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| Sunday, 22 February 2004 |
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Features |  |
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Melody... : The source of beauty in music by O. D. SOORIYAPALA Human needs can be divided into two sets - basic urgent needs (air, water, food, security, sleep), and desirable but non-urgent needs (e.g. being oneself and belonging, clothing, education, built shelter).
This second set also includes aesthetic experience - the experience of beauty (from art, for example) or grandeur (from a noble building such as the Colombo Museum or the BMICH). 'Beauty' denotes an emotional experience; it moves you, may be to tears. It should not be used loosely to denote anything merely pleasant or useful (e.g. a washing machine). Self-discovery Individuals are different, their tastes are different, their sensitivities to beauty are different. One person finds that beauty for him lies in works of art, another in music, yet another in drama, literature, and so on. Each of us must self-discover by trial and error the source of beauty for him. For me personally it is music. I believe this is true for most people. I shall speak from here on only of music, and of Lankan western music at that, or music that I have heard performed here in Lanka by Lankan performers. Beauty in music For me, and I believe it is so for most of us who are music-lovers, the source of magic within music is primarily melody (tune). And the melody should be a definite and short one, not a long drawn out clever improvisation running loosely along where the performer wills. This desirable shortness and definitiveness of melody is one reason why folk music is widely liked, and why popular music and 'Sinhala pop' are popular. There are many other incidentals which affect beauty in music, such as rhythm, harmony, tempo, dynamics (loud and soft), colour (instruments), expression, form and the personality and virtuosity of the performer. But none of these can serve to arouse beauty so readily as melody, and melody can be beautiful without any particular item of these incidentals. In the Lullabies by Norman Corea and by Carl Drieberg the rhythms are different (triple and duple respectively) but they are both beautiful. The folk Lullaby 'Doyi Doyi' popularised by Davar Surya Sena sounds beautiful when sung by a soprano, or played as a flute solo (I've heard this done by the Canadian flautist Michael Monshi in a local concert). 'La Carita" (Charity) by Rossini was beautiful when sung in its original setting for solo voice and chorus by Fr. Claver Perera and his choir, and beautiful also when played in the form of Liszt's piano transcription of it. Choral renderings of songs like 'Juanita' and 'Las Mananitas' by Fr. Claver's group have enhanced the intrinsic melodic beauty of the songs. 'Lanka' is deeply moving when sung by the tenor voice of Rookantha Goonetilleke or by the Vienna Boys Choir at Thimbirigasyaya Church. I have found myself in tears listening to sacred arias and choruses by Handel sung by the Cantata Singers at the Methodist College Chapel. I have been deeply moved by the melodic beauty of piano concertos by Mozart played by the late Rohan Joseph-de Saram, and of Beethoven played by Malinee Jayasinghe-Peris, and of the Schubert 'Arpeggione' Sonata played by Rohan de Saram (cello). Cultivation Treating aesthetic experience as a need, a must, one proceeds to cultivate it systematically - daily if possible, and progressing to higher and higher levels of refinement. The hymns in church started me off with their melodic beauty. Then came the chance of listening to gramophone records. One of the earliest of these which captivated me was Schubert's Trout Quintet. And I've gone on listening to records ever since. I hope to be able to say, at the end of each day, that such and such a piece of music was aesthetically fulfilling for me. |
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