Emergence of Electronic Music

In the later part of the 20th century, with the arrival of the synthesiser, records of electronic music became popular. The most famous of them all "Switched on Bach" by Walter/Wendy Carlos became a runaway best seller. Rick Wakeman, trained in classical music & working with "Yes", struck out on his own with "The Six Wives of Henry the VIII" a glorious classical/rock/jazz hybrid. Jean Michel Jarre, son of Maurice Jarre (composer of music for David Lean's films) came up with a concept album "Oxygene". The German band Kraftwerk started off with their "Man Machine."

The Japanese, pioneers in anything electronic, led the way with the "Yellow Magic Orchestra" the album cover being truly iconic with a Japanese girl in a kimono, electric cables coming out of her open head, Medusa like! (Medusa in Greek mythology, being a winged female, with snakes instead of hair, growing out of her head.) Logic system also made their debut with their eponymously named LP. Jun Fukamachi, produced "Disco Fever over Classic"  & "Second Phase" records.

The Russians, not to be left behind, produced their own (hard to find now) LP called "Metamorphoses" containing electronic versions of works by Bach, Monteverdi, Debussy & some Russian composers.

Most of these composers made many further recordings, some being productive even today. These have made a creative contribution to the musical world & widened the palette of tonal colours available.

World view of Tolstoy & Mahler

Tolstoy, the Russian writer, encompassed the whole world in
his sweeping, sprawling novels. In his masterpiece "War & Peace", widely regarded as the greatest novel ever written, his characters range from the aristocracy like Prince Bolkonsky & Princess Marya to humble plebeians like Platon Karateyev. In his "Anna Karenina" also, apart from the ill-fated love affair between Anna & Count Vronsky, there is the idyllic love  between Levin (an alter ego surely of Tolstoy himself) & Kitty. Levin's idealistic zeal in improving the lot of his serfs acts as a counterpoint to the selfish, sensual lives of the other aristocrats.

In music also, a similar all-encompassing world view was evinced by Mahler in his nine  completed symphonies. To take one example, in his third symphony (the longest symphony in popular orchestral repertoire), the six movements are titled as follows:

• Awakening of Nature from winter slumber
• Life of Flowers
• Animal World
• Man himself
• Boy's Wonderful Horn (Children's Chorus)
• Orchestral Adagio

So the whole natural world is enveloped in this "tone poem", which runs for about 100 minutes.

Continuity of tradition in Rowling's "Ickabog"

English Literature has dealt with heroes & monsters, from the time of Beowulf the hero defeating the monster Grendel, ascribed to an anonymous poet in the 10th Century. Kenneth Grahame, author of "The Wind in the Willows" also wrote "The Reluctant Dragon", where a dragon wants a peaceful co existence with humans.

Continuing this tradition, Rowling in her latest book, deals with a seeming monster, whose nature is determined by the situation at its birth, which is called "bornding" because the parent has to die at that moment. This also recalls a similar situation in another children's classic "Charlotte's Web", where the spider Charlotte dies after delivering her sac of eggs. Though death is not concerned, the literary twisting of common words is also used in Dickens' "Dombey & Son", where Captain Cuttle, to heighten the expectations of Florence Dombey, repeatedly says "Walters (Florence's beloved) Drownded."

The cruelty indulged by Ma Grunter in "Ickabog", makes one wonder whether she shares her DNA with the Dickens' characters, the sadistic school master Wackford Squeers of "Nicholas Nickleby" & the dwarfish Gabriel Quilp of "The Old Curiosity Shop."

Rowling's book also deals with ecological balance, human kindness & value of democracy. It also satisfies the gourmet in the reader by describing heavenly food. The needs & motivations of the widest spectrum of people from kings to starvelings are described at length. Beautifully paced, it gathers momentum towards the end & ties up all ends to ensure everyone gets their just rewards. The repentant King, looking after a born vicious monster, also finds redemption leading to a lessening in evil of the monster also.

All in all, a rewarding read for young & old.

Three Incredible Achievers

J. K. Rowling, the author who did the miracle of pulling children away from TV, internet & mobile addiction. To get children with notoriously short attention span to read long books is itself a herculean task, but to make them queue up overnight in front of bookstores to get the first copies was mind boggling. Of course, there were popular authors like Dame Agatha Christie, but their readership was adult & TV & internet were still in infancy. Justifiably she has become richer than even the Queen!

Jeff Bezos creatively used the internet to convert the whole world into a virtual bookstore with millions of titles accessible at the touch of a few buttons on smartphone. It is not the lesser cost of books compared to stores that is his USP as is generally believed, but the opportunity for buyers to browse among numerous editions of their desired books to suit their taste on their smartphone & get them at their doorsteps in a few days, which is impossible even in the largest bookstore in the world, the Strand of New York. None should grudge his wealth for the service he has rendered to bibliophiles.

There have been religious leaders whose influence has been local in their lifetime like Jesus Christ & Shirdi Sai Baba. Even Sri Ramakrishna's life ended as he was getting well-known. But in the case of Sri Satya Sai Baba, he had millions of global followers in his lifetime for the first time in human history. Keeping his miraculous interventions on one side, the free education & healthcare provided by him is unmatched & incredible by any others up to now. Who ever dreamed of Super Specialty Hospitals without a billing section? Even now his devotees globally engage not just on worshipping him for selfish ends but engage in social service to the needy in their areas.

Predictably, all three mentioned above have their share of detractors, but it only throws their achievements into greater light.

Beethoven & Ravi Shankar

For the purposes of this study, the most spiritual segment of Beethoven's oeuvre, namely the Last Quartets are juxtaposed with a similar segment of Ravi Shankar's recordings, namely where only Alap, Jod & Jhala are performed.

Beethoven's Quartets Op.127 in E flat major, Op.130 in B flat major, Op.131 in C sharp minor, Op.132 in A minor, Op.133 "Grosse Fuge" in B flat major & Op.135 in F major, form the so-called Late Quartets. Of these, the central movement of Op.132, "Heiliger Dankegesang" (Thanksgiving on recovery of an illness) is justly celebrated. These works are celebrated as the crown jewels of Beethoven's works by the cognoscenti.

Similarly, among the numerous recordings of Ravi Shankar, the ones containing only the Alap, Jod & Jhala explorations of a Raga are the connoisseur's delight. These are in Ragas Lalit, Malkauns & Bhimpalasi. The similar portions of his self-created Ragas like Parameshwari & Jogeshwari also fall into this category. These provide a deeply contemplative mood in the listener, without the intrusion of the tala provided by the tabla.

Intermediaries for Worldly Prayers

Most major universal religions employ intermediaries when they pray for worldly desires.

The Hindus, do not pray to Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva or even Rama, Krishna or any of the Incarnations for their needs. They put forward their desires to Lord Venkateshwara, Sri Raghavendra Swami of Mantralaya, Ayyappa of Sabarimala, Vaishno Devi, or in recent times to Sai Baba. Also among the rural people, the local deity may be appealed to.

Similarly among Muslims, requests for help are not offered to Allah or even the Prophet, but to Saints who are buried in dargahs like the one in Ajmer, especially in countries with converted people of other religions. Of course dargahs are not permitted in Saudi Arabia, which holds to the Quranic injunction of only Allah being fit to worship.

In the case of Christians, especially Catholics, only the Infant Jesus (not the adult one) & his mother (at Lourdes of St. Bernadette fame) are appealed to in times of crisis, along with a host of patron saints for every conceivable problem & profession.

Children in Detective fiction

Normally, children are not prominent in detection fiction as murder is involved. But there are a few notable exceptions.

Agatha Christie's "Crooked House", which was one of her favourite books, was "a pleasure to write", as she herself claimed. It starts with the poisoning of Aristide Leonides, a wealthy entrepreneur, living with his family, who is murdered. Almost all the members of his family, come under the scanner. His grand-daughter, 12 year old Josephine, ugly, precocious & addicted to detective stories, also seems to be a victim of an assault & later, her former nanny is killed. Aristide's late wife's spinster sister, Miss Haviland, who has lived on to take care of his family, discovers a diary of Josephine, which starts with the chilling words "Today I killed grandfather." He had crossed her in her desire to learn ballet, so he had to go. To divert attention, Josephine also staged an attempt on herself & killed her nanny also when she came in her way. Miss Haviland, whose days are numbered, to spare Josephine from the law, takes her in her car & crashes it, killing both.

The next child appears in Ngaio Marsh's "The Final Curtain", which starts with the murder of the celebrated actor, Sir Henry Ancred. Here also many family members are suspected. Many suspicious pranks take place, attributed to his grand-daughter Patricia (Panty), who is precocious, outspoken & mischievous but being educated in a school which prohibits any punishment. But Detective  ('andsome) Alleyn arrives & finds the culprit, thankfully not Panty, in this case.

To end this essay on a cheerful note, we come across Betty, a toddler with her mother Mrs. Sprot in a seaside village in England during WW 2 in Agatha Christie's thriller "N or M". The enterprising couple of Tommy & Tuppence are entrusted with the task of unearthing spying activity there. The enchanting play of Betty is given adequate coverage in the book. There are many suspicious people but the couple find out that Betty is stolen from her real mother & used as a prop by Mrs. Sprot as none would suspect a mother with a toddler as a spy. Betty's book of "Goosey Goosey gander" also contains a clue. Finally Betty is saved & the spy Mrs. Sprot caught. In a later book, we find little Betty has grown up & doing research in South Africa!

"Virtual Reality" - Cultural Solutions to Societal Entropy

According to Hindu Cycle of Ages of the world, there is a cyclical change from altruistic human behaviour to savage regression. This is supposedly beyond human effort at control.

But human beings are also given the capacity to withdraw to a "Virtual Reality" world of their choosing among the best periods of historical development. Those who are financially independent can do it full-time, while those whose economic needs propel them into (may be) uncongenial activities can indulge it in their spare time.

The first of these, is the spiritual (not religious) endeavours favoured by the Hindus & Christian Mystics. While this may be acceptable to only a lucky few, more can seek escape into what is called "The Sanity of The Arts" by Edward Hodnett from the insanity of the world & its rat-race. These offer the option of choosing the type & period of human history, where the genius of the race blossomed & was in full bloom.

For example, a music lover can find, as Rachmaninov said "A little Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for Music." A literary aficionado may find a lifetime too short for enjoying the complex architecture of the Victorian novelists. Similarly in the world of Art, who can exhaust the colourful palette of the "Divine" Raphael?

It cannot be emphasised too strongly that this is not the schizophrenic's inability to deal with reality or even the fictional Lord Voldemort's splitting his soul into several horcruxes to achieve physical immortality. On the other hand, in the case of spiritual endeavours, it may even lead to the Hindu goal of human life, i.e., release from the endless cycle of birth, death & re-birth. In the case of culture, it may round up the life & procure "the peace that passeth all understanding" as proclaimed by the Christian Mystics.

Chakradar Tihai & Galsworthy

In Hindusthani Music, a Tihai is a musical phrase played thrice to reach the Sam, the place of the loudest accent in a Tala cycle. In Chakradara Tihai, this complete Tihai is played thrice to reach the Sam, so that to the listeners that musical phrase appears to have been played 3×3 or 9 times. (Ref: The Dictionary of Hindustani Classical Music by Bimalakanta Roychaudhuri). Pandit Nikhil Banerjee used these copiously in his concerts.

Coming to the literary equivalents of the above, many trilogies are published like the tihais of music. But literary works like the Chakradar Tihai are rare, the most famous example being the Forsyte series by Galsworthy (Nobel Prize 1932), which comprised three trilogies.

The first trilogy, "The Forsyte Saga" deals with the prosperous family of Forsytes, especially Soames, a solicitor & art collector, whose ill-fated marriage to Irene, divorce & second marriage to the French Annette is detailed in 3 novels called "The Man of Property", "In Chancery" & "To Let'.

The second trilogy, "A Modern Comedy", comprising "The White Monkey", "The Silver Spoon" & "Swan Song" deals with the doings of Fleur, daughter of Soames & Annette, her marriage to Michael Mont, book publisher & parliamentarian, & ends with the accidental death of Soames, who was trying to save his beloved Fleur from a falling picture from his art gallery, enveloped by a fire.

The third trilogy, "The End of the Chapter", comprising "Maid in waiting", "Flowering Wilderness" & "Over the River", deals mostly with the Cherrells, cousins (by marriage to the Forsytes) with an occasional appearance by Fleur. The heroine is Dinny Cherrell, who nearly dies by contracting an infectious disease from a poor child. Also there is Diana married to a man periodically insane &  Clare, trapped in a marriage with a sadistic husband. Added to this are a military man facing a court-martial & a poet forcibly converted to Islam & there is never a dull moment.

However, the Forsytes fortunes were continued in "The Forsytes - The Saga continues" by Suleika Dawson, a well written pastiche.

Turntable Snobbism: A Nostalgic Journey

Some manufacturers are marketing affordable "suitcase turntables" with built-in amplifier & speakers. The invective poured upon them by the audiophile community is unbelievable. So I was tempted to write about my forays into turntables.

The advent of the LP & EP records in the early 1960's, also saw the emergence of equipment to play them, mostly of the "suitcase variety", both made by HMV. They had ceramic cartridges, sapphire styli & idler drives, all spares being easily available & inexpensive. I also started buying records (classical) & played them on these equipments with enjoyment. Later Philips also started making stereo versions but with same styli & idler drives. 

This continued till the beginning of the 1980's when separate amplifier & speaker systems by specialised audio manufacturers arrived & HMV & Philips also made turntables with magnetic cartridges, diamond styli & belt drives. I switched over to these with stereo pre & power amplifiers & speakers with woofers & tweeters. Still the spares were easily & cheaply available. It should be noted that my records, played & enjoyed for 15 years on the detested suitcase turntables had no audible damage.

But when CDs arrived towards the beginning of the 1990's, the Indian manufacturers decided to shut down plants making records & turntables, even as the rest of the world was continuing to make them.

Now in the beginning of the 21st Century, we are importing both records & turntables because of our foolishness in scrapping them in a hurry. The imported stuff costs the earth & spares being difficult to get. The Marantz turntable & the 2.1 MMS system with a sub- woofer which I have now sounds great, but earlier also the "suitcase" systems gave undiluted pleasure for many years.

Vigilante literature

When people feel that justice has been denied to them, sometimes they take the law into their own hands & become judge, jury & executor rolled into one. Literature has also many examples of vigilantes, mostly portraying them favourably.

One of the earliest & most famous of such books is "The Four Just Men" by Edgar Wallace. This book so impressed Martin Edwards, who produced the magisterial study of the Golden Age of Detection called "The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books" that he included it that book, even though he overlooked the books having the genuine detective J. G. Reeder, created by Wallace himself. 

Wallace was one of the most prolific writers of the first part of the twentieth century but has rather fallen out of fashion now. But his first book was launched amidst a flurry of fanfare, which though it guaranteed best seller status to the book, was financial ruin to Wallace. Undeterred, he wrote five sequels to the book, all of which were well received. All the six books are issued in an omnibus edition by the publishers of economy editions, Wordsworth Publishers.

Even Agatha Christie's classic "Murder on the Orient Express" featuring her detective Hercule Poirot, he of the "little grey cells" & also filmed many times, is a vigilante novel, where an assorted dozen of them assasinate a child murderer.

Animal Fables across the world

Arguably the earliest of the anthropomorphic animal Fables are attributed to Aesop, a former slave(620 to 564 B.C). The total number is around 358 with some stories being very well known. Later in his life, he was freed & even became a diplomat. According to Plutarch, on one of such missions, he was thrown from a cliff & killed.

Panchatantra is attributed to Vishnu Sharma & composed between 200 B. C. & 300 A. D.

It is well constructed with 5 Sections, each dealing with a specific technique of management, the total number of stories being less than a hundred.  Many tales are like the ubiquitous Russian Babushka dolls, with one tale nestling inside another. Humans also appear in a few Fables.

The Frenchman La Fontaine (1668 - 94) created his own version, bristling with typical gallic sang-froid, numbering around 240. But he also brought in humans in many of his Fables, not unlike the celebrated "The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame.

Among the dystopian novels using the format are George Orwell's savage "Animal Farm" & the equally brutal "Watership Down" by Richard Adams.

Popularizing Western Philosophy

The first attempt in this direction was made by Will Durant in his "The Story of Philosophy", (1926) which still remains a landmark publication. He provided short biographies & succinct summaries of the major western philosophers without dumbing down their ideas. It was deservedly a best-seller. It contains the famous quote: "We are, what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit."

Next was the literary tour de force called "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder. First published in Norwegian (1991), it was translated & became a best-seller due to its detective novel format. It's eponymous heroine, a 14 year old schoolgirl, (like her famous sister Alice disappearing through a rabbit-hole into Wonderland), vanishes into the Wonderland of Philosophy, on getting an anonymous letter asking "Who are You?" On the way, the reader meets her mother, who reminds one of Dickens' Mrs. Nickleby. Sophie's friend Joanna, has a mother who dresses like an overgrown Barbie doll!

The third is the elegantly produced DK Publication of "The Philosophy Book", beautifully illustrated, with pithy quotations, contexts embedded in panels, & flowcharts encouraging logical thinking, guide the reader to delve deep into its pages in search of wisdom, because as Socrates said "The life which is unexamined, is not worth living."

Seldom has the supposedly dry subject of Philosophy been made so reader-friendly.

The Seasons in Western Classical Music

The earliest & most popular of this type of program music with extra-musical associations is Vivaldi's 4 Concerti, called the "The Four Seasons", composed in 1716 - 17. They were also accompanied by sonnets written by Vivaldi himself, describing flowing creeks, singing birds, a shepherd with his barking dog, buzzing flies, storms, dancers, hunting parties, landscapes & winter parties.

Haydn composed a long secular oratorio in 1801 in the key of B major on the same subject. The libretto was written by his patron, Van Swieten. It also contained horn calls, wine celebrations, dancing peasants, thunderstorm & an ode to toil.

Tchaikovsky composed a Piano Suite (1875) called "The Seasons" with 12 sections, each describing a month. Sometimes, a piece for a single month is played by itself as an encore to a piano recital, especially Troika (November) & Barcarolle (June).

Glazunov composed a ballet for "The Seasons" in 1899. Starting with 4 variations for winter, onset of spring, waltz of the cornflowers & poppies in summer, bacchanalia in autumn & apotheosis in the finale.

Old men and unrelated little girls

The best examples of these are in three pieces of literature. First in George Eliot's "Silas Marner", Silas, a miser through losing faith in human nature, loses his treasured hoard of gold. But soon after, he discovers the golden haired Eppie on his hearth & lavishes all his pent up love on her. Fortunately she reciprocates his love & even foregoes wealth & status later to stay with him.

In Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables", Cossette is discovered & rescued from an unspeakably miserable situation by Jean Valjean, & brought up lovingly by him, but gradually becomes cold & uncaring to him on the arrival of her lover, Marius when her  romantic love overrides filial love.

In Rabindranath Tagore's "Kabuliwala", an itinerant Afghan peddler, befriends a little Bengali girl, who reminds him of his daughter. He lavishes his love on her, which she reciprocates. But he is framed on false charges & imprisoned for many years. After his release, he returns to her on what happens to be her wedding day & sadly she has completely forgotten him.

This was brilliantly filmed by Tapan Sinha in Bengali, the little girl played by none other than the sister of the actress who later became a star in Bengali & Hindi films, Sharmila Tagore. It was also made, not so effectively, in Hindi by Bimal Roy.

Yugadharma & Entropy

These are found in Parasara Smriti (100 A. D.)

The first Yuga was Kritayuga, where austerity was most important. People were truthful & curses would take effect immediately. Wealthy would themselves approach the needy & help. Righteousness was complete.

The second, Tretayuga held knowledge paramount. People would avoid sin & curses would take effect within 10 days. Wealthy would invite needy & help them. Righteousness was only three quarters.

The third, Dwaparayuga, Vedic rituals would predominate. Sinners would be cast off & curses would take a month to be effective. Poor would be helped only if they begged for it. Righteousness was only half.

The fourth, Kaliyuga had only a quarter of righteousness & giving charity was
most important. Sinners were considered depraved & curses would take a year. People were helped only if they rendered service first. Righteousness was only a quarter.

It can be observed that so-called human qualities gradually lessened in the four yugas, tending towards chaos.

Entropy is defined in thermodynamics as the degree of molecular disorder or state of randomness of a system, leading to chaos. The arrow of Entropy & the arrow of time always point in the same direction.

So the Hindu system of cosmology may be looked upon as an Entropy applied to human behaviour. But the difference is, while the arrows of time & Entropy point in the same direction, making it a linear function, Hindu cosmology is essentially cyclic in nature, bringing back the sublime heights of Kritayuga after the deplorable depths of Kaliyuga.

Havergal Brian (1876 - 1972) - Prolific but obscure British Composer

One of the musical world's unsung heroes is Havergal Brian. Self taught, in spite of composing 32 Symphonies, a Concerto for Orchestra,  Concertos for Cello & Violin, & numerous other works, he remained relatively unknown until the advent of records.

Sir Henry Wood (of the Promenade Concerts fame) once suggested to Brian to write a work reviving all the old & obsolete instruments to convey unique ideas. He did, in a work "Gothic Symphony", nearly 2 hours long but every moment being meaningful. The finale was the "Te Deum" for voices. Even though completed in 1919, its first performance was given only in 1966!

Even though championed by the musicologist Sir Donald Tovey (7 Volume Essays in Musical Analysis) & Sir Henry Wood, his works were seldom performed.

Only Leopold Stokowski (then 91) conducted Brian's 28th Symphony, when Brian was also 91! He was most creative in his seventies onwards up to his nineties!