David Lewiston

The thrilling sound of the Balinese orchestral style known as gamelan gong kebyar—which begins this record—is justly famous, for in no other music does one find such shimmering brilliance and tempestuous rhythms.

But it is less widely known that gamelan gong kebyar is only one of many beautiful musical styles found in Bali, which in its small area (only 2,147 square miles) contains a cornucopia of artistic wealth which would do honor to a country ten or twenty times its size.

Jawarharlal Nehru called Bali “the morning of the world” with good reason, for its some two-and-a-half million inhabitants lead unusually harmonious, satisfying lives refreshingly free of the tinsel that less wise countries mistake for civilization. For example, a farmer who works during the day in the lush rice paddies with which Bali’s hillsides are terraced may play an instrument in the village gamelan at night. His seven- or eight-year-old daughter, now playing a noisy game with her friends in the street, may at the very next moment emerge in the temple forecourt—which serves as a stage—as one of the gamelan’s star dancers.