Bittersweet Sounds of Passage: Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music
University of Illinois Press, 2025
Cloth: 978-0-252-04662-9 | Paper: 978-0-252-08873-5 | eISBN: 978-0-252-04793-0 (standard)
Library of Congress Classification ML3758.I537B355 2025
Dewey Decimal Classification 781.5880959862
Cloth: 978-0-252-04662-9 | Paper: 978-0-252-08873-5 | eISBN: 978-0-252-04793-0 (standard)
Library of Congress Classification ML3758.I537B355 2025
Dewey Decimal Classification 781.5880959862
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC
ABOUT THIS BOOK
An important presence through centuries of musical and social change, gamelan angklung is a small, four-tone bronze-keyed ensemble that remains ubiquitous at cremations in Bali. Ellen Koskoff offers a compelling portrait of these little-studied orchestras and their members: rice farmers, eatery owners, and other locals who do not see themselves as musicians or what they play as music.
Koskoff examines the history, cultural significance, and musical structures of contemporary gamelan angklung cremation music through the lens of three intertwined stories: existing scholarship on this music, written mostly by Western composers and scholars; the views of those performing and experiencing the music who regard it as dharma--ritual obligation, a basic concept in Balinese Hinduism; and the music itself, with a musical analysis focusing on changes in rasa--feeling, flavor and musical flow.
A journey inside a tradition, Bittersweet Sounds of Passage reveals the overlooked music of an important ritual in Balinese village life.
See other books on: Analysis, appreciation | Death & Dying | Folk & Traditional | Indonesia | Passage
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