The Music of Hindostan c5.32

c5.32

“A note is held on *pianissimo*, almost too high for the ear to distinguish, like the opening phrase of *Lohengrin*, and then through several and various developments passes into a rhythmic movement without any increase in the body of sound. Astonishing it is, this almost silent music issuing from such powerful strings! It is like the buzzing of a fly imprisoned in your hand, or the rustle of a moth’s wing against a window-pane, or the death struggle of a dragon-fly. One of the players holds in his mouth a little steel implement, and by the vibration of his cheeks produces the sound of a whispering fountain. Another, on one of the largest of the guitars, coaxed by the hand as if the player were afraid of it, keeps up on the same notes a prolonged Tuwhoo! like the blurred note of an owl, whilst a third instrument, muted, gives the sound of the surf on a distant beach. Then there are taps on the edge of the drum-head with the finger tips which your ear can hardly detect. Suddenly jerks and jolts, utterly unexpected, introduce a mad fit of two seconds duration; the strings vibrate at their full length, and these same drums, struck differently, utter deep, dull sounds like the lumbering stampede of elephants over hollow ground, or the rumbling of a subterranean torrent in some boiling chasm. Then in a moment all grows quiet again, and relapses at last into the whisper with which it began.