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Book Cover
Book
Author Sumarsam.

Title Gamelan : cultural interaction and musical development in central Java / Sumarsam
Published Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [1995]
©1995

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  780.9598 Sum/Gci  AVAILABLE
Description xviii, 350 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Series Chicago studies in ethnomusicology
Chicago studies in ethnomusicology.
Contents 1. From Hindu to Islam: The Early History of Javanese Music -- 2. Javanese Interaction with European Colonialism, Islam, and the Peranakaa Chinese: A Period of Intensive Cultural Development -- 3. The Impact of Western Thought on Javanese Views of Music --4. Current Theories of Gendhing
Summary This is a study of the music of Java and the development of the gamelan. An ensemble dominated by bronze percussion instruments that dates back to the twelfth century in Java, the gamelan as a musical organization and a genre of performance reflects a cultural heritage that is the product of centuries of interaction between Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese, and Malay cultural forces. Drawing on sources ranging from a twelfth-century royal poem to the writing of a twentieth-century nationalist, the author shows how the Indian-inspired contexts and ideology of the Javanese performing arts were first adjusted to the Sufi tradition and later shaped by European performance styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He then turns to accounts of gamelan theory and practice from the colonial and postcolonial periods. He also presents his own theory of gamelan, stressing the relationship between purely vocal melodies and classical gamelan composition
Notes Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1992, originally presented under title: Historical contexts and theories of Javanese music
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-337) and index
Subject Gamelan -- Indonesia -- Java.
Gamelan.
Music -- Indonesia -- Java -- History and criticism.
LC no. 94043013
ISBN 0226780104
0226780112 (paperback)
Other Titles Gamelan