Sepuluh Jari was the result of a commission Farr received from New Zealand pianist Michael Houstoun. Houstoun asked Farr to compose a toccata, which led the composer to write a virtuosic work that draws on two non-Western tuning systems for its harmonic material – the Indian saraswati scale and the Balinese pelog scale. Beginning in the rumbling lower register of the piano, a lurching, dissonant sprinkling of pitches is repeated before being joined by a comparatively clear melodic line that gradually draws both hands into a higher and more expansive range. Cascading scalar passages interject over low-register arpeggiations, which then arrive at joyous declamatory moments that make use of the exoticism of the work's harmonic influences. The composer transforms these features as they recur throughout the work, rendering them as challenging passages that often require swift finger work. Insistent, pulsed material is interspersed with elastic rushes of energy and brief snatches of stillness and reflection.
From a recently-unearthed letter, apparently in the hand of of J.S. Bach:
"And here it is, my recently completed toccata, Sepuluh Jari – it means "ten fingers" in the native language here on the island of Bali.
I'm forever grateful to you for persuading me to take leave from my position as church organist and spend a year in the Hindu lands of India and Bali. I have found the rhythms and scales of the music here so inspirational that I could not stop them from creeping into this piece.
You must forgive me, though, if it gets a little crazy at times; a strange potion offered me from a coconut shell may be to blame – it made me feel quite queer."
The rest of the letter is illegible.
"...it was Gareth Farr's outrageously extrovert gamelan-inspired piece Sepuluh Jari that really got this capacity audience going. What a tremendous head of steam this piece works up – an exhilarating tour de force that Houston played with magnificent panache."
"Sepuluh Jari is full-on bravura piano writing - an exhilarating toccata for Michael Houstoun."
