The Music of Hindostan c17.147

c17.147

We will now put side by side a good specimen of each system, for comparison of method, not of merit. For it must be remembered that the Indians do not make ‘tunes’ in our sense; all they do is to display *Rāg* and *Tāl*. Still, most of those given in the last chapter are tunes with a beginning, middle, and end, though it may be doubted whether a Hindu would consider them to be typical of his music at its best. Florestan's air from *Fidelio* compresses the maximum of point and balance into four bars, and a singularly beautiful tune in *Rāg Kānaḍā* attains with curious felicity a more ornate symmetry in sixteen: