The Music of Hindostan c8.s3: The Present Day

The Music of Hindostan c8.s3

Language: English

The Present Day

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A few notes may be added upon so much of the present-day music as a hurried traveller might hope to hear. In a land not blessed with concert advertisements or concert notices, it is difficult for a stranger in the first place to find the best music, and in the second to know what the inhabitants themselves think of it. He can only remember with gratitude some of the good things it was his fortune to hear. There was some beautiful vīṇā-playing at Mysore, where the general standard is high. The crisp and expressive touch and imaginative improvisation of Subbanna contrasted well with the smooth tones and solid technique and exact intonation of Seshanna, of whom it was said that he could ‘put Sabbanna in his pocket and shake him about’, a criticism the truth of which I was not in a position to gauge. They got by heart at my dictation ‘Ye banks and braes’, selected because it is in the Mohanna Rāgam, and were to improvise upon it next day, when a concourse assembled to hear the result. They quite entered into the spirit of the thing; Subbanna played the tune more as if he cared for it; Seshanna produced the more ingenious variations. Afterwards they played the following in unison with the utmost accuracy:

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Seshanna, vīṇā-player, Mysore.

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Aiknāth Vishnu Paṇḍit, vīṇā-player, Poona.

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(The page is blank.)

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Rāgam Mohanna (Rāg Bhupkalīān). Tālam Adi. = 120. Allegretto cantabile.

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Ex. 173.

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Rāmachandra of Trivandrum, who was suffering from rheumatism, could not play for long together. He had the expressiveness of Subbanna without his invention, and the smoothness of Seshanna without his execution. He used the lower strings more than either of them; his fingers went down firmly on the strings and gave a clear and precise tone. His favourite ‘grace’ was the ‘Slide’, whereas Seshanna’s was the ‘Deflect’.¹

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¹ See Chapter VII.

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Next to the expressive vīṇā comes the dignified surbahar, which I heard only in Calcutta, where it was played by Sourendro Banerji. Its lower strings, which are freely used, have to be struck hard in order to produce the after effect of gamak

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Ex. 174.

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which is a favourite opening; and this gave it a rather ponderous sound. Its frets are but slightly, it at all, moved; and there are no ‘settings’ (thāṭ) for the different modes as on the satār. Consequently much more is left to be done by gamak, especially the ‘Deflect’ (mīṇḍ, called in Bengal mīrh), and this contributes to its grave and dignified tone. There is also a mandolin stroke, double, with the forefinger and little finger each armed with a plectrum (miṣrab), which, though no less irritating as a continuance than the mandolin itself, provides a good occasional contrast. Banerji was fond of contrasting his gamakked and his fretted note, as a violinist likes to contrast his open and his stopped E. The chanterelle is away from the player’s body, i. e. nearest his fingers (it is the other way on the vīṇā), and this seemed to give better opportunity for the Deflect. Altogether there was much more mystery in the sound of this instrument than in that of the rather commonplace satār or the thin-toned North Indian *bīn*, although I certainly did not hear these so well handled.

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Good drumming is commoner, perhaps, than any other form of music. It is said to take a lifetime to become a good drummer, but the comparative failures manage to give much pleasure. The most interesting exponents of this art I heard at Trivandrum. One was a boy of seven who had won a medal at Ernakulam for his skill, and who played on a drum bound with silver. He played with great solemnity, with funny little poses of the head to right or left as if he were thinking of anything else but what he was giving his whole attention to. His drumming was in the ‘new style’, which seemed to consist of flurry, silence, flurry, silence. After his performance he went to sleep during the rest of the music, and was ordered off to go and play in the verandah. The other was a man of sixty, Somaji Bhāgavatār, who ranks with Rāmachandra as a foremost musician. He was most careful about the tuning of his *Mṛdangam* (in two F’s like the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, but an octave higher). The upper F (right hand end) was adjusted by wedge and hammer, and gave the most trouble; the lower, on the left, by application of more or less flour and water to form the *karane* (Hindostani *āṭā*). There were no antics; it was all pure drumming. A good deal of it was a quiet tapping of the time with the forefinger of the left hand; then little points appeared, and a climax, and a solo or two, and the general effect was that of reserve power.

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The difference between Mohammedan and Hindu singing is more easily felt than described. One’s general impression, which a longer stay would no doubt have corrected in detail, is that the Mohammedan prefers the more cheerful *Rāgs*—*Khamāj*, *Kāfi*, and the *Kalians*; and the simpler rhythms, such as *Titāla* and *Dādra*; and the Rondo to the Variation form. With these he takes a considerable amount of liberty, concealing the rhythm, especially, by interspersed rests, and broken phrases that run counter to it, so that it would be unintelligible sometimes without the drummer. He has the performer’s instinct; he rivets the attention of the audience as a whole, and the less able singer is apt to tear a passion to pieces rather than not challenge their admiration. The performance of the best musicians (*Ustāds*) has a wonderful fascination in spite of the language difficulty. The phrases are finished off and fit so well into their place, there is so much variety and so much telling gesture, that the time goes quickly by, although you may find that, with the help of another singer perhaps, he has sung for at least half an hour continuously. All this the Hindu can do too, but he does it in a less vivacious way. He is at his best in the quieter Rāgs like Bhairavī, or the more characteristic such as Vasant or Bilhās or Toḍi, and in the more irregular rhythms such as Surphakta or Aḍachantāla. His singing is less broken up with rests, and he luxuriates in cross-rhythm. His song gives much more the impression of coming from the heart, and of reaching out for sympathy rather than for applause. You can more easily fancy him singing over his work, or her over her household duties; and, as has been mentioned, the Mohammedans have no cradle songs. There are some fine Mohammedan religious songs; they seem to treat religion more deeply and less imaginatively than the Hindus, and to produce it on occasions rather than as the natural expression of their daily life: the two songs, ‘Hādi e illah’ and ‘Cherarāvade-mirā’, Exs. 268, 379, seem typical of the two peoples.

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The singing that appealed to me most was that of Chandra Prabhu at Bhavnagav. She compelled respect at once by refusing on any account to be phonographed; perhaps she thought, amongst other things, that if she committed her soul to a mere piece of wax it might get broken in the train—and my subsequent experience showed that this was only too likely. She sang for an hour, three songs. The most striking of them was in ‘a sort of’ Bhairavī, upon a theme of the Maharajah’s:

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Ex. 175.

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(with the drum at E, of course, all the time). The others were in Imankaliān, to which the descending F♯ gives an indescribably light-hearted touch, and in Bageshri (a Dorian). She used gamak sparingly, and therefore effectively; she detached the notes cleanly without making them too staccato. There was something most satisfying in the sweep of the periods, apparently haphazard but really conforming to strict law. A voice with good tone, as we understand tone, is a rarity in India; but Chandra Prabhu sang with full round notes and variety of quality in addition to the extraordinary flexibility of all her nation. But the musicianship of her song was the most notable thing about it. She never seemed to come across technical difficulties—as that friend of Assheton Smith’s never could ‘think where the young men found all these big things—he never met with them’.

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It is impossible to measure this sort of song by any European standards, the problem is so entirely different. With us, as with them, a singer concentrates into a single song all his knowledge and past experience, and has taken years to learn what it takes a few minutes to sing; but he is only interpreting. It seems as fresher and more convincing thing when, after an equal or perhaps larger number of years training, the song is created there and then; when its message has never been given in quite the same terms before and never will be again. The greatest European singers are apt to be voice-producers first and musicians afterwards; the Indian singer is before all things a musician, who may happen to have a good voice, but seldom has a good tone. And it seems possible to overrate good tone; at any rate, it is surprising how much art can be heard behind a poor one. Then, too, in the absence of orchestration and of counterpoint—except such as the drum provides, and of harmony—and, with that, of a certain terseness of structure, the voice has unaided to supply all the interest and to spread it over a certain lapse of time.

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To maintain this interest recourse is had to all those things of which a description has been attempted in the chapters on *Rāga* and Grace. The result is a kind of full-throated utterance quite unlike the elaborate tremolos of our singers, which often seem to resolve themselves into a battle between the voice and the accompaniment. The nearest analogy we have is perhaps Mr. Henschel playing his own accompaniment, where the whole is under the direction of one mind and it is difficult to say whether voice or instrument is contributing most to the result. Again, the form of the song is wholly diverse: we can hardly imagine a composition without a main climax and perhaps a coda: an Indian simply stops when he has sung enough. It seems as if climax too can be overrated as it certainly is sometimes overdone. Still, though there are plenty of minor crises in the course of the music, this absence of any convincing close remains a difficulty for us.

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A different kind of interest and a still greater pleasure was afforded by a visit to Rabindranāth Tagore, the Bengāli poet. In accordance with the best Indian tradition he is poet and musician in one. His poetry is beginning to speak to us for itself: even in a few scattered translations it is possible to hear the voice of a man who thinks deeply and truly, who sees things as they really are, making invisible things visible as florescence does in optics, and touching them with tenderness and reverence. To hear him recite his poems is to be reminded of the way in which Tennyson is said by his biographer to have recited *Maud*; and indeed such a line as ‘Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere’ has something of the ring of Bengāli verse about it, while the terseness, the inheritance of the Sutras, of a language which is the descendant of that compact wonder, Sanskrit, we could hardly parallel short of Horace. To hear him sing them is to realize the music in a way that it is seldom given to a foreigner to do. The notes of the song are no longer their mere selves, but the vehicle of a personality, and as such they go behind this or that system of music to that beauty of sound which all systems put out their hands to seize. These melodies are such as would have satisfied Plato. ‘I do not know the modes,’ said Socrates, ‘but leave me one that will imitate the tones and accents of a brave man enduring danger or distress, fighting with constancy against fortune; and also one fitted for the work of peace, for prayer heard by the gods, and for the successful persuasion or exhortation of men.’

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The portrait of Mr. Tagore which forms the frontispiece is by Mr. William Rothenstein, who has most generously lent the copyright of it for this book. It was drawn one afternoon while the words and the songs were being transcribed; and perhaps the sympathy and fidelity of it may be taken as some compensation for the limitations imposed by a foreign language and for the inability of musical notation to convey the tones of the living voice.

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Mr. Tagore’s translations of his own poems are given in Examples 176-180.

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Rāg Bhairavī, Tāl Tevra (3 + 2 + 2). ♩ = 100. *Adagietto.*

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Ex. 176. Ji - ba - ne ja - ta pu - jā ha - la - nā sā - rā . . Jā - ni he jā - ni tā - o ha - i - ni hā - rā Je phul nā phu-ti - te jho-re-chhe dha-ra-ni-te Je na - di mo-ru pa - the hā-rā - lo dhā - rā . .

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*Jibane jata.*

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The pujas that have not been finished in this life I know that they are not altogether lost. The flowers that have shed their petals on the dust before being full blown, and the rivers that hid their streams in the desert sand, I know, I know they have not been altogether lost. Those that lag behind in this life I know, I know that even they have not lived uselessly. All my unformed thoughts and all my unstruck melodies are still sounding on the strings of thy *vīṇā*, and I know that they have not been altogether lost.

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*Ba'ul tune,* *Tāl Dadra.* ♩ = 90. *Andantino.*

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Musical notation for "a - klā cha - lo re"

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*Jadi tor dāk.*

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If no one responds to your call then go on alone. And if there is no one to speak out, and if they turn their face and are afraid, then open your heart and speak only you. Speak alone, speak alone.

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If every one goes back and none accompanies you in the difficult path, then tread the thorns with bloody feet alone. Tread alone, tread alone.

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If there is no one to light the lamp, and if every one shuts his door in the stormy dark night, then burn the ribs of your heart with the thunder fire and burn alone, burn alone.

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Rag Khambāj, Tāl Ektāla. = 60. Andante.

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Musical notation for "Ex. 178. Ā - mā-r(a) ka-ra to mā-r(a) bi - nā - la-ha go la-ha tu-"

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Musical notation for "le. . . . Ā - mā - r(a) ka - ra to - mā - r(a) bi - nā. . ."

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Musical notation for "U - thi-be bā - ji tan - tri tan - tri . rā - ji Mo-ha - na an - gu-"

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Musical notation for "le. . . . Ā - mā - r(a) ka - ra to - mā - r(a) bi - nā. . ."

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Ko-ma-la ta-ba ka-ma-la ka-re pa-ra-sa ka-ro pa-rā-na pa-re.

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U-thi-be hi-yā gun-ja-rī - yā ta-ba sra-va-na mu-le . . . .

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Ā - mā - r(a) ka - ra to - mā - r(a) bi - - nā. . . .

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Ka - kha- na su-khe ka-kha-na . . du-khe kān-di - be

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cha-hi to - mā - ri mu-khe Cha-ra-nā pa-rhi ra-be ni . . ra-be

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ra - hi - be ja - be bhu - lo Ke - ho nā

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jā - ne ki na-ba tā . . ne U-thi-be gī - ta shu - nya pā - ne D.C. al

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Ā - nan - de - ra bā-ra-tā jā-be a nan - te - ra ku - le . . . .

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*Āmār kara tomāra binā.*

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Make me thy *vīṇā*; lift me in thine arms. All the strings of my heart will break out at thy finger-touch. With thy tender hands touch my life, and my heart will murmur her secrets in thine ears. In happiness and in sorrow she will gaze on thy face, and cry; and shouldst thou neglect her she will remain silent at thy feet. None knows in what new strains her songs will rise up to the heavens and send a message of joy to the shore of the infinite.

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Rāg Jhijhit, Tāl Ektāla. ♩. = 60. Andante.

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Ex. 179. Ā - mi chi - ni go chi - ni to - mā - re O go bi - de shi- *Ami chini go chini.*

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I know, I know thee, O thou Bideshini¹; thou dwellest on the other shore of the ocean. I have seen thee in the autumn, I have felt thee in the spring night. I have found thee in the midst of my heart, O thou Bideshini. Putting my ear to the sky² I have heard thy music, and I have offered to thee my life, O thou Bideshini. I have roamed all through the world and have come at last into the strange country. Here I am a guest at thy door, O thou Bideshini.³

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¹ O thou stranger lady; perhaps, Intellectual Beauty.

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² *Ākāśa*, space; the source of all sound and speech.

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³ Mr. Tagore writes :—"I heard when I was very young the song "Who dressed you like a foreigner?" and that one line of the song painted such a strange picture in my mind that even now it is sounding in my memory. I once tried to compose a song myself under the spell of that line. As I hummed the tune I wrote the first line of the song "I know thee, thou stranger", and,

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Rāg Kāfi. Tāl Ektāla. ♩ = 80. Andante.

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Ex. 180.

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Ma-ma jau-ba-na ni-kun-je gā-he pā-khi Sa-khi jā-go, jā-go, jā-go Ma-ma jau-ba-na ni-kun-je gā-he pā-khi Me-li rā-ga a-la-sa ān-khi Me-li rā-ga a-la-sa ān-khi Sa-khi jā-go, jā-go Ma-ma jau-ba-na ni- -kun-je gā-he pā-khi Ā-ji chan-cha-la é nih-shi-té jā-go phā-gu-na gu-na gī-té a-yi pra-tha-ma pra-na-ya bhi-te Ma-ma nan-da-na a-ta-bi-te Pi-ka mu-hu-mu-hu u-tthe dā-ki Sa-khi

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if there were no tune to it, I don't know what would be left of the song. But under the spell (mantra) of the tune the mysterious figure of that stranger was evoked in my mind. My heart began to say, "There is a stranger going to and fro in this world of ours; her house is on the further shore of an ocean of mystery. Sometimes she is to be seen in the autumn morning, sometimes in the flowery midnight; sometimes we receive an intimation of her in the depths of our heart, sometimes I hear her voice when I turn my ear to the sky. . . . One day, long afterwards, some one went along the road singing, "How does that unknown bird go to and away from the cage? Could I but catch it, I would put the chain of my mind about its feet!" I saw that that Ba'ul song too said the very same thing. Sometimes the unknown bird comes to the closed cage and speaks a word of the limitless Unknown. Then the mind would keep it for ever, but cannot. What but the tune of a song could report the coming and going of this unknown bird? Because of this I always feel hesitation in publishing a book of songs, for in such a book the main thing is left out. To set forth the music's vehicle and leave out the music itself is just like keeping the mouse and leaving out Ganapati himself.' jā - go, jā - go Ma-ma jau - ba - na ni - kun - je gā - he

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pā - khi Jā-go na-bi-na gau-ra - be Na-ba ba-ku-la sau-ra-

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- bhé Mri-du ma-la-ya bi - ja - né . . jā-go ni-bhri-ta nir - ja-

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- nó Jā-go ā - ku - la phu-la sā - jé jā-go mri-du kam-pi - ta

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lā - jé Ma-mahṛi-da-ya sha-ya-na ma-jhé shu-na ma-dhu-ra mu-ra-ia

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bā - jé Ma-ma an - ta - re thā-ki thā - ki Sa-khi jā - go jā

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- go Ma-ma jau - ba - na ni - kun - je ga - hé pā - khé.

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*Mama jaubana nikunje.*

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In the bower of my youth a bird sings, ‘Wake, my love, wake! Open thy love-languid eyes, my love, and awake.’ There is a tremor in the midnight darkness to-night, and the air is resonant with the praise song of spring. O timorous maiden, thrilling with the mysteries of first love, listen; in my grove of paradise a bird sings in a repeated rapture, ‘Wake my love, wake!’ Wake in the first fullness of thy youth, wake in the lonely stillness of starry night, fanned by the ardent breath of spring drunk with the perfume of *bakula*. Wake in my arms my love, a-tremble with a tender shyness, decked in a wreath of blushing rose. O listen to the sweet piping in my heart, ‘Wake, my sweet love, wake.’

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The rhythm of Indian song is more fluid than that of European. It seems to cost us more, so to say, to be perpetually altering the accent; it produces a certain instability which has to be made up for in other ways. But there is no feeling of instability in these songs. Such a line as, flows quite as naturally as the close of Brahms's *Minnelied* :