The Gamelan Digul and the Prison Camp Musician Who Built It. (Book Reviews: Ethnomusicology).

Williams, Sean

The Gamelan Digul and the Prison Camp Musician Who Built It. By Margaret J. Kartomi. Rochester, N.Y.: University of Rochester Press, 2001. [xxi, 123 p. ISBN 1-58046-088-7. $75.] Illustrations, bibliography, index, compact disc.

The Gamelan Digul is the latest publication of prolific ethnomusicologist Margaret J. Kartomi, professor of music at Australia's Monash University. In six chapters, Kartorni tells the extraordinary true story of a Central Javanese court musician named Pontjopangrawit (1893-1965?), whose anti-colonial beliefs led to his internment at a New Guinea prison camp from 1927 to 1932. During the five years of his internment, Pontjopangrawit created a unique gamelan ensemble of found objects that sustained him and his fellow Javanese prisoners through performances, rehearsals, and the development of new compositions. Pontjopangrawit himself returned to his native city of Surakarta upon his release, and the gamelan ended up in Australia in the early 1940s, where it has remained ever since. The ensemble was later to play an important role in the strengthening of relations between Indonesia and Australia.

The book's prologue contains useful introductory information about the gamelan Digul and the overall context of Central Javanese gamelan ensembles. While some of this initial information about gamelan is familiar territory for ethnomusicologists, it is precisely the placement of the gamelan Digul in the larger context that engages the mind immediately. Chapter 1 summarizes what is known about Pontjopangrawit's early years as a musician and activist in the court at Surakarta. Deftly weaving nineteenth-and twentieth-century court culture together with Pontjopangrawit's advancement through the court ranks, Kartomi also brings to light the anticolonial movement and rise of communism.

Chapter 2 examines Pontjopangrawit's life in the Tanah Merah ("Red Earth") prison camp at Boven Digul, Central New Guinea. Kartomi cites multiple sources in her attempt to bring to light both the harshness of the conditions at the camp and the importance of the gamelan to the inmates. She also notes the similarity of musical activity between the Tanah Merah prisoners and the internees of Nazi extermination camps (p. 33). Chapter 3 has as its focus Pontjopangrawit's activities upon his release from Tanah Merah, and his success as a significant artist in the Surakarta karaton (palace) prior to the mystery surrounding his death. This chapter contains many Central Javanese musical terms that are highly significant to musical insiders, but which will baffle those readers who have difficulty keeping track of new musical terminology.

The book shifts in focus in chapter 4, examining the important role of the gamelan Digul and some of its players in its new postwar home in Australia. The chapter includes historical information about the difficult situation Australian officials found themselves in, faced with a grassroots movement in favor of Indonesian independence, but an official policy supporting the reestablishment of Dutch control. In chapters 5 and 6 the text turns briefly to the specifics of the gamelan Digul--its instruments, tuning, construction, materials, playing style, and conservation. Chapter 6 includes photographs of the instruments. The three appendixes discuss the people involved in conserving the gamelan, the tuning used for each instrument, and the notes for the fascinating compact disc, which is included in the back of the book. This compact disc features Al Suwardi of the Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia playing each instrument and Pontjopangrawit himself playing the rebab (bowed lute).

The Gamelan Digul is a moving story of endurance and perseverance, not just of Pontjopangrawit himself but of all those who suffered in Tanah Merah. The gamelan provided an effective means of perpetuating the "arts of resistance" in an inhospitable climate, and later served to focus the efforts of Australian nationals and Indonesians in exile as Indonesia fought for its independence. The compact disc, compelling photographs, and lively writing style make the volume a welcome addition to the growing body of ethnomusicological literature on Indonesian music. Non-specialists will miss having a glossary of the many specialized terms, but with patience the layperson can follow most of the book easily.

The surprising lack of a conclusion is the book's most problematic aspect. It ends quite abruptly with the announcement that the gamelan is "in a fit state to embark on a traveling exhibition" (p. 97). While this closing sentence is appropriate for a chapter about the instruments, it leaves the reader paging through the appendixes in search of summative words. The two forewords--by Judith Becker and Rahayu Supanggah--would have better served as a foreword and an afterword, respectively. It is Supanggah's ringing statements about independence and artistic expression, and Pontjopangrawit's unique ability to make a powerful difference in the lives of those around him, that make a fitting and inspiring conclusion to this book.

The Gamelan Digul is appropriate for academic readers and interested laypersons, and it is a must for ethnomusicologists interested in either Indonesian music or the use of music as a form of resistance. It is brief--just over a hundred pages of prose--but the history, photographs, compact disc, and story itself are both compelling and inspiring.