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Imagine a people who uses not plates or cutlery for eating but banana leaves and the hands, who has no paper for writing but simple palm leaves that perish in the humidity of the tropic, who knows no chairs and tables, where men and women are stripped to the waist.
Imagine still that the same people cooks sophisticated dishes, enjoys an ancient yet lively literature, sculpts wonders out of wood, uses complex techniques to produce textiles of a no less complex symbolism.
And above all their music ! How to imagine that without string, wind, or voice, without scores and without theory, mere peasants could produce a music so rich, so beautiful, of more complex rhythms than those intended for our ears ?
To aid our imagination, we have to make our way to the confines of Asia, in tropical territory, on the islands of Java and Bali. Comes then a question with regard to their inhabitants, the Javanese or the Balinese : this people is it finally primitive or advanced ? After consulting the Balinese and their civilization, we realize that they are foreign to this kind of dilemma. They show us that primitiveness and progress have never been incompatible.
And their music proves that to our ears. Listening to this music is a real discovery. It invites our ears to venture beyond our old taken for granted principles and to appreciate an original civilization.
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| Their Conservatoire, it's the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind among the leaves and a thousand small sounds to which they listened carefully, without ever consulting arbitrary treatises.
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| …, Javanese music is based on a type of counterpoint by comparison with which that of Palestrina is mere child's play. And if one listens, without European prejudice, to the charm of their “ percussion ”, one must confess that ours is only a country fair racket.
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| Claude Debussy, French composer |
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