At a recent event organised by Victoria Memorial and Hindusthan Record at the Eastern Quadrangle, Kolkata, hymns composed by Rabindranath Tagore were played. These were presented by Voices Of Calcutta with Debashish Raychaudhuri (solo tenor) and Rohini Raychaudhuri (solo soprano) and Kolkata Youth Orchestra conducted by Sanjib Mondal. The 17-piece orchestra comprised violins, viola, cello and piano was supported by a large chorus of voices by male and female soprano and alto singers, orchestrated by Upamanyu Kar.
The performance began after Debashish’s introduction with the hymn, “There are numerous string in your lute”, words and music by Rabindranath Tagore with harmony by Betsy Jo Angebraundt. Debashish’s marvellous baritone voice with a stroke of prescience that coloured the string tones afforded a fine contrast to Rohini’s rendition while the body of strings as a foundation of the orchestra developed the melody and demonstrated their superior resourcefulness. The music from the choir of soprano and alto supported by the simple accompaniment of the chords after a slow, lordly introduction made the singing brimming with melodic freshness and charm.
This was followed by Debashish reading the poem number 72, “I remember my Childhood” from the anthology “Crossing” by Tagore and the song “Now I recall my Childhood” a recast of the poem by the choir, set to Alfred Morten Smith’s music. The slow-paced music may be regarded as a sublime work of using symphonic and choral styles. Nevertheless, the hearing pleasure was long sustaining. A reading of ”Fearful Joy” from the book, “Singing the Living Tradition”(Unitarian Universalist Association) by Rohini and Debashish was followed by “Your Mercy, O Eternal One” with words of Tagore based on the music of Scottish psalter, with harmony by Thomas Ravenscorft (1592-1623). The exquisite singing helped to keep the music alive and remarkably articulate.
Tagore’s two Bengali hymns, “Sara Jiban Dilo Aalo” and the concluding, “Jagata Jurey Udaar Surey” were given a baffling mystic serenity by the Western orchestra with the choir swaying in emotion of melody in one superbly proportioned whole.
Giving details of how they came across these compositions, Debashish said, “After our programme in Pittsburgh, Rohini and I were having a walk down the lanes of the town, and it so happened that we came across the first Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh. Visiting the church, we suddenly stumbled on their hymn book ‘Singing the living Traditions’, where we found three songs by Rabindranath, all notated. The first song ‘Numerous strings in your lute’ has become a part of not only the Unitarian church but has entered into the hymn books of Christians in general so that even in India many of the churches sing this song without knowing that it is by Rabindranath.”
A compact disc “Numerous Strings” by Hindusthan Records with these songs and two hymns in Bengali was also released on the occasion.
