MELANGA

As the gamelan, with its distinctive timbres and tuning, is extremely “typical”, it was a real challenge to make it “speak” a foreign language, and avoid pastiche of the wonderful music of Java. In addition, the way in which the musicians worked and the notation also required more or less difficult adaptations. The sampler, entrusted to Martine Joste, helped me to free myself from certain limits imposed at the outset, and enabled me to diversify the resources, by associating them with other non-Indonesian sounds. To preserve the voice’s original timbre, I preferred to have her sing in her own language rather than in French. I was therefore able, not without difficulty, to find an Indonesian translation of Éluard’s poem Liberté, and it is this that is sung, completing a dialogue between the two cultures.