The Music of Hindostan c14.67

c14.67

Whatever the reader may think of the melody, he will not deny the oboist a firm grip of a difficult rhythm. (His name was Panna, and he was said, incidentally, very likely with truth, to be the ‘best Shahnai player in Hindostan’; the axis of the earth sticks up, however, in every city of India just as visibly as Heine said it did in Germany.) It is probably not accidental that the *tempo* ends up at ♩ = 260, exactly twice as fast as it began, and the phonograph leaves no doubt about the fact. The drummer is not so strong. He drums throughout in *Tintāl*; and there is nothing in his *parands* which shows that he feels the rhythm of *Āḍachautāla* at all. He ought to arrange to meet the player at one or other of the *sams* (A, B, C, &c.), and he does not do so in any case, although he manages to get a general sense of climax towards the end.