Река Соло: История одной песни

"Bengawan Solo" (lit. (literally) "Solo River") is an Indonesian song written by Gesang Martohartono in 1940. The song is a description of the longest river in Java, Solo River. The song became popular in Indonesia during the Second World War and was one of the songs promoted nationally in the newly independent country after the war. The song is the first song written in Bahasa Indonesia by an Indonesian to achieve widespread popularity in Indonesia. It also became popular in Japan, other Far East and Southeast Asian countries, and many versions of the song in different languages exist.

The song was written in 1940 by Gesang Martohartono when he was 23. Gesang was an untrained musician from Surakarta when he composed "Bengawan Solo". The song is the first song in Bahasa Indonesia by a local composer to gain wide popularity in Indonesia and around the world. It was widely broadcast as a propaganda song in Indonesia during Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies that started in 1942 during World War II, and it was also one of the songs promoted nationally by Sukarno after the Second World War and independence in 1945. In 1991, a group of appreciative Japanese war veterans arranged for a statue of Martohartono to be erected in a park in Surakarta. Gesang, who became a nationally renowned figure for the song, died in 2010.

The song is a poetic description of Java's longest river, Solo River, which flows through central and eastern Java, Indonesia. It describes how its water changes in the dry and rainy seasons, and that it flows from the city of Surakarta (known locally as Solo) surrounded by mountains, eventually into the sea. It ends with the observation that it has always been used by merchants with boats.

During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, its melodies appealed to the occupying Japanese soldiers as well as the non Indonesian prisoners (mainly Dutch civilians) in the internment camps. A Japanese colonel, Takahashi Kōryō, wrote new lyrics in Indonesian to the tune of "Bengsawan Solo" in a song called "Negeri Sekutu" in an attempt to popularize anti Allies sentiment among Indonesians. Ichirō Fujiyama, a Japanese singer who was taken prisoner in East Java when Japan surrendered and spent some time in a prison in the Solo River area, took "Bengawan Solo" to Japan (with the lyrics translated to Japanese). It gained great popularity when 松田トシ recorded a version in 1947, which became a best seller. Other singers such as Hibari Misora, Akira Kobayashi and Harumi Miyako also recorded the song.

Bengawan Solo is the title of the 1949 Indonesian film with the song used as the title theme. The song was used in the 1949 Japanese film Stray Dog by Akira Kurosawa. Bengawan Solo (ブンガワンソロ, Bungawan Soro) is the title of a 1951 Japanese film directed by Kon Ichikawa, with "Bengawan Solo" its theme song. "Bengawan Solo" was used in the 1962 film An Autumn Afternoon by Yasujirō Ozu. Bengawan Solo is the name of a popular chain of cake and pastry shops in Singapore.