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The Music of Hindostan c8.s2: History

The Music of Hindostan c8.s2

Language
English

History

c8.s2.1

And now, leaving legend, the first musician we meet with who is anything more than a name is Jayadeva (circ. A. D. 1100) the author of the *Gita Govinda*. He was a native of Kindavilva in Bengal. He assigns to each of his poems a definite *Rāg* and *Tāl*,¹ which are named after the Bengālī fashion. There is no musical notation; and it is open to any musician, now as then, to make or mar them by his treatment. In a poem of such delicate texture as the *Gita Govinda* the musical scheme could hardly fail to be a thoughtful one. The names of *Rāg* and *Tāl* which would be full of association to a Bengālī may connote little to us; but we may see from the mere titles how they have been used as an element in the design. The song of ‘one of Rādhā’s maidens’ in praise of love with which the *Gīta* begins is echoed by the ‘Hymen o Hymenaee’ at the close; both are in *Rāg Vasanta* and *Tāl Yati*. The voice of one ‘fair, but not so fair as Radha’ consoles and breathes hope which finds its fulfilment in Rādhā’s triumphant song of reconciliation (*Ramagiri*; *Yati*). The slighted Rādhā and the flouted Kṛṣṇa utter their sorrows in the same accents, and in these accents they afterwards forget them (*Gurjjari*; *Yati*). Kṛṣṇa’s assuring message is met by Rādhā’s jealousy; and the messenger, who is persuading her to relent, draws forth only a pitiful plaint over his neglect, to which the ‘chorus’ gives a new turn after Kṛṣṇa’s home coming (*Deshivarāḍi*; *Rūpaka*). Again, Rādhā rebukes Kṛṣṇa in the moving tones of *Bhairavi*, and his answer, when she has yielded, is in the ecstasy of *Bibhās*.

c8.s2.2

¹ The *Rāgs* are Gurjjari, Deshivarāḍi, Mālava, Bhairavi, Rāmagirī, Mālava-gaṇḍa, Karṇāṭa, Deshāga, Gondakirī, Vasanta, Varāḍi; and the *Tāls* Yati, Rūpaka, Ekatāli, and Aṣṭatāli. They are given here in the order of frequency of occurrence for the seventeen songs.

c8.s2.3

Akbar, late sixteenth century, is reported to have loved music as much as Aurungzeb, late seventeenth, hated it. He is said to have been a good player on the *Naqqārah* (a drum, used in pairs) and to have composed more than two hundred melodies. He invited Miyān Tānsen the pupil of Haridās Swāmī from the court of Rājah Rām of Baghelkhand, and loaded him with honours and gold. The Mohammedan *Ain-i-Akbari* says of Tānsen, ‘a singer like him has not been in India for the last thousand years.’ The Hindus, however, hold him principally responsible for the deterioration of Hindu music. He is said to have falsified the *rāgs*, and two, Hindol and Megh, of the original six have disappeared since his time.

c8.s2.4

Of Tyagayyar or Tyagarāja or Thiaga Iyar of Tanjore (early nineteenth century) more is known. He was revered by his contemporaries as a perfectly sincere and selfless man; he was an ascetic in the original sense of the word, one who ‘prepared’ his heart for the reception of truth. In Mudaliar Chinnaswami’s *Oriental Music* sixty of his songs (*Kritis*) are printed in staff notation, accompanied by adequate indications of scale, time, and tempo. There is a list also of eight hundred more, and this is probably not exhaustive. They are all in Telugu, the most musical language of the south, as Bengālī is of the north. They exhibit considerable sense of balance, as may be seen from the structure of the song, Ex. 379. They refrain from abusing the ear with excessive compass, and eschew cheap contrasts, both of which are to be found in the compositions of less able musicians. He signs his songs; that is to say, he ends them with words such as ‘This is the last counsel of Tyagarāja’ or ‘You who are the treasure of Tyagarāja’s heart’.

c8.s2.5

This is a common practice in the mediaeval songs of Germany, and may be compared with Dufay’s signature ‘Karissime Dufay vous en prye’ or occasionally ‘Du[Figure: musical notation]y’, and with Palestrina’s incorporation of the titles of the 119th Psalm (Aleph, Beth, &c.) into his Lamentations. Two of the syllables of Tyagarāja’s name (ga-rā) would have admitted of the same treatment; but there is no instance of his adopting it. It was also a practice of his time to set the syllables of the song to the notes which they name,¹ as as in the example quoted by Day, p. 72:

c8.s2.6

¹ These are called *Svarākshara*’s (note-syllables).

c8.s2.7

Ex. 171. [musical notation] Sa - ra - sa sa-ma-muk-ha Pa - ra Ma-va Ma, &c.

c8.s2.8

and the Indian form of ‘Ut queant laxis’ is (putting Ra, Ri, Ru for D♭, D, D♯, and Ga, Gi, Gu for E♭♭, E♭, E, and so on):

c8.s2.9

Rāgam Dhīraśankarābharaṇa. Tālam Matya. (4 + 2 + 4.)

c8.s2.10

Ex. 172.

c8.s2.11

But the practice does not appear to have attractions for Tyagarāja; he resists them at any rate in a song beginning Nidāsānu, a word which would have suggested four notes of the scale.¹ Neither does he seem to be particularly in love with Svaras. Svara in the South, Sārgam (i.e. Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma) in the North, means a rapid passage in which the notes are sung to the sol-fa names instead of to words as an amusing feat of skill. It takes the place of our cadenza, and like that was occasionally added by another hand. Svaras occur in only four of his sixty songs.

c8.s2.12

¹ B, A, C, H, to be accurate.

c8.s2.13

There is a pretty story about Tyagarāja’s meeting with ‘Shatkāla’ Govinda Mārār, a fine musician of Travancore. Shatkāla means ‘six-time’, and ‘time’ is here used in the sense of ‘diminutions’, i.e. that a piece that had been in crotchets was now sung in quavers; and the point is that he could ‘diminish’ six times over, i.e. begin with his theme in semibreves and end with it in semi-demi-semi-quavers. He used to sing to a Tāmbura with seven strings—the ordinary Tāmbura has only four; and this instrument seems to have been a sort of bow of Ulysses to inferior singers; in token of which, apparently, it was adorned with a flag. They met at Tyagarāja’s house at Tiruvaiyyar near Tanjore in 1843, where the great man was sitting with his disciples. Mārār, after listening to the disciples, expressed a wish to hear Tyagarāja himself. ‘Who is the man’, said Tyagarāja in Telugu, ‘that can ask me to sing?’ Apparently the audience were to hear him only when he sang of his own accord. He asked who was the man, pointing to Mārār, who sat with a flagged Tāmbura in his hand; and was told that Mārār could sing a little. A Pallavi was then sung round, and when it came to Govinda Mārār’s turn the other instruments had to be laid aside and his Tāmbura only used, so high was the pitch of the music. He sang it in Shatkāla, and Tyagarāja, after remonstrating with the understatement of Mārār’s powers, improvised on the spot a song in the Śrī Rāgam, which is the Ragam sung at the close of performances, of which the burden was, ‘There are many great men in the world, and I respect them all.’ This contrasts well with the many stories there are of professional jealousy, which are too unlovely to repeat here.

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