Tembang

Javanese poetry (poetry in the Javanese or especially the Kawi language; Low Javanese: tembang; High Javanese: sekar) is traditionally recited in song form. The standard forms are divided into three types, sekar ageng, sekar madya, and sekar macapat, also common with the ngoko terms: tembang gedhé, tembang tengahan, and tembang macapat. All three types follow strict rules of poetic construction. These forms are highly influential in Javanese gamelan.

The most sacred are the sekar ageng (Low Javanese: tembang gedhé; "great songs"). These were traditionally held to be the most ancient of the forms, but Jaap Kunst believed that the indigenous forms represented an older tradition. The ancient forms of these, known as kakawin, use meters from Indian poetry, specifying the number of syllables in each line, their vowel length, and the location of caesurae. Exactly how this ancient form sounded when sung is hard to know, as the modern form has been influenced by gamelan structures. It may have resembled modern Indian or Balinese chant.

The modern form of sekar ageng are always in stanzas of four lines, and the number of syllables in each (lampah) is fixed and divided into parts (pedhotan) by caesurae. (Vowel length is no longer distinguished.) These indications are ordinarily indicated with the form; for example, sekar ageng Bongsa patra, lampah 17, pedhotan 4,6,7. According to Padmasasustra, there are 44 types of sekar ageng used in Surakarta.

A sekar ageng is sometimes used as a type of buka (song introduction) known as a bawa. It is sung solo, or may be supported by the gendér. Only the first line is used in the introduction, and the rest may follow in the actual gendhing. Martopangrawit believes that this began only in the late 19th century, at the time of Paku Buwana IX (r. 1861-93).

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