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When Beethoven, Schubert met at Raymond's Tomb
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The Quatuor Neemrana share their experiences in India with RENUKA VIJAY KUMAR
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PHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU
MUSICAL MéLANGE String Quartet Quatuor Neemrana wow the city
It seemed like quite an unlikely proposition. Beethoven and Schubert and four young men. But this was the Quatuor Neemrana after all. Sulliman Altmayer, Guillaume Molko, Gauthier Herrman and Julien Dabonneville— four talented and accomplished violinists and cellists and all below 26.
Adding to this, they have won a number of awards for their music all over the world and are still at it. While other young men their age in France are into hip-hop and street dance, these four are touring India and promoting western classical music. "Playing classical music doesn't make us feel left out," they say in unison. "We enjoy regular music as well and when our friends hear us play they begin to get interested in this type of music."
Though western classical music is mean for connoisseurs and people who can really appreciate it, the quartet has no intentions of only playing for such an audience. "We want to play for the people of the country," they say. That explains their quest to play all over the country and at places one would hardly associate with western classical music. Their favourite performance on this tour has been playing at an orphanage in Trivandrum. The concert for slum children in Chennai and for the children in the village of Amboth Tanda in Ranga Reddy district come a close second. Does it bother them that certain audience cannot understand their music? "No," they say emphatically. "It doesn't bother us if people don't understand what we play as long as they enjoy and appreciate it."
The quartet's name, Quatuor Neemrana comes from a little village in Rajasthan. "In Europe, people name their group without a focus. It doesn't even have any connection to how they feel or to the music they play," says Sulliman, the youngest of the four.
"This is a name that we are using not only for our India tour, but will remain with us for life." The young men are soaking in every bit of Indian culture and are full of tales about the things they have seen. They talk about Indian music and its women and talk about the beauty of both in one sentence. In Bangalore, they visited singer Balamuralikrishna's house, in Hyderabad they were amused to see people gaping at the clock in Salar Jung Museum and the things they have seen on Indian trains can be an altogether different chapter.
They scowl mockingly at Gauthier who suggested that they take trains while in India. "I only said that some journeys should be by train. Unfortunately, there was a communication problem and now we are only travelling by train!" he says in his defence.
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What a show!
In Hyderabad, Quatuor Neemrana were a clear success and their four performances said it all. The first one on Friday morning was at Amboth Tanda village.
Five hundred children heard them play their stringed instruments and the group says the ovation they got in the end was worth every note they played. On Saturday morning, the group played an impromptu jig at the Salar Jung Museum and on Monday morning, the students of the Allliance Francaise got to hear them play at the institute.
But the highlight of their trip was undoubtedly the performance at Raymond's Tomb on Monday evening. With the Department of Archaeology and Museums, the institute organised for the quartet to play at Monsieur Raymond's Tomb.
Perched on top of the TV tower hillock, Raymond's Obelisk and the tomb were done up in soft, mellow lighting. Though they practised with microphones, the quartet eventually chose to play without them and the resultant acoustics were phenomenal.
Thankfully nothing disturbed the stirring performance and beautiful symphony of the cello, violins and the viola. The quartet played two symphonies — Beethoven's quatuor, Opus 135 and Schubert's Quatuor 14, `Death and the Maiden'.
The finale, much to the glee of Hindi music lovers, was the theme from the movie Murder. The song Kaho Na Kaho couldn't have been played better and with that Sulliman, Gauthier, Julien and Guillaume won our hearts through and through.
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