Bittersweet Sounds of Passage

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.

Author Biography

Ellen Koskoff is Professor Emerita of Ethnomusicology at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Her many books include the award-winning Music in Lubavitcher Life and A Feminist Ethnomusicology: Writings on Music and Gender.