| But gamelan music is not only played at
wayang shows. The dances in tile wayang-topeng and wayang-wong are
executed to tile rhythmic strains of the gamelan; this kind of music
is indispensable at festivals, processions and oil other special occasions.
Gamelan music is polyphonic: certain instruments play the nuclear
theme, others the ornamental variations and counter-melodies, whilst
others keep and determine tile tempi, and a fourth group regulates
tile musical paraphrasing and interpunctuation.
Comparison with Western polyphonic music, as it reached its zenith
in the monumental works of Johann Sebastian Bach, is not really
admissible. Western polyphony has its strict rules, and is constructed
almost mathematically, whilst the polyphony practiced by the gameIan
players is much freer. For this reason the musicologist jaap Kunst
can even speak of 'heterophony'.
|