WHEN MUSICAL 'MASTERS' PLAY MISCHIEF AND THE MASSES LEND 'MORAL' SUPPORT

WHEN MUSICAL 'MASTERS' PLAY MISCHIEF AND THE MASSES LEND 'MORAL' SUPPORT

Classical music is not for the coarse commoner with little aesthetic sense and lesser artistic taste. It needs refinement in absorption and not mere sycophantic appreciation of anything and everything that is dished out as classical music when they are patently cheap gimmickry of sorts and have little to do with the pure tradition of raag music.

Playing to the gallery to a certain extent may have always been there but it has been perfected to its degenerate endpoint in its counter-curve today when mimicry of classical music goes on in the name of pure rendition and the public consume such garbage blissfully for they have never savoured true music in all its divine delight.

Now the masses have become connoisseurs as connoisseurs have retired to 'dwindledom' (word coined here and now by the author). Hence, followers rule with their raucous support for surpassing senselessness passing off as classical music from the throats of musical 'masters' even as culture plummets to its precipitous end. Now only a grand renaissance can save the situation but one wonders how it is to be brought about, for the growing mass of human members in society are of a progressively degenerate kind. Who will save culture and the arts from their rough and roguish grasp?

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : A notable exception to the decadent trend most visible over the last few decades, Pandit Ajoy Sinha Roy, disciple of Baba Allauddin Khan, who lent his entire life's energy in resuscitating the traditional musical art form from its sinking status. But then who cares after all for such genuine musicians? Those who resort to gimmickry remain the toast of the day.