Abstract
In his review essay in Winter/Spring 2005 edition of Asian Music (36/1), Michael Tenzer discusses Bali South, a compact disc (CD) containing music recorded by Gertrude Robinson in 1970. Robinson's liner notes for original long-playing album (LP) credited Wayan Gandera, then leader of Gunung Sari gamelan club in Peliatan, with arranging four kebyar pieces on CD. I am concerned here with two of these pieces: Gambang Suling and Hujan Mas. Robinson says that Gandera based Gambang Suling on a popular Indonesian melody and Hujan Mas on a Javanese gending (composition), and gives dates of arrangement as 1962 and 1963, respectively. It is not true that Gandera arranged these two pieces (as Tenzer points out), and, moreover, dates are meaningless. It is true that Gambang Suling is based on a popular Indonesian melody and Hujan Mas on a Javanese gending. (University of California at Los Angeles [UCLA] students will remember well gending Udan Mas as very first Javanese gamelan piece we played!) new liner notes for Bali South CD repeat original mistakes, which seem to have become self-perpetuating. Douglas Myers, in his obituary of Wayan Gandera, says that he developed many new compositions for gong, including his famous rendition of Indonesian melody 'Gambang Suling' (Myers 2002, 1). Meanwhile, jacket notes for another CD, Music of Gamelan Gong Kebyar, Vol. 2, correctly identify Gambang Suling as a North Balinese composition, but seem to suggest that Hujan Mas comes from Peliatan (Vitale 1996, 25). Finally, Dieter Mack, in his article, The Gong Kebyar Style of Pinda, Gianyar, says that the two main kreasi kebyar of Pliatan 'Hujan Mas' and'Gambang Suling'...were created in nineteen-fifties (Mack 1992, 323).
Published Version
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