Getting the right note

IN an unusual and remarkable performance at the Northern Virginia Community College, United States, recently, Bharathi Soman, soprano and James Lesniak, piano, evoked an image of "India in Western Classical Music".

India has produced several violinists and pianists skilled in western music, who have successfully competed in international competitions in London and other European capitals. In the world of music, just mentioning Bombay-born Zubin Mehta is sufficient enough to give one an idea of how high India has risen in the western musical scale. As a conductor, Mehta has thrilled audiences in Los Angeles, New York, London, Berlin, and Vienna. While India has made a mark in western instrumental music, the same cannot be said of its achievement in classical western vocal music in which Japanese and Chinese singers seem to have a clear lead.

But a new generation of Indian sopranos is emerging in the U.S. to carve a niche for itself in an area that was previously thought to be out of reach. Soman is one of the successful recent entrants in this field.

Soman's musical career has had a natural and harmonious growth. While at the James Madison University (JMU), where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree with concentrations in music industry and vocal performance, she was a two-time winner of the annual concerto competition which gave her an opportunity to be featured as a soloist with the JMU symphony orchestra. In the summer before her final year of college (1997), she gave performances in Europe.

Auditioned for the Rome Festival, she was chosen to take the lead role of Gretel in the opera "Hansel and Gretel". After Rome, she continued training in London, where she spent a semester in voice study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Soman has now been accepted to the prestigious Indian School of Music, where she is currently pursuing her Master Degree of Music Degree in vocal performance under the guidance of world-renowned soprano Virginia Zeani. Her most recent achievement was her Kennedy Centre debut in a concert with the Washington Chamer Symphony.

In The Exotic in Western Music Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1998, Jonathan Bellman defines musical exoticism as "the borrowing or use of musical materials that evoke locals or alien frames of reference". An exotic nuance is achieved by introducing musical notes and gestures that are seen as unique and peculiar to a particular culture. At the turn of the 20 Century, several Europeans were fascinated by the language, literature, fairy tales and culture of distant lands. India and the Middle East were the objects of much of their admiration and involvement. Gustav Holst (1874-1934), Andre Caplet (1878-1925), Nicholai Andreyavich Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), John Alden Carpenter (1876-1951), Arthur Shepherd (1880-1958), Felix Weingartner (1863-1942) and Leo Delibes (1836-1891) were the pioneering and leading composers in this movement of exploration of alien themes.

These composers came from different Western countries and different musical backgrounds. Holst was a British composer in the orchestral, choral and solo song themes. He studies the Bhagwat Gita and made a tremendous effort to learn Sanskrit and went as far as working on his own translations of the Rig Veda and the Ramayana, as Courtney Ames says in the programme notes.

In his Vedic Hymns, Holst created a text that evoked similar sentiments from western ears as the revered Sanskrit original would overwhelm Indian ear and mind.

Vac (Speech), Creation and Faith were Holst's translations from the Rig Veda that were sung by Soman as the opening number of the evening's programme. It was an auspicious beginning that brought out the sacred and spiritual values of the holy texts.

While the Aria "Song of India" sung by the visiting Hindu merchant in the opera "Sadko" set to music by the brilliant Russian orchestrator Rimsky-Korsokov, gave Soman and Sinda (flute) an opportunity to present a sparking picture of the countless treasures and wealth of distant India, the selections from "The Crescent Moon" (The Sleep that Flits on Baby's Eyes, On The Seashore of Endless World) and Gitanjali (Light, My Light) by Rabindranath Tagore and set to music by American John Alden Carpenter in popular style and conventions, enabled Soman to highlight the musical tone of the words themselves in Tagore's poems that were enhanced by Carpenter's easy grammar and simple singing idioms. The Picture that emerged in this process was not exoticism of a faraway place, but the universal appeal of children, nature, the sea-shore and the country-side.

For the past few centuries, Kalidasa's "Sakuntala" has captured the imagination, reverence and veneration of Western Indologists and dramatists. In the field of music, Austrian composer/conductor, Weingartner in 1884 composed his first opera which was a slightly condensed and altered version that in no way distorted the original Sakuntala.

The Aria that takes place in Act I during the meeting of Sakuntala and Duschyanta with words "The trembling and quaking,/The anxious weaving,/ The swinging and swaying,/The heavens rising,/The bliss in my heart,/ The ache in my breast,/The gnawing pain,/ The holy desire) - translation by Michele Wothe - is a challenging score for any singer. Soman succeeded in bringing out the immense and immediate love at first sight of the two strangers.

The concluding number from the opera "Lakme" by French composer Leo Delibes (1836-1891) was a duet by Soman and Stevans (Viens, Mallika ... Sous le dome epais) and the aria by Soman again (Ou Va le jeune Indou). The scene was a secluded forest sanctuary of a Brahmin priest in India.

The programme concluded with the words: "Since that day,/in the depth of the forest,/The traveller may sometimes hear/The faint sound of the wand/On which tinkles the bell/of the magicians" - translation by Peggie Cochrane.

It was a fitting finale for India in Western Classical Music that combined fine and noble literature with pure musical compositions.

The proceeds of the benefit performance were given to the Chinmaya Mission Washington Centre.

S. RANGARAJAN

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