The Music of Hindostan c5.37

c5.37

"Last of all came the turn of the *primo uomo*, a handsome man in the prime of life. He sings and acts for me the laments of a young girl deserted by her lover. Seated like the rest on the ground he is at first buried in thought; his brow puckers; his eye darkens. Then his voice breaks out with the incisive wail of an Eastern bagpipe. In his extreme high notes you are still aware, by its harshness, that the voice is a man's; but in the heart-broken tones I hear—and it is a revelation to me—the very song of anguish; and his play of feature and the tense motions of his tapering fingers accentuate the agony of his despair.