Bittersweet Sounds of Passage

Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music

Ellen Koskoff

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English

University of Illinois Press
08 July 2025

Theory of music & musicology; Non-Western music: traditional & "classical"; Folk & traditional music; Sociology: death & dying

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.

By: Ellen Koskoff
Imprint: University of Illinois Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780252088735
ISBN 10: 0252088735
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 08 July 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Companion Website List of Recordings List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Balinese Village Life Chapter 2. Gamelan Angklung Today Chapter 3. Gamelan Angklung Scholarship and Its Legacies Chapter 4. Three Possible Gamelan Angklung Ancestors Chapter 5. Work for the Dead Chapter 6. Work for the Community Chapter 7. Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music Today Chapter 8. Flow-Paths Chapter 9. In the Context of Performance Glossary Notes References Index

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.

Reviews for Bittersweet Sounds of Passage: Balinese Gamelan Angklung Cremation Music

""A marvelous and distinctive contribution to the growing canon of scholarship on Balinese gamelan music that is sure to be enjoyed by international gamelan musicians, students of ethnomusicology, and the many connoisseurs of Balinese culture far beyond academia.""--Michael Tenzer, author of Gamelan Gong Kebyar: The Art of Twentieth Century Balinese Music