THE FUNERAL OF MUSIC ... 3

THE FUNERAL OF MUSIC ... 3

You wish to dive deep to pick up the pearl of music, then what is the point in performing such a scintillating dance on the surface? Is it not to please the spectators gathered at the shore? But you had once set out to explore the spiritual possibilities of music and discover a route to the divine through it. What about it? Have you forgotten your mission having been blinded by the glitter of material life? And must you now draw up a comprehensive defence to save your position from this artillery assault? Whither, musician, whither is your original commitment to the cause of the pure pursuit of music to savour the sanctity of the swar, to relish the rapture of the raga, to enter the sanctum of Saraswati to behold her?

This surface glitter, this thunderous applause, this autograph-signing, this self-promotion, all these are business ventures, what connects them to music? The critics say you are good and you believe it. They have their paper columns to fill. The people say you are a genius and you swallow the epithet gleefully. But they are gullible, ignorant of what true classical music is. Worst of all, you say it in your website that you are a musical virtuoso and you beam in this self-glorification. But time will throw you off the ramparts of such self-appraisal and cast you into the waste-bin of history. What of it? Never mind, you say, I will make the best of the moment leaving the rest to pan out as it will. Now let me enjoy the glitter and the glamour and the razzmatazz, what care I of what I had set out to achieve, for I have achieved far more than what I had envisaged in my wildest dreams then.

This, my friends, is the state of the patient called classical music today. It is battling with death in the Intensive Cardiac Care Unit and we, the audience at conferences and concerts, are the visitors to this dying person.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Sangeetacharya Ajoy Sinha Roy who was a notable exception to this general trend of musical decadence, this dilution of standards and playing to the gallery. He was a purist and and a perfectionist who ever strove to keep up the grand tradition of his Guru, Baba Allauddin Khan, and himself imparted musical training to a host of disciples holding nothing back.