Category: Updates

Klenengan date and more repertoire

The date of Langen Suka’s mid-year klenengan will be Saturday 13 August 2016. As we’ve begun to explore repertoire for this performance – including Gendhing Candra, Ladrang Sri Hascarya and Ladrang Wesmester – and discussed a possible venue and occasion, it has been decided that we will play in the slendro scale only. At our rehearsal space at UNSW, we’ve pushed the pelog instruments to the back as we won’t be using them for a while, at least not until the second half of the year when we will be preparing the accompaniments to topeng dances.

So with our slendro sanga set already worked out, we’re excited to reveal our slendro nem repertoire: Gendhing Majemuk with suwuk gropak, followed by Ada-Ada Girisa and Srepegan Pinjalan with the insertion of several tembang macapat to palaran accompaniment. The idea for this wonderful  suite of pieces comes from a superb Lokananta recording which can be heard in the clip below.

This is the first time Langen Suka will be performing palaran, a metrical style of accompanying tembang macapat but with variable phrase lengths, so there will definitely be plenty of practice of following the sung melody and drum cues in the coming months.

Klenengan notation added: Candra, Sri Hascarya, Wesmester, Luntur

New balungan and vocal notation has been added to the Resources page in lieu of Langen Suka’s mid-year klenengan.

Gendhing Candra minggah Ladrang Sri Hascarya followed by Ladrang Wesmester are all new additions to Langen Suka’s repertoire and we’ll be playing the suite of pieces in the same way as the recording below:

If you’ve never heard Ladrang Wesmester (i.e. “Westminster”) before, make sure you catch it at around 23’57” and you’ll see why the piece is named as such.

Luntur (“Faded”) is a well-known langgam composed by famous singer-songwriter Gesang (1917–2010), who also wrote Bengawan Solo. The melody is in a minor key as can be heard in its original kroncong version (sung by the composer himself in his final years) or with campursari accompaniment. When performed with gamelan however, it transforms into the haunting barang miring scale superimposed over the slendro sanga mode. If anyone can locate a recording with gamelan, let us know. We’ll be including Luntur in our lagu dolanan bracket of our klenengan.