Monday, March 19 2001
Tagore and Einstein - A Conversation
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Introduction by Rajan P.
Parrikar
Namashkar.
The summer of 1930 occasioned a meeting of two extraordinary
minds - Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein - in Caputh, Germany.
Einstein reserved the highest admiration for Tagore as well as Mahatma Gandhi,
and
they, in turn, recognized in him a kindred spirit. Despite the disparate
life-focus of the
three, their ecumenical thinking lavished its warmth and wisdom on humanity as
a
whole. They were profoundly united in their concern for the world's indigent,
the state of
the human condition a continual presence to their imagination. Of the values
that fuelled his
rich life Einstein famously wrote: The ideals which have lighted my way,
and time after
time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully have been Kindness,
Beauty and Truth.
Gandhi and Tagore, too, took the road illuminated by these very values.
The Tagore-Einstein dialogues of 1930 have been reprinted in a delightful
book, Einstein Lived Here, by Professor Abraham
Pais (Oxford
University Press, 1994) in Chapter 9, "The Indian Connection: Tagore
and Gandhi." The warm, humane Tagore-Einstein interchange on music is
particularly engaging
and is reproduced below with permission of the publisher.
But first, let us survey some quotes from the Chapter, words which cast a
flavour of the
regard these great sages held one another in:
Tagore on Einstein:
Einstein has
often been
called a lonely man. Insofar as the realm
of the mathematical vision helps to liberate the mind from the crowded
trivialities of daily life, I suppose he is a lonely man. His is what
might be called transcendental materialism, which reaches the frontiers
of metaphysics, where there can be utter detachment from the entangling
world of self. To me both science and art are expressions of our
spiritual nature, above our biological necessities and possessed of an
ultimate value.
Einstein is an excellent interrogator. We talked long and earnestly
about my "religion of man." He punctuated my thoughts with terse
remarks of his own, and by his questions I could measure the trend
of his own thinking.
Einstein to Tagore:
You are aware of
the struggle
of creatures that spring forth out of
need and dark desires. You seek salvation in quiet contemplation and
in the workings of beauty. Nursing these you have served mankind by
a long fruitful life, spreading a mild spirit, as has been proclaimed
by the wise men of your people.
Einstein on Tagore, co-written with Gandhi and Rolland:
He has been for
us the living
symbol of the Spirit, of Light, and of Harmony - the great free
bird which soars in the midst of tempests - the song of Eternity which
Ariel strikes
on his golden harp, rising above the sea of unloosened passions. But his art
never remained indifferent to human misery and struggles. He is the 'Great
Sentinel.' For
all that we are and we have created have had their roots and their branches in
that Great Ganges of Poetry and Love.
Warm regards,
Rajan P. Parrikar
T: Rabindranath Tagore; E:
Albert Einstein
(Year: 1930)
pp 105-107
<-- Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein in Caputh, July 14, 1930
The second Einstein-Tagore dialogue, the one held in Caputh, 'was taken down
by a friend
who was present'. This time they began with a discussion of the nature of
causality. On this subject the two men talked past each other without any
understanding as
to what the other was driving at. I do not consider it worthwhile reproducing
here any of this. On the other hand, their next theme, on music is quite
appealing.
T: The musical
system in
India...is not so rigidly fixed as is the western music. Our composers give
a certain definite outline,
a system of melody and rhythmic arrangement, and within a certain limit the
player can
improvise upon it. He must be one with the law of that particular melody,
and then he can give spontaneous expression to his musical feeling with the
prescribed
regulation. We praise the composer for his genius in creating a foundation
along
with a superstructure of melodies, but we expect from the player his own skill
in the
creation of variations of melodic flourish and ornamentation. In creation we
follow
the central law of existence, but, if we do not cut ourselves adrift from it,
we can have
sufficient freedom within the limits of our personality for the fullest
self-expression.
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E: That is only
possible where
there is a strong artistic tradition in music to guide the people's mind.
In Europe, music has come too far away from popular art and popular feeling
and has become
something like a secret art with conventions and traditions of its own.
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T: So you have to
be absolutely
obedient to this too complicated music. In India the measure of a
singer's freedom is in his own creative personality. He can sing the
composer's song as
his own, if he has the power creatively to assert himself in his interpretation
of
the general law of melody which he is given to interpret.
E: It requires a
very high
standard of art fully to realize the great idea in the original music, so that
one can make variations upon it. In our country the variations are often
prescribed.
T: If in our
conduct we can
follow the law of goodness, we can have real liberty of self-expression.
The principle of conduct is there, but the character which makes it true and
individual
is our own creation. In our music there is a duality of freedom and prescribed
order.
E: Are the words
of a song also
free? I mean to say, is the singer at liberty to add his own words to
the song which he is singing?
T: In Bengal we
have a kind of
song - Kirtan, we call it - which gives freedom to the singer to
introduce parenthetical comments,
phrases not in the original song. This occasions great enthusiasm, since the
audience is
constantly thrilled by some beautiful, spontaneous sentiment freshly added by
the
singer.
E: Is the metrical
form quite
severe?
T: Yes, quite. You
cannot
exceed the limits of versification; the singer in all his variations must keep
the rhythm and the time, which is fixed. In European music you have a
comparative liberty
about time, but not about melody. But in India we have freedom of melody
with no freedom of time.
E: Can the Indian
music be sung
without words? Can one understand a song without words?
T: Yes, we have
songs with
unmeaning words, sounds which just help to act as carriers of the
notes. In North India music is an independent art, not the interpretation of
words and
thoughts, as in Bengal. The music is very intricate and subtle and is a
complete
world of melody by itself.
Cartoon by Herblock, published in Washington Post some days after
Einstein's
death -->
E: It is not
polyphonic?
T: Instruments are
used, not
for harmony, but for keeping time and for adding to the volume and
depth. Has melody suffered in your music by the imposition of harmony?
E: Sometimes it
does suffer
very much. Sometimes the harmony swallows up the melody
altogether.
T: Melody and
harmony are like
lines and colors in pictures. A simple linear picture may be
completely beautiful; the introduction of
color may make it vague and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with
lines, create
great pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.
E: It is a
beautiful
comparison; line is also much older than color. It seems that your melody is
much richer in structure than ours. Japanese music seems to be so.
T: It is difficult
to analyze
the effect of eastern and western music on our minds. I am deeply
moved by the western music - I feel that it is great, that it is vast in its
structure and
grand in its composition. Our own music touches me more deeply by its
fundamental lyrical appeal. European music is epic in character; it has a
broad
background and is Gothic in its structure.
E: Yes, yes, that
is very true.
When did you first hear European music?
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T: At seventeen,
when I first
came to Europe. I came to know it intimately, but even before that
time I had heard European music in our own household. I had heard the music
of Chopin and
others at an early age.
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E: There is a
question we
Europeans cannot properly answer, we are so used to our own music.
We want to know whether our own music is a conventional or a fundamental human
feeling,
whether to feel consonance and dissonance is natural or a convention
which we accept.
T: Somehow the
piano confounds
me. The violin pleases me much more.
E: It would be
interesting to
study the effects of European music on an Indian who had never heard
it when he was young.
T: Once I asked an
English
musician to analyze for me some classical music and explain to me
what are the elements that make for the
beauty of a piece.
E: The difficulty
is that
really good music, whether of the East or of the West, cannot be analyzed.
T: Yes, and what
deeply affects
the hearer is beyond himself.
E: The same
uncertainty will
always be there about everything fundamental in our experience, in
our reaction to art, whether in Europe or Asia. Even the red flower I see
before me on
your table may not be the same to you and me.
T: And yet there
is always
going on the process of reconciliation between them, the individual taste
conforming to the universal standard.
Reproduced with permission of the publisher.
Glossary
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