Bach, Baul and Publicity in Life

Did you know that the tune of the popular Bengali song, ‘Age Ki Shundor Din Kataitam,’ is not by Shah Abdul Karim? He initially gave it a tune, but it was another man’s version that became famous, which, eventually, Karim himself took up when singing. When asked why he sacrificed his original composition for a trendier one (when critics would argue Karim’s version had more musical depths than the latter), he would gently reply, “Because it’s the one everyone listens to.”

There is more to the name of this artist because we must remember that Karim was a Baul , and the traditional Baul songs have little variety in melody and harmony. For the Bauls, the words matter more than tunes. It carries and instils the words into the listener’s heart. So, Karim won’t mind as long as you don’t meddle with the words.

I understand and sympathise with Bengal’s rich Baul tradition, of which Karim is a part. They aim to spread the Baul philosophy of life, advocating simplicity, equality and spiritual well-being. This folk tradition of preaching compassion to ordinary people through songs is about a thousand years old. It has worked so well in Bengal villages for centuries that it has become an impeccable part. Sitting in this hyper era of media and compact urban life, living amid fraud, corruption, pollution and all sorts of degeneration, if somebody tells me of ‘spreading’ something, whether it be good or bad, with the motivation of influencing another, I can’t help but be sceptical about it.

Going back to Shah Abdul Karim’s preference of lyric over melody, I started thinking if I were to choose a career in the arts, how much shall I bother about ‘spreading’ my work? It’s a question valid for everyone, whether they be artists or not, but as genuine human beings, so to search for a reasonable answer would seem obvious enough. My pondering this question is motivated by another artist I admire: JS Bach, the supreme master of the world of Western classical music. In the West, Bach’s musical genius is held incomparable, though his music was little known during his lifetime, and he was more famous as an organ player than a composer.

It didn’t affect his rich musical outpouring, though. He had another source of motivation to keep his creative drive going without feedback and mass appreciation. His music was Soli Deo Gloria or ‘for the glory of God alone.’ All of his creative delivery, thus, works as a bridge between the sacred and the secular.

But if you look at composers' manuscripts like Beethoven, it’s full of phrases, markings and tempo indications. Beethoven had a strict idea of how the piece would sound best, i.e. in which tempo, rhythm, etc., and if you meddle with it, it wouldn’t take much to bring a catastrophe onto the stage.

On the other hand, Bach is flexible. You can do whatever you like with his music, play at any rhythm or on any instrument, interpret in all wild possible ways, and somehow, it still works.

Today, all of Bach’s keyboard works are played on the piano, which is not baroque. Bach’s primary instruments were the harpsichord and the organ. Some of the epitomes of Bach’s keyboard works, such as ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ or ‘The Goldberg Variations’, are widely interpreted per the pianist’s choice. Yet, he has nothing to fear. As Bach specialist renowned pianist Andras Schiff puts it,

“For him it was not important to listen to this… or (to bother) it should be played like that… it’s there. Sheer perfection.”

From here comes my observation and thinking on ‘publicity’ in life. Living in a consumerist world, surrounded by billboards, labels and price tags… where your daily activities are monitored by business enterprises, who would employ machines to analyse your every finger tap to make profits out of it, minds to start becoming manufactured in a consumerist manner. There remains little place for thinking and feeling. In the world of products, advertising is as vital as producing. Without proper advertisement, materials can lose their value. But is this case the same for humanity, too?

Last Saturday, we were in Kaptai, taking a boat ride on a late winter afternoon. It was foggy, and the distant hills by the lake were engulfed by misty haze. Well, the vital energy of the water felt through the waves, with the beauty of soft sunshine sprinkling on the water, takes you to another world altogether.

It is heavenly beauty, yet it doesn’t need an observer. It’s simply there. Thousands of years back, when no man had walked on earth, beauty was still there, and it goes beyond any shallow business of advertising, selling, and influencing others. All of these germinate from petty humane thinking and reflect its limits.

The true beauty, which is timeless and eternal, doesn’t care for all these. And there, solely, lies its greatness.