The Music of Hindostan c8.s3.21

c8.s3.21

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.