Ngelam-lami / Waldjinah accompanied by the Orkes Krontjong Bintang. (Lokananta Records, [195-?])
Kroncong (or krontjong) is an older style of Indonesian popular music that uses Western instruments but has some characteristics of traditional music. The typical
kroncong orchestra comprises violin, (plucked) cello, ukulele, mandolin and flute. The songs are languid in style and tempo and generally nostalgic or sentimental in their lyrics. Songs are usually sung in Indonesian, but this record features a Javanese style of kroncong called langgam.
Kroncong has its roots in Portuguese songs and instruments that were brought to Indonesia in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, when the Portuguese colonised parts of present-day Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. It developed in the late ninetheenth- and early twentieth-century among poor Eurasians in what was then Batavia and was taken up as a musical genre of the nationalist movement, especially during the Japanese Occupation when music from the West was banned. Many now famous Indonesian songs were composed as
kroncong songs, such as Bengawan Solo. Kroncong is popular today mainly among an older generation of Indonesians.
The items in this section of the display all come from the Music & Multimedia Collection.
