It was completely by chance that I attended a presentation on Dmitri Shostakovich. The celebrated composer had his share of trials in life.
It was completely by chance that I attended a presentation on Dmitri Shostakovich. The celebrated composer had his share of trials in life. At one point, Shostokavich struggled to create what he wanted, his compositions not being in order with the norms set up by the regime. He suffered debilitating illness. It is not easy to be an artiste under repression. The regret of creativity being fettered can be so burdensome; one living in the privilege of free creation can never fathom what it means to be without or be thankful enough for this blessing. How grateful does one need to be for the freedom of music one enjoys — freedom to sing, to listen, to compose, to perform, or not to!
What was indeed another revelation for me was the conductor of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. When Leonard Bernstein took charge, the stage seemed electric. I have never seen such an intense composer in action. He breathed the music he conducted, the baton was at his complete command, swaying to the smallest feeling that he experienced. He minutely knew his composition and felt for every bit of the piece he was conducting; it seemed to run through every single nerve of his body. A messianic zeal seemed to pervade through. A smile, a fret, a twitch, all were explicit on his face.
Now an instant of joy, now a moment of anguish, now a sensation of excitement, now a brow laden with sorrow, all reflected on his immensely expressive face. For an instant I even stopped listening to the music; Bernstein took over. His passion, oneness and intimacy with the music he conducted was simply breathtaking. A subtle dance-like abhinaya played upon his being, which can only be attributed to his passion and connect with the music he was conducting.
His feverishness still had an under current of serenity, that can come only from the music itself. In other words, I was overcome by Bernstein’s emotional outpouring even more than Shostokovich’s Symphony itself. His father wanted him to take up the family hairdressing business. But Bernstein had a career in music ordained for him. “How could I know my son would become Lenny Bernstein ” his father is said to have mentioned. Fortunately, Lenny Bernstein knew.
And then I listened to another composer. Jim Leininger handled a different deal. If Bernstein was charismatic and frenetic, Jim Leininger was calm and restrained. Conductor of a The First Presbyterian Church of Dade City’s Handbell Choir, he had mastered the art of eliciting music through bells. This was the first time that I heard a live bell choir in performance at the Holy Name Chapel in Florida.
The fascinating world of bell music unveiled itself to me. Leininger could not shut his eyes in abandon like Bernstein. He was constantly communicating with his group, encouraging, lifting them up, rallying them around. He had the arduous task of choosing the right pieces that went with his amateur group, from enchanting old psalms to contemporary pieces. The outcome was delightful. I particularly enjoyed a piece that was an ode to water. It followed a stream, a river, an ocean and the handbells recreated the waves of feeling and sound that emanate from the flow of these waters.
The bells went through octaves, through surges of musical feeling in a way that a voice or any instrument would. It was one of the most enjoyable musical events I had heard in recent times. As I shared my thoughts with a listener from the audience, she spontaneously shared hers with me. She did not usually attend concerts. Because music had never been a part of her early life and she never thus acquired a taste or an understanding for it. The word she used was ‘deprived’. She had been deprived of this initiation, deprived of the happiness of knowing music. If freedom to create music is a boon, so is it also, to have been introduced to music. If not, one would remain, as this listener said — deprived, and she said that not without a deep tinge of regret and sadness.
Dr Vasumathi Badrinathan is an eminent Carnatic vocalist based in Mumbai. She can be contacted on vasu@vasumathi.net
