HIGH NOTES
Transcendent sounds
ROKUS DE GROOT
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The Festival of Sacred Music held in Tiruvaiyaru recently struck a chord with the audience because it not only took into account the sacredness of music but also the architecture and geography of the place.
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Jayanthi Kumaresh’S recital at the Pushya Mandapa Ghat stood out with a multicoloured luminous enhancement of its neem and pipal trees and its surrounding host of naga stones
PHOTOS: AKIRA IO
Overflowing inspiration: Bombay Jayashri.
Make of my body the beam of a lute/of my head the sounding gourd/of my nerves the strings/of my fingers the plucking rods/Clutch me close/and play your 32 songs/O lord of the meeting rivers!
(Basavanna, 12th century, in A.K. Ramanujan, Speaking of Siva)
Teenagers, mesmerised by the music of veena, mridangam, flute and ghatam, keep count of the tala in a living illustration of Basavanna’s vacana. The adults surrounding
them are equally mesmerised. It is the second night of the Festival of Sacred Music, held in Tiruvaiyaru, Tamil Nadu, from February 27 to March 1.
India has a much happier past and present of sacred music than Europe given the latter’s historic misgivings against music in religious contexts. Saint Augustine, for instance, considered the art ‘necessary but dangerous’. Indeed, Indian gods like Siva are believed to manifest as musicians and dancers. Tyagararaja in the south and Swami Haridas in the north are considered saints. This divinity of music sets a significant tone for a Festival of Sacred Music.
Favourable conditions
The organisers were sensitive to another favourable condition by tuning in to India’s sacred geography and architecture. Tiruvaiyaru is the birthplace of the musician-saint Tyagaraja. Moreover the Festival took place in and near the magnificent Panchanatheeswara Temple, on the banks of the Cauvery.
Bombay Jayashri was the first to perform in an open air space within the precincts of the temple. Her overflowing inspiration extended the concert far beyond the usual limits. The next day, Jayanthi Kumaresh gave a veena recital at Pushya Mandapa Ghat, striking a rapport with the audience by her inventiveness and refinement.
On the last day, the Sikkil Sisters — Neela and Kunjumani — and Neela’s daughter Mala Chandrashekar, performed at the open court of Rajah’s College. A large public, mostly from the Thanjavur district, attended the Festival. The encouraging aspect was that many children and teenagers attended the concerts. As a European I found it amazing that these concerts were free.
The Festival of Sacred Music was jointly organised by Prakriti Foundation and Marabu Foundation. The former, based in Chennai, is devoted to the renewal of, and reflection on, the Indian arts. Founded by theatre and arts enthusiast Ranvir Shah and coordinated by art critic V.R. Devika, it places a strong emphasis on social embedding and education. Marabu (‘that which is worth remembering’) Foundation, in Thilaisthanam, is headed by veena player, scholar and teacher Dr R. Kausalya. It aims at the continuation and revival of what it qualifies as traditional life in order “to effect mental and physical balance”.
Theatre actor and director Praveen and sound expert Kalai Selvan did a great job with the lighting and sound engineering. Each venue had imaginative lighting, both electrical and oil lamps. The recital at the Pushya Mandapa Ghat stood out with a multicoloured luminous enhancement of its neem and pipal trees and its surrounding host of naga stones. Sound engineering was not an easy task, given the open air setting and the acoustic response of the adjacent stone buildings.
Sikkil Sisters with Mala Chandrasekar.
Prakriti and Marabu Foundations intend to continue the Festival of Sacred Music in coming years. Does its location in Tiruvaiyaru bind it to Carnatic music and Hindu sacrality? Not necessarily. First of all, the sacred is not limited to a specific tradition and, secondly, music is much less confined to particular references than language or visual arts. In my experience, Indian musicians readily recognise and value the sacredness of art in other traditions. This is another happy condition for a Festival of Sacred Music in India.
One may well imagine other editions of the Festival bringing, apart from Carnatic and Hindustani music, Sufi performances from Arabic, Persian and Turkish traditions; early European compositions like those by Dufay and Josquin for small vocal-instrumental ensembles; Afro-American gospels;, Greek-orthodox and Gregorian chants; as well as musical dialogues between them.
While the setting of Tiruvaiyaru-on-Cauvery enhances the Festival, the Sacred Music Festival may, in its turn, transform its environment. It can make the inhabitants perceive their environment with new ears and eyes and bring it to a new flowering, spiritually, culturally, economically. This reciprocal sound ecology will draw many from India and abroad to the region.
It would be fitting for the Festival of Sacred Music if participatory-receptive movement through local architecture and geography is shared by those attending the festivals. It will give a deep significance to the Festival being in situ, both to those who are familiar with it and those who are not. Participating in song and story, we may explore the continuity and tension between place of worship and stage, between environment and art.
Sound and amplification
Part of this would be the discovery of the sound of the sacred architecture itself. Every temple has its own acoustics. After the Festival of Sacred Music, I visited the Arunachaleshwara and Umamalai temples in Tiruvannamalai. In the morning the nagaswaram and tavil were played in these temples. I became acutely aware of the fact that sound amplification has been thoroughly researched in sacred context well before the electronic age.
The Festival could include temple performance of music, needing no added amplification, as well as continue to bring out sacred music into the open. In the latter instance, artificial amplification will remain indispensable. However, in my experience one does not sufficiently realise that amplification is an art. To Western ears, the way music is amplified in India is quite often hard to bear. Frequently the sound level is far too high, compression techniques destroy the dynamic profiles by levelling them out, nuance is replaced by distortion. Thus, a Festival of Sacred Music implies the responsibility to rethink and redesign sound amplification.
Jayanthi Kumaresh.
Certainly, amplification has its role in the sacred, as can be seen in the architecture of temples, ancient amphitheatres, basilicas, churches and mosques. It is related to one side of the sacred: the tremendum or that which is majestic. The sacred has also another side: the fascinans or that which seduces/enchants.
I suggest that future Festivals of Sacred Music may explore a ‘sacred sound amplification’ that does justice to each sound nuance, within the full range between the tremendum and the fascinans. The core of the sacred is silence. Whoever realises this, does well.
The first Festival of Sacred Music had the Panchanatheeshwara Temple, the sanctum of the ‘Lord of the Five Rivers’, as its geographical and architectural orientation. Basavanna called him Kudalasangamadeva or “Lord of the Meeting Rivers”. I have no doubt these Festivals will inspire us to discover how sacred music is like a river: different in their beds, though the water is the same.
The writer teaches at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Corrections and Clarifications
The third paragraph of an article "Transcendent sounds" (The Hindu-Magazine,
March 29, 2009, Page 5) said that Tiruvaiyaru is the birthplace of the
musician-saint Tyagaraja. The author, Rokus de Groot, says that his unedited
sentence was "Tiruvaiyaru is the site where musician-saint Tyagaraja was
composing, performing and teaching", and that he did not speak of
Tiruvaiyaru being his place of birth. Tyagaraja's birthplace was in
Tiruvarur, Tamil Nadu.
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