Neither "world music," nor exotica, tonight's concert by Ali Akbar Khan
and Zakir Hussain in San Francisco's St. Mary's Cathedral was a unique
performance of great music, pure and simple... and magnificent.
The event was a fund-raiser for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's International
Association for Human Values. No, not *that* Ravi Shankar. The
organization is responsible for the 5H Program, a social-spiritual movement
in India.
I asked a dozen authentically Indian music-lovers in the overflowing
cathedral for the meaning of "Desh Malhar," the work taking up the lion's
share of the concert, but there was no answer. It was an Australian friend
who came up with "country" and "rainy season" -- I'd interpret it as "the
realm of monsoon." The make things more complicated, the first part
(Khansahib on sarod, alone) is called "Desh Malhar," and the second part,
with Zakir Hussain's incredible tabla added, is "Desh and Malhar."
Usually, Khansahib opens slowly, "tuning" turns to noodling which then
leads to the center of the work. This time, he ripped into a crying,
over-the-top sound that usually comes at the climax of the raga. It was
music starting on top and ascending from there. The sarod spoke not only
with the usual eloquence, but with an intensity, a vehemence that seemed
impossible to contain. The overflowing, overwhelming performance brought
to mind Norman Treigle's Mefistofele, Leonie Rysanek's Ortrud -- strange
resonances when considering the evil that's at the heart of those stories.
"Good" rarely prompts ecstasy in Western music: just try to find examples
besides Beethoven's Seventh and Ninth symphonies. Bad guys have the best
lines in Western opera, not so in Indian classical music.
Khansahib, at 78 or so, was in peak form. The sarod wailed, sang,
cried, with crescendos suddenly going into a mezza di voce, the sound dying
away, then springing back to life, with Bartokian dissonances, galloping
super-syncopation. Under St. Mary's enormous downpour of cascading glass
rods, the musical monsoon washed over the audience, which became part of
the performance, bursting into applause at times, holding its collective
breath otherwise.
And just when it seemed that nothing can get better, Zakir joined the
performance, with a feather-like touch that enveloped the sarod's voice.
Pointing at himself and making a downward motion, Zakir repeatedly asked
the sound control to reduce amplification of the tabla -- more than anybody
else in the hall, he knew what the balance should be. Although they
haven't played together for quite some time, he and Khansahib played as
one, without even looking at each other, music pouring out of the two,
flowing in one mighty river towards a place of unknown, inexperienced
harmonies. At nearby Davies Hall, the "American Mavericks" festival has
been featuring tone clusters galore, but Cage, Cowell and company couldn't
get near *these* in the cathedral. (Lou Harrison is another story.)
The usually severe Khansahib (concentrating in extremis) was positively
beaming tonight, expressing pleasure in playing music with an equal. There
was no first among equals here, only an unequalled pair of superb musicians
at their best.
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