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New Music from Old York : The 24 and Gamelan Sekar Petak

Two of my compositions are featured on this CD. The short setting of _De Profoundis_ is for an a cappella 8-part choir, using canon at the semitone and by inversion. The two principal underlying research themes of the main work, _Missa Gongso_ (‘Mass of Bronze’) relate to the contrapuntal preoccupation of the _De Profoundis_ but combine the polyphonic traditions of Europe and Java in a new synthesis, and this involved a careful consideration of the tuning problems inherent in juxtaposing non-gamelan instruments or voices with the fixed and unique tuning systems of the gamelan. In this matter I took a diametrically opposed approach from composers such as Lou Harrison, who assumed a correspondence between the tuning of their gamelan and any instruments or voices added to it, taking my cue from the experience of working with Indonesian composers in Java on a large piece that actually brought six different tunings into play. At the same time, my concerns with contrapuntal techniques across two cultures led me to a more reflective examination of the harmonic implications. Finding a simultaneous rendition of, for example, Western fugue with a Javanese melodic core and traditional polyphonic stratification—each tradition within its tuning norm (as the choir rehearsed away from the gamelan and were asked not to try consciously to adapt their tuning to that of the gamelan)—was a major challenge, successfully met in the actual performances thanks to the expertise in gamelan playing and choral singing available in the York Music Department. The Mass was premièred in York Minster and has also been performed in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge and in Portland, Oregon.