The Music of Hindostan c17.161

c17.161

These two tunes epitomize for us the music of West and East. On the one side a repression of what is petty, a rejection of what is transient, a soberness in gaiety, an endurance in grief. On the other a vivid insight, the eager quest after wayside beauty, the dexterous touch that turns it to account. The one seems to say—Life is puzzling, its claims are many, its enthusiasms hardly come by; but we will hammer out a solution not by turning away from ugliness but by compelling it to serve the ends of beauty. The other—Life is simple, and beauty close at hand at every moment whenever we look or listen or wherever we go; the mistake is in ourselves if we do not train our eyes and ears and hearts to find it.