Resonances of the Raj: India in the English Musical Imagination,1897-1947

369 Pages·2014·17.731 MB·English

by  Nalini Ghuman

Resonances of the Raj

Resonances of the Raj
India in the English Musical Imagination,
1897‒1947

Nalini Ghuman
3
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ghuman, Nalini.
Resonances of the Raj : India in the English musical imagination, 1897-1947 / Nalini Ghuman.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–931489–8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Music—Great Britain—20th century—History
and criticism. 2. Music—India—20th century—History and criticism. 3. Music—Great Britain—
Indic influences. I. Title.
ML285.G58 2014
780.941’0954—dc23
2013037305
This volume is published with the generous support of the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment
of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment
for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
India has reached the English imagination by different routes. . . . With the
twentieth century begins a new interpretation. It comes from many sources,
which have only this in common: they are unofficial. A new conception of the
country has come to us in consequence. She may be puzzling, but we cannot
now ignore her. Her culture, or rather cultures, have been re-interpreted.
—E. M. Forster, ‘The Indian Boom’ (1915)
The Eastern point of view is unmistakably getting a hold of them.
This could be shown by an analysis of contemporary western compositions—a
matter too technical to enter into here, but which deserves the attention of all
who would hear the music of West and East, harmony and melody,
combined in sweet concord.
—Maud MacCarthy, ‘Is Indian Music Appreciated in the West?’ (1912)
By the late nineteenth century . . . India had a massive influence on British life,
in commerce and trade, industry and politics, ideology and war,
culture and the life of imagination.
—Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (1994)
Musical meaning is vague, mutable. . . . Still, even if history can never tell us
exactly what music means, music can tell us something about history.
—Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise (2007)

CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Note on Spelling and Pronunciation xvii
About the Companion Website xix
Introduction 1
1. A Subtle and Exquisite Spirit: Maud MacCarthy and Indian
Music in Britain 11
True Practice  11
Real Proof  20
Fusty Bookology 29
An Equal Music 35
2. Elephants and Mughals, Contraltos and G-Strings: How Elgar
Got His Englishness 53
Vandalism Rectified (The Delhi Darbār)  53
Masking the Darbār 57
The Composer’s Burden 60
East is East and West is West 62
The Jewel in The Crown of India 70
East is West (or, Angular Saxon) 76
Can the Mughals March?  82
Elgar the Barbarian 89
3. From India to the Planet Mars: Gustav Holst 105
Why not Learn Sanskrit?  105
As if Improvising  108
A Little More Context  111
Between Life and Death  116
A Complicated Rhythmical Figure 123
Archaic Avant-Garde  130
But a Passing Phase  137
From India to the Planet Mars  139
viii Contents
To Another World  143
Figure of Our Time 151
4. Songs that Moved the World: Amy Woodforde-Finden’s
Indian Love Lyrics  168
Women Hold their Own  168
A Taste for the Forbidden  169
Orientalities  170
Paradise on Earth  184
Sincerity Rather than Poetry  189
Myths and Manifestations  196
Sapphic Stories  200
A Map of Longings 204
5. Persian Composer-Pianist Baffles: Kaikhosru Sorabji 217
Marginal Exotic  217
Himalayan Hermitage  220
Colour Matters 223
Modernist 226
Schéhérazade-Kaikhosru 229
Rāga, Jangal, and Chakra 234
Melancholy Moth 245
6. Modes, Mantras, and Gandharvas: John Foulds’s Passage to India 261
No Little Englander 261
Oh! The Poor Conductor! 271
Orpheus Abroad: A Controversial Subject 282
The Travesty of Translation 287
A Sordid Story 294
Voices from the Beyond 295
Breathtaking and New 299
Music Credits 315
Selected Bibliography 317
Index 325
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 ‘Teaching Tāla’: Maud MacCarthy learning in Adyar with
Ramanujāchārya, c.1907 15
1.2 Urdu song, Man lāg rayho, man: a rare example of notation from
MacCarthy’s field notes 16
1.3a Idioms of Rāga Kedar in MacCarthy’s hand, c.1908 17
1.3b Text of Urdu Khyāl by Bahadur Shah Zafar, Sakal ban gagan pawan
chalat purva 18
1.4a Muttuswami Dikshitar’s Kriti, Kalāvati Kamalāsana yuvatī in
Rāga Kalāvati: MacCarthy’s rendition in John Foulds’s
transcription 22
1.4b Muttuswami Dikshitar’s Kriti, Kalāvati Kamalāsana yuvatī:
The transliterated text and the ārohana of Rāga Kalāvati in
MacCarthy’s hand 23
1.5 MacCarthy–Foulds’s interpretation of Tyāgarāja’s Kriti, ‘Bhava Nutha’,
no. 1 of Indian Suite, pallavi 23
1.6 Patnam Subramanya Iyer, Manasu karugademi: MacCarthy’s typescript
of the text as given to her by W. A. Krishnamachari in Chennai 24
1.7 Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Royal Musicians of Hindustan in London,
c.1912 31
1.8 ‘Some Indian Conceptions of Music’: advertisement for one of
MacCarthy’s series of lecture-recitals 33
1.9 Maud MacCarthy with her saraswati vīna from Thanjāvūr, c.1920 37
2.1 ‘The Durbar Ceremony, Delhi, 1912 [sic]’. Kinemacolor catalogue,
1912 54
2.2 ‘Vandalism! Or, the Partition of Bengal!’. Hindi Punch, July 1905 56
2.3 ‘Ave Imperator!’: concluding scene from Elgar’s Crown of India masque.
India, from the steps of the throne, hails the King-Emperor and
Queen-Empress 58
2.4 Lutchman Pershad carrying the Viceroy and Vicereine (Lord and
Lady Curzon) into Delhi at the Darbār of 1903 87
2.5 ‘India’, part of ‘Greater Britain’. The Sketch, 21 April 1897 88
3.1 Tambūrā figurations in Holst’s ‘To the Dawn’ and ‘Hymn of the
Travellers’: Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda, op. 26, group 3 128
3.2 Idiomatic harp figuration in Holst’s ‘To the Waters’: Choral Hymns
from the Rig Veda, op. 26, group 3, no. 2 130