Activity in the performing arts ended with the Japanese occupation (1942–5) and the subsequent struggle for Indonesian independence from Dutch rule (1945–9).

As the new Indonesian republic replaced both colonial rule and the feudal system embedded within it, the royal courts lost much of their wealth and ability to maintain large numbers of musicians and other performers. Many found new homes at the state radio stations in Surakarta and Yogyakarta. Some went to teach at the state-established conservatories (Konservatori Karawitan in Surakarta, 1951; Konservatori Tari Indonesia, Yogyakarta, 1961) and later the academies of the arts, ASKI (Akademi Seni Karawitan Indonesia, Surakarta, 1964) and ASTI (Akademi Seni Tari Indonesia, Yogyakarta, 1963), maintaining some of the dominance of court practice. These state schools fostered creative work alongside documentation and preservation of older practices. Beginning in the 1970s compositional activity has ranged from rearrangement of traditional elements to radical departures, including the development of new instruments (see Suwardi, al.). As these schools took in students and instructors from other parts of Indonesia and adopted a pluralistic curriculum that included other Indonesian traditions (particularly Balinese and Sundanese), a broader spectrum of instruments and idioms became available, and composers at these institutions entered a pan-Indonesian arena of intellectual and artistic discourse.

Alongside this academy-centred activity, musical innovation was led in the post-independence decades by figures such as Kanjeng Radèn Tumenggung Wasitodiningrat (see fig.11) and Ki Nartosabdho. This has involved considerable mixing of genres and styles, so that regional and genre distinctions have been blurred. The breakdown of regional distinctions was also hastened by the rapid spread of cheap cassettes from the 1970s onward, most recordings featuring Solonese style. The most popular dhalang now appear to have the greatest influence over musical change as they promote their own compositions and compete for an audience by introducing new elements (such as cymbals and snare drums) or other types of popular entertainment into wayang kulit. Non-traditional instruments such as electric bass have been added to the gamelan for the campursari (‘mixed essence’) genre. In recent decades the characteristic smoothness of Javanese music has been disrupted by sudden contrasts of tempo and dynamics.

Gamelan has long been a potent icon of royal power, both because of the spiritual power vested in royal regalia (pusaka) and because of the expense and exclusivity of such instruments. The courts maintain numerous old sets of instruments; gamelan instruments, compositions and dances have been tools of diplomacy for several centuries at least, exchanged as gifts at marriages joining the royal families of not only Central Java but also of Madura. Political connections also brought Javanese musical instruments and practices to Sunda, West Java and Banjarmasin, Sulawesi. In post-colonial and post-feudal times the Indonesian government has spread arts diplomacy to many parts of the world through gifts of gamelan and frequent missions by performance troupes, including many from Central Java. These are some of the ways in which the government has assumed some of the roles of the royal courts as arts patrons; its establishment of performing arts academies, staffed at first by former court performers, is another, as is the mandate given these institutions to record and preserve previously restricted royal repertory.

Indonesia, §III: Central Java