Essays on music - Hardcover

Sharma; Prem

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 8173046115 ISBN 13: 9788173046117

Publisher: Manohar Publishers and Distributors, 2006

Synopsis

Essays in Music is seventeenth in the series of the Collected Works of Dr Ananda K Coomaraswamy, in the IGNCAs publication programme. These essays were published in a few books, journals, etc., mostly in the early years of the twentieth century. Coomaraswamy held that music in countless ways had been bound up with the Indian national culture, for it was the most universal expression of emotion religious, amorous or martial. Music belonged to every part of life. The flute of Krishna, the vina of Sarasvati, the dance of Shiva, the Gayatri as cosmic chant or music of the spheres; the hymns of passionate adoration of the Southern Saivite, all these belong to the association of music and religion. In addition to the art music, he lays great emphasis on the folk songs of agriculture and crafts. This is music serving to lighten heavy labour, such as the songs of husbandmen, carters and boatmen. Music remained too intimately associated with religion, with drama and with life, whether courtly or popular, and was faithfully guarded by tradition. Coomaraswamy was much against the harmonium and gramophone, when compared to stringed instruments; even the piano, he held, was an inferior instrument. Every time these mechanical instruments were used in place of man, the Indian musician was degraded, his living was taken away from him and the group soul of Indian life injured. Among musical instruments, he gave pride of place to vina. He firmly believed that the importance of music in education can hardly be overestimated. He bemoaned that foreign (English) education had paralysed the living impulses of Indians, and driven India to a state of social disintegration. He advocated that the restoration of Indian folk and art music to its proper place in Indian education would result in the understanding of the self-expression of India in her music.

About this title

About the Author:

A. K. Coomaraswamy was one of the world's greatest art historians and scholars of traditional iconography and is the author of numerous works, including Christian and Oriental Philosophy of Art and The Door in the Sky. Prem Lata Sharma is a distinguished scholar of musicology, Sanskrit, and Hindi. She is a former chairperson of U.P. Sangita Nataka Academy, Lucknow, and vice chancellor of the Indira Kala Sangita Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh (M.P.). She was also selected as Fellow of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi.

About this edition

• Publisher: Manohar Publishers and Distributors
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 8173046115
• ISBN 13: 9788173046117
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 156
• Editor: John M. Fritz, Robert Brubaker