Diversity in Rabindranath's Music
Dear Community Members and Friends:
Please mark your calendar for the upcoming event, Diversity in Rabindranath's Music, by Rezwana Choudhury Bannya
© sponsored by Triangle Bangladesh Society of North Carolina (TBSNC) and North Carolina Bengali
Association (NCBA) on August 11, 2007.
Please click here for the flyer.
Date: Saturday, August 11, 2007
Time: 5:00pm to 8:00pm (tentative)
Admission: $7.00 per person
Venue : Witherspoon Hall, NCSU (tentative)
Directions:
Witherspoon Student Center and Cinema Hall is located at the corner of Dan Allen and Cates Avenue in the NC State campus (same place where we celebrated and enjoyed " Baishaakhi Mela o' Shangeet Shandhya" on May 19, 2007)
Physical address:
2810 Cates Ave , Raleigh, NC 27607:
http://www.ncsu.edu/student_center/driving_directions.html
It is the bldg #81 on Central Campus map:
http://www.ncsu.edu/campus_map/central.htm
Contacts:
Mukul (919) 308-7407, Salim (919) 946-5894, Masuk (919) 680 8554, Selina (919) 329-2611, Siraj (919) 889-6301
Once again, our goal is to make this also a memorable and enjoyable event, and for that we need your timely participation, blessing and continued generous support to make the event successful.
The Executive Committee
Triangle Bangladesh Society, North Caroline (TBSNC)
Diversity in Rabindranath's Music by Rezwana Choudhury Bannya©
The programme consists of spoken words, songs, accompanying music and overhead projection of texts in English including the lyrics. It usually takes an hour and a half without any break.
SUMMARY
Rabindranath, the poet, started composing music when he was only 14, and continued to do so until his death in 1941. He was forever experimenting with new subjects thus adding new dimensions to his music: full of diversity, philosophical ideas and reflections.
His career as a music writer /composer can be divided into 3 phases.
- PHASE-I can be called the formative years or the period of apprenticeship. During this period - particularly the early years - he was very much influenced by his elder brother, Jyotirindranath Thakur who he considered his role model not only in music but in practically everything else he did.
- PHASE-II roughly covers the period from 1901 - 1915, from the time of writing Naibedyo to Gitanjali, Gitimalyo and Gitali. The apprenticeship over, he was now preoccupied with a great deal of experimentation with the use of raga-ragini, like mixing of different ragas and the application of different talas (Beats) and creating new ones.
- PHASE-III was about the time after he turned 50. During this phase he created the work of his mature years. This was also the period of Santiniketan. The songs of worship and those of love came very close together. Something of a fusion of human love and divine love, often mixed with Baul, Kirton and other folk music. In Gitanjanli, Gitimalya and Gitali, one notices the gradual emergence of his personal God from the Universal God. The harmonization of melody, lyrics and tempo giving expression to the bhaba (the inner significance).
The presentation unfolds, phase by phase, the progress of Rabindranath the poet's career as a creative musician for 64 years. It will describe the influences in his early life such as Vaishnava poets when he wrote verses in Brajabuli, a 14th century dialect made up of Maithili and Bengali. His depiction of Radha's stealthy visits to meet Krishna thus expressing his own pent-up emotions as an adolescent lover. The joys and pains of the unrequited love of a young heart are reflected in all his love songs even in those written in his mature years.
His exposure to, and liking of, western music and opera during his first visit to England and his use of some of those melodies in songs he wrote after returning to India are discussed. During this phase, he wrote songs for worship (like hymns) for the Brahma society, the so-called Brahma Sangeet when he made use of a whole host of ragas in their original classical form (Dhrupad).
In Phase-II, Songs of worship in Naibedyo were like prayers of his conscience: touched by personal grief of losing his wife and daughter. Here, one gets the impression of his concept of God and its completeness. The voyage from Death to beyond it is echoed here. The use of three-beats and four-beats talas (tempo) in this phase, puts the imagery on melody and pushes it beyond the limits of meaning. As if the incorporeal being - the godhead itself - appears from behind the divider that separates this Earth from Heaven.
In East Bengal (now Bangladesh ), he came across the great Baul singers (the wandering minstrels), became familiar with the folk melodies of Bengal . The particular way of self-search inherent in Baul thinking and Sufism is the search for the soul that lives within the body. The quest is for that soul which the poet has named his personal God.. Rabindranath revised and refined the melody, lyrics and even subjects of Baul to create a completely new Rabindric way which can be called "Songs of Rabi Baul".
In 1901, Rabindranath founded the Brahmacharchya Ashram. He was trying to realize the dream of creating a learning place for young people modeled after the ancient ashrams. Following this period of political unrest and social upheaval, the poet's attention is turned inward again. This is the period when he wrote Gitanjanli, Gitimalya and Gitali.
Even though he had been attracted to Nature from his childhood, Rabindranath came into contact with it first in Shilaidaha , then in Santiniketan' When he was mostly living in Santiniketan, he understood how closely Nature links Man with the world around him. He wrote his first Ritunattya (plays of different seasons), Sharodutsab, in 1908 at the age of 47.
The ritunattyas (season plays) were written in Phase-III with emphasis on visuals. The Dance rhythms became an integral part To meet the new needs of dance, he wrote many new songs by mixing love and Nature.
The love songs of the post-Gitanjali period were at once mystic and romantic. Elusive bodyless love, even after it is no more, it continues to linger. These songs are neither about sorrow nor about happiness. Only to be perceived, felt. This solitude is not negative, nor the melody expresses pain.
Rabindranath, in the last leg of his journey through life, had brought everything to one spot - something of a center point: his personal God, the Universal God, near and dear ones, Nature, joy and pain, emptiness, completeness.