“Even if I had had the cabin to myself I could not have slept, for I was filled with an inner excitement that kept me wide awake. I had come all this way on a quest of music—to listen to the gamelans, the strange and lovely-sounding orchestras of gongs that still made music, it seemed, in the courts of Java and the villages and temples of Bali, and as I looked out into the night I could hardly believe that this musical adventure was actually about to begin.”

In the 1920s, Canadian composer Colin McPhee discovered Balinese gamelan music from hearing a rare recording played on a gramophone. He traveled to the island of Bali in Indonesia to find out more about how this music is made. He ended up building a house and living there. He fell in love with the music, the people, and the cultural traditions, all of which are beautifully documented in his memoir. This is a snapshot of history. It portrays what life was like in Bali over the course of almost a decade in the 1930s, focusing on the music and performance arts.

This is some of the best writing I have seen in a memoir. McPhee was clearly a gifted writer. The following examples are representative of the evocative writing that continues unabated throughout the book:

He describes the gamelan music:
“Through a maze of intricate patterns a lovely melody was heard that slowly unfolded as the rest of the music rushed along at a breakneck speed. Suddenly the music changed. A short motif repeated over and over while the drums grew agitated. Tension increased like a spring being wound, but just at the moment when you felt it must surely snap the opening melody returned. Back and forth the two sections alternated until in a climax of syncopated drumming the music came to an end.”

and a dance performed in costume at Balinese festivals:
“DURING THE galungan holidays, the island was suddenly filled with magnificent masked beasts. With glaring eyes and snapping jaws, with elaborate golden crowns, great hairy bodies bedecked with little mirrors, and tails that rose high in the air to end in a tassel of tiny bells, they pranced and champed up and down the roads from village to village to the sound of cymbals and gongs, as though they had newly emerged, like awakened dragons, from caves and crevices in which for months they had been lying dormant.”

I enjoyed the photographs and the helpful glossary of terms. If you are interested in music and the arts in countries around the world, do not miss this one.
… (meer)

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Castlelass | 3 andere besprekingen | Oct 30, 2022 |

A House in Bali (Oxford in Asia Paperbacks) door Colin McPhee

The author's reminiscences of his time living in Bali in the 1930s. It felt disjointed rather than a connected narrative, and although richly descriptive, I found it difficult to pin down the soundscape he was obviously impressed by beyond my own memories of Balinese gamelan in the 1980s and 1990s, which is probably not the way it sounded in the 1930s. A pity there couldn't be an accompanying soundtrack.

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Robertgreaves | 3 andere besprekingen | Mar 6, 2022 |

A House in Bali door Colin McPhee

With an Introduction by James Murdoch.

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Alhickey1 | 3 andere besprekingen | Jan 9, 2018 |

A House in Bali door Colin McPhee

Large section of black and white photos in rear of book depicting Bali in the 1930s.

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Alhickey1 | 3 andere besprekingen | Jan 7, 2018 |

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