First published in the 1996 Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, Martha Novak Clinkscale, editor.
Republished electronically Nov. 1997, by kind permission of the Journal; copyright retained by the Amercan Musical Instrument Society. All photos by Sam Quigley ©1996, except where otherwise noted.
Please visit the web site of the American Musical Instrument Society at http://www.amis.org/

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) is known to many as the founder of Singapore, probably his greatest and most lasting accomplishment. Others know him as the brilliant young man who served as Lieutenant Governor of Java from 1811 to 1816 after the Dutch requested British stewardship of their colonies during the Napoleonic era. Yet another segment of society knows him as a tireless collector of botanical and zoological specimens and is indebted to him for having founded the London Zoological Society. Some contemporary observers viewed him as an enlightened ruler since he spoke with local nobility in their own languages, introduced significant land reforms, and outlawed slavery.

Others held him in contempt as a military colonialist, who, after having successfully invaded the royal palace in Yogyakarta, allowed his troops to ransack it and carry off some 150 illuminated manuscripts and other precious spoils. The jealousies of some erstwhile underlings temporarily undermined him with false accusations, forcing him to return to London in March 1816 to clear his name. During his stay in England that year, among many high profile activities, he also wrote the monumental two-volume History of Java (London, 1817), a work for which he is widely admired. His reputation runs the gamut from the admiring appellation "Builder of Empire," to the dubious distinction of being a renegade colonialist. There is no doubt that he was a remarkably gifted and multi-faceted man.¹

To those interested in the culture of Indonesia, however, he is remembered primarily as a collector of objects used in the Javanese performing arts, the most famous of which is the fantastically zoomorphic gamelan in the British Museum's Department of Ethnology at the Museum of Mankind2 (fig. 2).(Note: since the construction of the new British Library, the holdings of the Department of Ethnology are now based in the main building in Bloomsbury.)

Complementing that gamelan, there are some 360 wayang kulit (flat leather puppets), a number of wayang kerucil (flat wooden puppets), some three-dimensional wooden puppet-like figures, and a large collection of topeng (wooden masks).³ Much less well known, but of interest, is a complete miniature gamelan donated to the British Museum in 1939 by Mrs. J. H. Drake, Raffles's granddaughter. Intermingled with these Javanese items are two early-nineteenth-century Balinese gambuh suling, a Balinese kecer, a Sundanese tarawangsa, some drums from Thailand, and a few other musical objects.

Yet another gamelan (fig. 3) brought back by Raffles now belongs to the Verney family and is located in their ancestral home, Claydon House, in Buckinghamshire. Taken together, these artifacts are of singular importance to the study of Javanese culture as they are the earliest known objects of this kind to have been exported from Java.

Nearly unknown, with only one published photograph,⁴ the Claydon House gamelan is a fascinating set of instruments with several very surprising characteristics. In November 1994 and January 1995 I was fortunate enough to realize a nearly twenty-year ambition to closely examine both of these remarkable large gamelans.⁵ After discussing recently discovered proof that Raffles himself commissioned the Claydon House gamelan, I will discuss the physical attributes of the instruments and through analysis show that the tuning accords to the diatonic scale. The supposition that it was originally intended as such will be supported by contemporaneous writings. Attention will then be focused on the reasons why this has escaped notice until now. Following some suggestions for the future of these instruments, I will close with a brief discussion of some especially interesting features of individual instruments. To the extent possible, I will show that the instruments were made by highly skilled artisans working in different workshops in the northeastern coastal region of Java, probably somewhere between Semarang and Surabaya.

The Raffles Provenance

The vast archive of the Verney Family Trust contains approximately 30,000 letters covering three centuries of family history. Recently it yielded two documents of great importance to the present inquiry.⁶ The first is a letter, dated 12 September 1861 and addressed to Sir Harry Verney from the Rev. William Charles Raffles Flint⁷ which is in essence a confirmation of sale and transmittal of the instruments:

"My dear Sir Harry

"I am extremely glad that you should be the possessor of the Musical Instruments, as with you then will be both valued, & kept together. Had I not felt disinclined from the first to part any of them from the rest, they might have been disposed of long since. The collection I presented to the British Museum though of far greater antiquity & composed of [rare(?)] instruments, is far less perfect. These you will find figured and explained at page 470 in the History of Java Vol I. It is from thence that I took the descriptive Catalogue. No other exists. I have sent you a list which, with the Instruments & the Plate before you, you can easily identify.

"Whatever imperfections Exist are such as have always been known to us. The 'Gender' should be repaired with a few pieces of brass being soldered on to make the metal pieces stand clear of the frames. This is one of the most interesting & curious of the set. A little soap & water, cold, may be safely applied to clean the gilding & painting, & with good effect ....

I am your sincerely W. Raffles Flint

Attached to the letter is "the Catalogue," with the following statement: "Javanese Band of Musical Instruments made to the order of the late Sir T. Stamford Raffles and brought by him from Java 1816" (fig. 4)

The list is somewhat confusing since the nomenclature is not entirely accurate and the numbers in parentheses refer to similar instruments depicted in Raffles's History of Java. The so-called "(2) Gambang Gangsa, the keys are of wood" is in fact a Gambang kayu, since kayu means wood while gangsa means bronze. Further, the line "(6) Demong" refers to the seven instruments which have a nearly identical appearance in both size and decoration but sound in three different octaves and therefore have different names. In fact, the Claydon House gamelan is comprised of the following instruments (approximating the order of Flint's list):

one Gambang kayu, hereinafter referred to as a gambang (fig. 5)
one Gendèr barung, hereinafter referred to as a gendèr (fig. 6)
one "Saron slenthem"8 (fig. 7)
two Saron demung (fig. 7a)
four Saron barung	(same as above)
two Gong ageng on a single support (fig. 28)
two Kenong on individual supports (fig. 8)
one Kendhang (a large ketipung or possibly a small ciblon) (fig. 3a)

The other letter was written by Lady Verney sometime in 1861 and indicates that she intended to help in the purchase of the gamelan.⁹

"I also mean to pay for the Gongs etc. Papa was very anxious to buy them & would not do it without my approbation which I could only [indecipherable] by giving my allowance again for this 6 months, and I must hope that the Gongs will preserve a good sound of me to Claydon..."

Thus, we know that Raffles commissioned this gamelan (it cannot therefore be dated before 1812) and that it was purchased by the Verney family -- it was not a gift from Sir Stamford Raffles, as is reported in the booklet distributed at Claydon House.¹⁰

That Raffles commissioned these instruments helps explain many questions: why they were so exquisitely made, why the decoration is so appealing to Western eyes, why they are in such extraordinary condition, why the instrumentation is not complete enough to be musically viable, and why the gamelan is tuned to a diatonic scale.

Owing to his political position, his military supremacy and his comparative wealth, Raffles would have been viewed by the Javanese as the most powerful lord of the land. He was known to speak and read Malay and Javanese and, for a Westerner, to have an unprecedented interest in Malay traditional culture. Thus, when he ordered a gamelan, we can assume that the finest artisans were approached to carry out the work and that, as if for a royal patron, the set would be lavish and impressive. Further, as is the custom, he would have been expected to specify elements of the carved decoration, the paint colors, and the character of the tuning, the latter, being not as standardized in Java as is it in the West.

Raffles seems not to have left much to chance. This inveterate collector traveled widely within Java and, as a keen observer, might well have assembled a portfolio of decorative schema which could be referenced when commissioning a gamelan. It is quite possible that he specified indigenous decorative vocabulary, which appealed to his European taste; he may even have suggested some Westernizing alterations and then left it up to the artisans to incorporate his ideas.

Among the traditional motifs11 he could have easily stipulated are: the intersecting flower-petal grillwork (common to many batik designs) and the upholstery-like decorative beading on all the instruments, the undulating C scrolls,
	and spiral-fluted balusters on the gongstand (fig. 9), and the precious treatment of the finial at the end of both the gongstand
and the gendèr key holders (fig. 22).

The care with which the decoration was planned as an integral part of each case piece and the quality of its execution are stunning. The carved decoration is restrained but opulent; its gilding has great depth and complements the deep ocre-painted ground. The heavily patinated bronze keys silently convey the great age of the set, while the superb condition of the teakwood (Tectonis grandis¹²) cases leads one to wonder how much, if ever, the gamelan had been used before it was brought to the more temperate climate of Great Britain.

The Tuning of the Gamelan

It is not only in appearance that Raffles specified the aesthetic principles he found pleasing, he must also have requested a specific tuning. Despite the slight aberrations audible today (due to age-related changes in bronze¹³) it would appear that the original tuning of the gamelan was intended to be diatonic. However, upon a first hearing, this determination would seem to be quite wide of the mark: the tuning seems to accord to no logic at all. Its diatonicity became apparent only after close visual examination of the seven seven-keyed saron; this inspection revealed that nine keys -- nearly 20% of the saron keys -- are replacements, made as castings of other keys in the same set. Of these, only the saron slenthem, and one of the two saron demung retain their full complement of original keys. A third instrument, the gendèr, also completely original, covers two octaves using eleven keys: a tone row that lacks the fourth and seventh degrees of the scale, owing to the nature of its traditional pentatonic performance style.¹⁴ By removing from consideration the replacement keys, the original intent of the gamelan tuner becomes quite apparent.

Although the tuning the Claydon House gamelan does not accord exactly with any of the main diatonic temperaments, it is easily recognizable to the ear as such.¹⁵ Allowing for slight intonation aberrations within the Claydon House tone row, a Western musician can readily discern the intervals of a perfect fifth, a major third, a major sixth, and a major second. Less acceptably in tune -- but still reasonably recognizable -- are the intervals of the rather sharp perfect fourth, and the somewhat flat major seventh. By contrast, the degree of tolerance employed in order to comprehend the gamelan's diatonicity pales in comparison with that which would be necesary to understand its tuning as a variant of the Javanese laras (tuning system) pélog. You can listen to three audio files of the tuning by clicking here.

The following is a graphical expression of these comparisons.

There are two contemporaneous accounts which support the claim that the gamelan was originally tuned to the diatonic scale. In his 1828 article, "On the Resonances, or Reciprocated Vibrations of Columns of Air," Charles Wheatstone refers to the gendèr in question and states quite clearly and with no additional comment or equivocation: "Of these plates there are eleven; their sounds correspond with the notes of the diatonic scale, deprived of its fourth and seventh, and extend through two octaves."16 Adjacent to this statement is an accurate drawing of the instrument, then said to be in the museum of the Honourable East India Company. (fig. 10)

In a memoir dated 4 March 1839 Baron Christian Bunsen, Minister Plenipotentiary of the King of Prussia, is quoted as saying about Lady Raffles' gamelans: "Her set of Japanese [sic] instruments of music -- (plates of brass, &c.) -- have no quart or septima, but otherwise our scale." ¹⁷

Quite a bit later than these two references, none other than Alexander Ellis examined the instruments at Albert Hall in 1885 while they were on loan from Sir Harry Verney.¹⁸ The gendèr keys were not properly suspended over the resonators, and Ellis could not get adequate measurements. He also commented that the saron keys were all so jumbled that he and Alfred James Hipkins (of J. Broadwood & Sons) had to measure them first and then try to make sense of the scale, for which he noted the frequencies (fig. 11).

Figure 11. Ellis's frequency measurements and comparison

As can be seen, Ellis's 1885 measurements are generally in accord with those I made in 1994. However, he came to a different conclusion about the nature of the scale. In this context and with all due respect, I present the following quotation from the Appendix to Ellis's 1885 article: "Although these do not agree with the seven Pélog notes on p. 512 of my paper, yet they must certainly be another version of a Pélog set of notes."²⁰ Indeed, this may be the only written record of the Western diatonic scale referred to as a version of laras pélog. It is probably fortunate for us all that Ellis did not try to develop a theory for Javanese music that could account for the tuning system of the Claydon House gamelan.

Figure 12 presents the tuning measurements of the gamelan as a whole. When the present distribution of the keys was codified in 1962,²¹ the seven individual saron were assigned the labels A through G, and the keys were then marked 1 through 7 (highest to lowest) with white painted numbers, so that specific keys can easily be referred to as, e.g. A1, D4, or G7. For convenience, I have extended this scheme to include the remaining instruments (i.e., the gendèr and the kenong). Before returning to the question of the diatonicity of the gamelan, we must consider the replacement keys more thoroughly. Which ones are not original, and how it is possible to identify them?

Aside from the dissimilar coloration and barely-perceptible differences in size, the hammering patterns on the undersides of the keys provide indisputable evidence for the determination of which keys are replacements. All sounding elements of a gamelan result from being hammered out of red-hot bronze ingots. The set of impressions left by hundreds of hammer blows on a key make it inconceivable that two keys could be identical in appearance. Thus, when two keys have the same pattern of hammering marks, one is, by definition, a casting of the other.

The three representative photographs (figs. 13, 13a and 14) show a few of the correlations. Further supporting this evidence, the holes of the replacements are perfectly round whereas the holes of the originals are slightly ovoid, the result of traditional technique, in which the holes are punched during forging rather than being drilled after the casting process.

Figure 15 itemizes the replacement keys and the respective originals from which they were cast.²²

Figure 15

The so-called "Outsider key" is in the possession of the British Museum and is recognized by their staff as being dissimilar to any of the keys belonging to the zoomorphic Raffles gamelan.²³ There is no question that it is originally from the Claydon House gamelan and it is my opinion that this key should be re-united with it. The key labelled F7 is an anomaly. It is not a casting of any other key in the set, but it appears to be very different in color and manufacture.

Having identified and discounted the replacements, the current tuning of the gamelan makes sense as a near-diatonic scale. If the saron keys were redistributed and the replacements re-tuned, it would be possible to make the gamelan more accurately reflect the original intent of the maker and its first owner. Figure 16, shows how this might be done; it is based on two assumptions: (1) that the "Outsider key" be returned to Claydon House, and (2) that it would be ethically acceptable to alter the tuning of the replacement keys (only the replacement keys) in order to bring them into accord with the original keys. Figure 17 presents this proposal more visually.

Instrumentation and Physical Description

However beautiful and visually coherent the gamelan may be, the instrumentation of the ensemble is musically limited. It is very surprising that the gamelan has no bonang since this instrument is essential to the loud style of playing that one would expect from an ensemble with such massive saron. Alternatively, it is possible that the gamelan was intended for a quiet style of performance. If this were to be the case, the absence of a bonang would be acceptable, but, one would then expect to find at least a rebab and suling, and possibly a celempung. However, because of their more ephemeral nature, each of these three latter instrument types tend to have a looser association with a unified ensemble and frequently become lost or replaced over time. Usually, if a rebab and suling are included as parts of the gamelan, there are individual supports decorated en suite with the rest of the casework; at Claydon House there is no evidence of such supports. Since gamelan ensembles from approximately the same era and the same general region generally do include a bonang,²⁴ if any of the original instruments of the Claydon House gamelan are missing, I believe it more likely that it would be the bonang that has been lost. However, there is, no evidence of the ensemble ever having been more or less complete than it is today. Indeed, Flint's letter seems to indicate that the ensemble was as complete in 1861 as it always had been. Thus, we must assume either that the gamelan comes from a tradition which does not require a more complete instrumentation, that something is missing, or that its instrumentation vis-à-vis the local performance practices was not an issue, because it was commissioned by a Westerner for purposes unknown.

The Seven Saron

Externally, the seven seven-keyed instruments share an identical design. In this regard they reflect common practice represented by most old gamelan surviving in Java, such as the Gamelan Sekati in the Keraton Yogyakarta
(unlike the zoomorphic gamelan at the British Museum and another remarkable one at the Field Museum in Chicago, Ill., both of which have individually sculpted instruments). Among the several generally recognized saron forms, i.e., those now associated with Yogyakarta, Surakarta, and the northern coastal areas (the pasisir),
the Claydon House saron may initially appear to be Yogyanese in form. A review of nineteenth-century archival photographs reveals, however, that in the past these forms were not nearly so easily identified as they are today with specific geographical areas. Thus, it is not safe to attribute these instruments to the Yogyanese orbit.

Interestingly, the dimensions of all the Claydon House saron cases are nearly identical; unlike current practice (or that of earlier eras in the royal court cities) the size of the saron do not visually convey the octave level ²⁵ (fig. 18). Among the three octaves represented, the overall length of the lowest octave instrument is only 80 mm. longer than the highest. It is much more typical to find the length of the lowest instrument measuring about twice that of the highest. (see Appendix B for measurements of the saron keys)

Figure 18.

There are subtle differences in construction which are not apparent until the instruments are carefully examined. Most of the saron appear to be carved from single pieces of teakwood and the absence of noticeable checking in these massive logs would indicate that the wood was well seasoned and carefully chosen for the commission. (Nowadays, saron are made in three horizontal sections and assembled with screws.) Each instrument has seven individually carved out resonating chambers which are specifically tuned to the keys resting above them; this is in contrast to current practice of providing one common resonator trough for all seven keys. On the saron slenthem, and both saron demung, these cavities are capped by a horizontal board joined into the top surface of the instrument and fitted with various-sized apertures for fine tuning. On the four saron barung, the individual cavities are entirely open. The interior vertical walls of the cavities, normally unseen and usually roughed out with coarse adzes, are remarkably smooth. The finish of these walls, which are perpendicular to the grain, indicates that the carvers kept their tools extremely sharp and took great care in every aspect of the instruments' manufacture. This, along with the remarkably consistent measurements, the high quality of decorative and hidden carving, and the massiveness and quality of wood further support that this commission was placed by a patron of the highest rank.

The Gendèr barung

The gendèr might warrant an entire monograph devoted to it alone. The casework and decorative carving are magnificent, the eleven keys are beautifully made and provide evidence of interesting tuning practice, the resonating tubes were made of very thick-walled bamboo, and, perhaps as a consequence, are in perfect condition. Finally, as was noted above, the nature of its tuning is surprising and was commented upon in two early-nineteenth century articles.

The four turned legs, which raise the base about 500 mm. above the floor were almost certainly made in England. Like many European table legs, they thread into metal plates which are set into the underside of the base. However unsightly these accretions may be to modern eyes, they at least served to protect from accidental harm the exquisitely carved likeness of the Hindu deity Ganesa, which sits on the little platform protruding at the center of the instrument's base.

The original frame holding the resonating tubes is significantly taller and appears somewhat more Balinese in form than Javanese gendèr made today. (Overall height, minus the legs is 845 mm., height of resonator tube cavity is 567 mm.) A solid, carved front panel runs between the two vertical end pieces in the front, while on the player's side the end pieces are connected at top and bottom by horizontal rails, which also receive vertical rails to form a decorative frame about 100 mm. wide.
The resonator tubes contained within can be plainly seen through this frame, and just above them is joined into the frame a most unusual horizontal capping board, which runs the length of the instrument. The underside of this capping board is chiseled out to receive the tops of the resonator tubes, an ingenious means of preventing the tubes from rattling during performance.
Affixed on an axle near the top of the two of the eleven resonator tubes -- for the keys tuned to the tonic pitch (i.e., nada 1) -- are fascinating "butterfly valves," not unlike those found in carburetors, which, by partially closing the opening of their tubes, alter the resonant pitch of the tubes (fig. 20).26
Five "w-shaped" bronze castings (sangan) sit in fitted holes atop the capping board and function to support the cord from which the keys are suspended above the tube resonators. These are probably the fixtures that Flint indicated could be fixed by soldering on small pieces of brass. Indeed, several of them still lack the little locating prongs which would fit into the corresponding holes on the top of the wooden capping board. The eleven bronze keys, all of which are original, were forged and then filed to form the ridges which divide the tops of the keys into three longitudinally concave facets (blimbingan). Except for their comparatively large size and the fact that the corners are not at all rounded, they have the appearance of "normal" modern gendèr keys. There is no evidence of the wear patterns typical of old gendèr, either in the middle where the mallets strike them or at the ends where the player's hands dampen their sound (fig. 21).
The quality of the carving is extraordinary.

	The undersides were thoroughly scraped down except for a prominent central ridge, approximately 10 mm. wide at its base, which runs between the suspension holes (fig. 22).
	The underside show evidence of a kind of tool which might be thought of as a "comb-plane," in that it leaves tiny parallel longitudinal furrows the entire length of the key. (fig. 23)

Other than the gendèr at the British Museum, I have never seen any gamelan keys with this kind of scraping. In my experience the only knobbed instruments showing evidence of this tool are from the 1840 gamelan at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; this gamelan may have been made in the northeastern coastal region around the city of Blora. It is possible that the use of this kind of scraping tool was typical of the early-nineteenth century or of the Eastern parts of Java and the island of Madura.

The Gambang kayu

A large and impressive instrument, the size of the gambang accords with the rest of the instruments in the ensemble. Because the case is so tall, the eighteen keys rest 415 mm. above the floor, a distance much higher than modern gambang. Judging from archival photographs, however, one sees that the size of the Claydon House gambang may not be atypical. The keys are made of a dark hardwood and produce a very pleasing sound.²⁷ As in modern practice, the keys each have only one locating hole to keep them properly aligned on pegs which are driven into the edge of the instrument on the player's side. The large resonating cavity, formed by the joined boards comprising the upper part of the case, is open at the top and shows no evidence of the horizontal capping boards in widespread use today.

In modern performance, the gambang, while a significant embellishing instrument, is somewhat eclipsed in importance by the rebab and the gendèr. Because of this, one can forget that the gambang is highly favored by many Javanese traditions outside of Central Java.

Indeed, it can be frequently seen in many nineteenth-century photographs in the center of the front row of instruments with an important-looking man sitting behind it. (See, for example, fig. 24a, or the photo of the Sultan of Bangkalan's gamelan referred to in footnote 25, or the photo of the Regent of Kediri in Kunst (op. cit.).
Thus it may not so surprising that the only inscriptions to be found on any of the Claydon House gamelan instruments were written on the underside of the gambang case (fig. 25). Unfortunately, the Arabic-influenced cursive script (middle left) and the sloppy Javanese calligraphy (upper right) has proven to be undecipherable by several experts.28

The Kendhang

Flint called the only drum in the ensemble a kendhang ketipung; but, in comparison to modern examples, it is quite large. Its measurements are: 715 mm., overall length; 324 mm., shell diameter at the large end; 260 mm., shell diameter at the small end. At this size it could be considered a kendhang ciblon but it is impossible to make such a determination without knowing the shape of the drum's interior. Both heads and the shell are in excellent shape, and there are no longitudinal abrasions between the laces which indicates that the drum had rarely, if ever, been tensioned for use in performance. The carving, which covers the drum's entire conical surface, is perfectly scaled, and the pattern wraps around the body continuously with no overlapping. The extraordinary execution of the decoration of this drum makes it unique.

The Kenong

There are only two kenong and their tunings accord to the nada 5 and 6 of the saron demung. Kenong 5 has an overall diameter of 490 mm. and an overall height of 376 mm., whereas the overall diameter of kenong 6 is 490 mm. and its height is 370 mm. On each, the entire top half, i.e., the central boss, the flat, and sloping collars (the pencu, rai, and recep, respectively), is filed smooth and shows evidence of the "comb-plane" mentioned above. The lower half (the bau) on each kenong is somewhat filed but left heavily dimpled with the hammering marks clearly visible. Similar to the kenong at the British Museum, each has a very prominent ridge indented all around the sidewall about 30 mm. above the bottom edge. Both Claydon House kenong kettles were very well made, but the sound of the higher one is superior to that of the lower one.

The free-standing individual kenong supports are identical. They are four-sided boxes, open to the top and bottom, made of pierce-carved panels, which are tenoned into round cornerposts. There has been considerable alteration to the means by which the suspension ropes are fastened to the top of the box; it is therefore not possible to describe the original disposition with certainty. The most salient features of these two support boxes are the magnificent design and the careful execution of the decoration.

The Gong Ageng

There are two gong ageng, which measure 880 mm. and 840 mm. in diameter. Today, they are both disappointing in terms of sound production. The larger one produces a loud buzz when struck and appears to have had a crack on its face which was repaired by lost-wax method. For years there also have been two small gongs also hanging with the two Javanese gong ageng, one from Burma, the other probably from Japan.

In general, observations about the overall shape and proportionality of knobbed gongs can support an attribution of a particular instrument to a known gong making tradition or even provide enough evidence to point to a particular workshop. However, the body of comparative research is far too small, to allow for any conclusive statement about the origin of the two Claydon House gong ageng.²⁹ Nevertheless, certain features of these gongs are noteworthy since they distinguish them from most others; in all of these important characteristics the Claydon House gongs very closely resemble the two gong ageng of the Raffles gamelan at the British Museum. The latter zoomorphic gamelan may well have come from the island of Madura, just off the northeast coast of Java, near Surabaya.³⁰ Obviously, if it could be shown that the characteristics of the gongs were quite specific to a single gong-making tradition, one would be inclined to attribute the two Claydon House gong ageng (and kenong) to that tradition. Indeed, there was a thriving gong-making industry in the town of Gresik during Raffles's time, and he is known to have had strong connections with both the indigenous Regent and the Dutch Resident, Carel van Naerssen.³¹

Figure 26 is a drawing which compares the profile characterizing the two Claydon House gong ageng on the left, and that of modern Javanese gong ageng on the right.

The most immediately apparent difference lies in the prominence and height of the shoulder A (or dudu) and the resulting depth of the adjacent wide trough between A and B (or recep). Also significant is the angle a formed by the plane between A and B and the sidewall (or bau). Corollary to this is the equal height of points A and B as compared to the mouth of the gong; it is modern practice to make point B slightly higher than point A. The large central flat lying between points B and C (or rai) slopes upward slightly compared to the modern style, in which this plane is generally parallel to the mouth. Also unlike modern construction, there is a line of very prominent hammer blows near the bottom of the sidewall; these have caused the lip of the gong to be prominently flared outward. Furthermore, the thickness of the edge (lambe) and the acute angle b it forms with the sidewall (bau) are quite different from the treatment of this area today.

The ratio between the overall diameter and the pencu (boss, or knob)(C), and that between the diameter of the rai (B) and the pencu for both the Claydon House gongs are also almost exactly in accord with the British Museum gongs (fig. 27).

Figure 27

Finally, the surfaces of all four of the gongs were finished to the same degree. Contrary to current general practice, where only the pencu is scraped and polished, or that for very special gongs, where the entire outside surface is scraped and polished, the four Raffles gongs are scraped and polished only on the face; in each case the sidewall is left only partially filed, and large hammer marks are clearly visible.

The gongstand is usually the visual focal point of any gamelan. As such, a gongstand is lavishly decorated, using motifs applied to the other instruments, as well as additional special motifs appropriate only to the gongstand. In this regard, the Claydon House gongstand is no exception (fig. 28).

It is a truly masterful blending of the motifs used throughout in the decoration of the gamelan. The carving above the crossbar is enclosed by a line of undulating C scrolls which contains the flower-petal gridwork pattern characteristic of the whole ensemble. The gridwork supports this line and also seems to wrap around the circumference of the crossbar itself. At the top of the legs, the capitals continue the gridwork as they taper to the elegantly carved spiral balusters.

These balusters are themselves bordered by rings of the repetitive beading pattern.32 Figure 29 shows a detail of one of the feet at the base of these columns.

	The gongstand most similar to the one at Claydon House is one which belonged to the Regent of Malang, an important city in the center of East Java (fig. 24).

The most striking similarities with the Claydon House gongstand are the undulating C scrolls and the continuation of the floral work around the crossbar itself and into the capitals of the upright columns. Also of interest shown in this photograph because of the strong similarity with the Claydon House saron design, is the fully sculpted termination of a saron case, visible just behind the gambang, in front of the gongstand's foot.

Summary

Judging from the instrumentation and the massive size of its instruments, I think that the Claydon House gamelan is reminiscent of Majapahit, the ancient kingdom, which was centered in East Java. It also appears likely that the two gong ageng and the two kenong of the Claydon House gamelan may have come from the northeastern coastal area, somewhere between Rembang and Surabaya, very possibly from the gong-making tradition centered in Gr_sik. The carved wooden cases could have been made in this region as well; however, because of the use of some specific stylistic motifs and the extraordinary execution of the carving, an attribution to the more central coastal area around Jepara, famous for its exquisite woodcarving tradition, may also be justified. Even though a number of the Claydon House gamelan saron keys are missing, the surviving ones and the extraordinary gendèr keys appear very dissimilar in proportion and quality of manufacture to those of the Raffles gamelan at the British Museum. In fact, the Claydon House keys appear quite similar to those found in the central coastal regions of Java; for these reasons it is probable that they were manufactured by artisans in a different tradition, perhaps that of Semarang or possibly even one of the royal court cities in Central Java. The separate manufacture of components is not uncommon today, and it seems entirely plausible that an important commission such as the one for the Lieutenant-Governor, would have warranted the usage of the very best specialists in their respective fields, no matter where they may have lived.

The Claydon House gamelan presents remarkable evidence of an interest in Javanese music on the part of an important European, demonstrated by the purchase of a grand and expensive ensemble. Its diatonic tuning gives us an insight into Raffles's own appreciation of Javanese music -- albeit somewhat altered to suit his taste -- and serendipitously has the potential of shedding some light on British pitch level, or some facsimile thereof, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

It is my hope that with this newly discovered information, the Claydon House gamelan can now be better appreciated as a benchmark attesting to the refined state of Javanese decorative and musical arts of about 1815. I also hope that the rewards of close organological examination described in this article will induce others to reexamine gamelan instruments in their possession in order that a larger body of comparative information can be developed for future research.