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Midweek Review

Commemorating Beethoven amidst a pandemic

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By Satyajith Andradi

The two hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of a great personage is indeed an occasion for grand celebration and festivities. More importantly, it is a time for contemplation and prayer. The two hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven, which falls on 16th December 2020, is such an event. Beethoven is universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of all time. For most lovers of western art music, he was the greatest composer who ever lived.

The Coronavirus pandemic, which is ravaging throughout the world, seriously restricts the ability to mark Beethoven’s birth anniversary with celebrations and festivities such as gala music concerts. However, it does not prevent us from marking this occasion with profound contemplation and earnest prayer. On the contrary, the current plight of humanity, brought about by the deadly pandemic, obliges us to do so. Now is the opportune time to think what Beethoven and his immortal music hold socially and spiritually for mankind, stricken with tragedy. Tragedy was no stranger to Beethoven. In fact, his personal life was so tragic that he considered himself to be one of God’s most miserable creatures. Nonetheless, Beethoven was able to conceive the most beautiful vision of hope and happiness for mankind through his music. However, Beethoven was not only a great visionary but a courageous man of action. He famously declared, “I will take fate by the throat”. He supported the revolutionary social and political transformations of contemporary Europe. More importantly, he did not allow his personal tragedies to prevent him from achieving his life’s mission as a composer.

Music and the social

Beethoven was born to a world, which was very different to ours, socially and politically. The landed aristocracy constituted the ruling class of the day. The social standing of composers, however talented, was low. Most of them, especially the composers of instrumental music, were engaged in the service of the nobility, under the so-called ‘ ‘Patronage System’. They were required to write music according to the tastes of their aristocratic masters. Beethoven successfully rebelled against this oppressive system. He refused to live as a servant of any aristocratic master. Instead, he managed to earn a decent living as a freelance composer and pianist. More importantly, he dared to write music which expressed his innermost personal emotions. Thereby, he inspired and initiated the Romantic Movement of music. His early masterpieces such as the Sonata Pathetique, the Eroica Symphony, and the Appasionata Sonata stand testimony to this. The far-reaching social and political transformations ushered by the French Revolution facilitated this musical and social radicalism, which was for Beethoven one and the same. On his part, Beethoven openly and enthusiastically supported the democratic ideas which flowed from revolutionary France.

Music and the spiritual

When Beethoven was in his early thirties, he began to lose his hearing. This caused him social embarrassment and mental agony to such an extent, that he even thought of committing suicide. However, luckily, he found that his growing deafness would not impair his creative powers as a composer. This hardened his resolve to live on and create great works of music for humanity. Side by side with his growing deafness, Beethoven’s many affairs of the heart fell apart. These, along with his deafness made him social recluse. However, these personal calamities enriched his inner spiritual life. Beethoven’s intense introspection gave rise to a marvelous spiritual awakening, which in turn led to the creation of music of unprecedented profundity. He plumbed the depth of his noble soul and expressed his innermost being through his late masterpieces such as the Ninth Symphony, the late piano sonatas, and the late string quartets. These works, which reveal a deeper reality of a profound spiritual nature, belong to the greatest musical compositions ever created by mankind.

As Beethoven moved away from casual social intercourse, he turned towards nature for solace and inspiration. He spent more time in the countryside and went on long walks. Surely, he would have sensed the oneness of his inner being with Mother Nature. His Sixth Symphony – the Pastorale, stand testimony to this.

A towering personality

As he grew older, Beethoven’s social behaviour became more and more rude and eccentric. He grew suspicious of others, and became a difficult person to associate with. His tragic experiences were largely responsible for this demeanor. However, deep within, he was an exceptionally noble being. He was a man of great moral fibre. He was utterly truthful to his life’s mission. He was a bold and courageous person who did not abandon his noble cause in the face of bitter adversity. His immortal setting of Schiller’s celebrated poem ‘ Ode to Joy’ at a time he was stone deaf proves the point.

Beethoven was outspoken in his criticism of injustice, whenever and wherever he found it. Further, as already mentioned, he openly and enthusiastically supported the democratic ideas which flowed from revolutionary France, which certainly wouldn’t have been to the liking of the reactionary authorities of Vienna, where he resided. These would have, to use the words of the Afro – American civil rights activist John Lewis, got him into quite a bit of ‘ Good Trouble’ with the Austrian police.

 

Vision for mankind

As mentioned earlier, Beethoven lived in an age, which was in many ways socially and technologically less advanced than ours. Things like democracy, individual freedom, human rights, and civil rights were rarely heard of at that time. There were no antibiotics, anaesthetics, automobiles, locomotives, electrical appliances, and aircrafts, not to mention space crafts, smartphones, and robots. The large-scale subjugation and plunder of numerous nations of Asia, Africa, and America, by a few European colonial powers, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Russian serfdom, and American slavery, were rampant. However, in spite of its notable evils, the people living at that time, unlike those of the present age, believed of unlimited social and scientific progress. Beethoven, true to his epoch, believed in a better future for mankind. Accordingly, his key message to humanity is consistent with the spirit of his times. That message is his beautiful vision of hope and happiness for mankind. This vision is inseparably intertwined with the social, the personal, the spiritual, and the natural. It was a vision of Oneness. For Beethoven, integrity was indivisible, to say the least.

Although there has been considerable progress in the social sphere since the time of Beethoven, social, political, and economic oppression is still widely prevalent in many forms. The subjugation and plunder of numerous poor nations by a few rich countries continue, albeit covertly through the use of finance capital rather than by the flagrant use of firearms. Certainly more disastrous is the suicidal war which is being waged with Mother Nature, in the interest of short term commercial profit of mega finance capitalists and the illusory GDP rat race of nations. Ever increasing deforestation, carbon emissions, slaughter of animals, and dumping of plastics, and the use of chemicals for agriculture, have become the order of the day. The resulting global warming, environmental pollution and climate change would inexorably lead to more virulent pandemics, social and economic disruptions, mass migration and starvation, and eventually death and total annihilation. Whatever social progress made during the past two centuries could disappear into thin air, together with all what we hold dear, including Beethoven’s music. In this critical moment, the world has much to learn from Beethoven and his music, and put things back on track before it is too late.

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Midweek Review

‘Professor of English Language Teaching’

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It is a pleasure to be here today, when the University resumes postgraduate work in English and Education which we first embarked on over 20 years ago. The presence of a Professor on English Language Teaching from Kelaniya makes clear that the concept has now been mainstreamed, which is a cause for great satisfaction.

Twenty years ago, this was not the case. Our initiative was looked at askance, as indeed was the initiative which Prof. Arjuna Aluwihare engaged in as UGC Chairman to make degrees in English more widely available. Those were the days in which the three established Departments of English in the University system, at Peradeniya and Kelaniya and Colombo, were unbelievably conservative. Their contempt for his efforts made him turn to Sri Jayewardenepura, which did not even have a Department of English then and only offered it as one amongst three subjects for a General Degree.

Ironically, the most dogmatic defence of this exclusivity came from Colombo, where the pioneer in English teaching had been Prof. Chitra Wickramasuriya, whose expertise was, in fact, in English teaching. But her successor, when I tried to suggest reforms, told me proudly that their graduates could go on to do postgraduate degrees at Cambridge. I suppose that, for generations brought up on idolization of E. F. C. Ludowyke, that was the acme of intellectual achievement.

I should note that the sort of idealization of Ludowyke, the then academic establishment engaged in was unfair to a very broadminded man. It was the Kelaniya establishment that claimed that he ‘maintained high standards, but was rarefied and Eurocentric and had an inhibiting effect on creative writing’. This was quite preposterous coming from someone who removed all Sri Lankan and other post-colonial writing from an Advanced Level English syllabus. That syllabus, I should mention, began with Jacobean poetry about the cherry-cheeked charms of Englishwomen. And such a characterization of Ludowyke totally ignored his roots in Sri Lanka, his work in drama which helped Sarachchandra so much, and his writing including ‘Those Long Afternoons’, which I am delighted that a former Sabaragamuwa student, C K Jayanetti, hopes to resurrect.

I have gone at some length into the situation in the nineties because I notice that your syllabus includes in the very first semester study of ‘Paradigms in Sri Lankan English Education’. This is an excellent idea, something which we did not have in our long-ago syllabus. But that was perhaps understandable since there was little to study then except a history of increasing exclusivity, and a betrayal of the excuse for getting the additional funding those English Departments received. They claimed to be developing teachers of English for the nation; complete nonsense, since those who were knowledgeable about cherries ripening in a face were not likely to move to rural areas in Sri Lanka to teach English. It was left to the products of Aluwihare’s initiative to undertake that task.

Another absurdity of that period, which seems so far away now, was resistance to training for teaching within the university system. When I restarted English medium education in the state system in Sri Lanka, in 2001, and realized what an uphill struggle it was to find competent teachers, I wrote to all the universities asking that they introduce modules in teacher training. I met condign refusal from all except, I should note with continuing gratitude, from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, where Paru Nagasunderam introduced it for the external degree. When I started that degree, I had taken a leaf out of Kelaniya’s book and, in addition to English Literature and English Language, taught as two separate subjects given the language development needs of students, made the third subject Classics. But in time I realized that was not at all useful. Thankfully, that left a hole which ELT filled admirably at the turn of the century.

The title of your keynote speaker today, Professor of English Language Teaching, is clear evidence of how far we have come from those distant days, and how thankful we should be that a new generation of practical academics such as her and Dinali Fernando at Kelaniya, Chitra Jayatilleke and Madhubhashini Ratnayake at USJP and the lively lot at the Postgraduate Institute of English at the Open University are now making the running. I hope Sabaragamuwa under its current team will once again take its former place at the forefront of innovation.

To get back to your curriculum, I have been asked to teach for the paper on Advanced Reading and Writing in English. I worried about this at first since it is a very long time since I have taught, and I feel the old energy and enthusiasm are rapidly fading. But having seen the care with which the syllabus has been designed, I thought I should try to revive my flagging capabilities.

However, I have suggested that the university prescribe a textbook for this course since I think it is essential, if the rounded reading prescribed is to be done, that students should have ready access to a range of material. One of the reasons I began while at the British Council an intensive programme of publications was that students did not read round their texts. If a novel was prescribed, they read that novel and nothing more. If particular poems were prescribed, they read those poems and nothing more. This was especially damaging in the latter case since the more one read of any poet the more one understood what he was expressing.

Though given the short notice I could not prepare anything, I remembered a series of school textbooks I had been asked to prepare about 15 years ago by International Book House for what were termed international schools offering the local syllabus in the English medium. Obviously, the appalling textbooks produced by the Ministry of Education in those days for the rather primitive English syllabus were unsuitable for students with more advanced English. So, I put together more sophisticated readers which proved popular. I was heartened too by a very positive review of these by Dinali Fernando, now at Kelaniya, whose approach to students has always been both sympathetic and practical.

I hope then that, in addition to the texts from the book that I will discuss, students will read other texts in the book. In addition to poetry and fiction the book has texts on politics and history and law and international relations, about which one would hope postgraduate students would want some basic understanding.

Similarly, I do hope whoever teaches about Paradigms in English Education will prescribe a textbook so that students will understand more about what has been going on. Unfortunately, there has been little published about this but at least some students will I think benefit from my book on English and Education: In Search of Equity and Excellence? which Godage & Bros brought out in 2016. And then there was Lakmahal Justified: Taking English to the People, which came out in 2018, though that covers other topics too and only particular chapters will be relevant.

The former book is bulky but I believe it is entertaining as well. So, to conclude I will quote from it, to show what should not be done in Education and English. For instance, it is heartening that you are concerned with ‘social integration, co-existence and intercultural harmony’ and that you want to encourage ‘sensitivity towards different cultural and linguistic identities’. But for heaven’s sake do not do it as the NIE did several years ago in exaggerating differences. In those dark days, they produced textbooks which declared that ‘Muslims are better known as heavy eaters and have introduced many tasty dishes to the country. Watalappam and Buriani are some of these dishes. A distinguished feature of the Muslims is that they sit on the floor and eat food from a single plate to show their brotherhood. They eat string hoppers and hoppers for breakfast. They have rice and curry for lunch and dinner.’ The Sinhalese have ‘three hearty meals a day’ and ‘The ladies wear the saree with a difference and it is called the Kandyan saree’. Conversely, the Tamils ‘who live mainly in the northern and eastern provinces … speak the Tamil language with a heavy accent’ and ‘are a close-knit group with a heavy cultural background’’.

And for heaven’s sake do not train teachers by telling them that ‘Still the traditional ‘Transmission’ and the ‘Transaction’ roles are prevalent in the classroom. Due to the adverse standard of the school leavers, it has become necessary to develop the learning-teaching process. In the ‘Transmission’ role, the student is considered as someone who does not know anything and the teacher transmits knowledge to him or her. This inhibits the development of the student.

In the ‘Transaction’ role, the dialogue that the teacher starts with the students is the initial stage of this (whatever this might be). Thereafter, from the teacher to the class and from the class to the teacher, ideas flow and interaction between student-student too starts afterwards and turns into a dialogue. From known to unknown, simple to complex are initiated and for this to happen, the teacher starts questioning.

And while avoiding such tedious jargon, please make sure their command of the language is better than to produce sentences such as these, or what was seen in an English text, again thankfully several years ago:

Read the story …

Hello! We are going to the zoo. “Do you like to join us” asked Sylvia. “Sorry, I can’t I’m going to the library now. Anyway, have a nice time” bye.

So Syliva went to the zoo with her parents. At the entrance her father bought tickets. First, they went to see the monkeys

She looked at a monkey. It made a funny face and started swinging Sylvia shouted: “He is swinging look now it is hanging from its tail its marvellous”

“Monkey usually do that’

I do hope your students will not hang from their tails as these monkeys do.

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Midweek Review

Little known composers of classical super-hits

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By Satyajith Andradi

 

Quite understandably, the world of classical music is dominated by the brand images of great composers. It is their compositions that we very often hear. Further, it is their life histories that we get to know. In fact, loads of information associated with great names starting with Beethoven, Bach and Mozart has become second nature to classical music aficionados. The classical music industry, comprising impresarios, music publishers, record companies, broadcasters, critics, and scholars, not to mention composers and performers, is largely responsible for this. However, it so happens that classical music lovers are from time to time pleasantly struck by the irresistible charm and beauty of classical pieces, the origins of which are little known, if not through and through obscure. Intriguingly, most of these musical gems happen to be classical super – hits. This article attempts to present some of these famous pieces and their little-known composers.

 

Pachelbel’s Canon in D

The highly popular piece known as Pachelbel’s Canon in D constitutes the first part of Johann Pachelbel’s ‘Canon and Gigue in D major for three violins and basso continuo’. The second part of the work, namely the gigue, is rarely performed. Pachelbel was a German organist and composer. He was born in Nuremburg in 1653, and was held in high esteem during his life time. He held many important musical posts including that of organist of the famed St Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. He was the teacher of Bach’s elder brother Johann Christoph. Bach held Pachelbel in high regard, and used his compositions as models during his formative years as a composer. Pachelbel died in Nuremburg in 1706.

Pachelbel’s Canon in D is an intricate piece of contrapuntal music. The melodic phrases played by one voice are strictly imitated by the other voices. Whilst the basso continuo constitutes a basso ostinato, the other three voices subject the original tune to tasteful variation. Although the canon was written for three violins and continuo, its immense popularity has resulted in the adoption of the piece to numerous other combinations of instruments. The music is intensely soothing and uplifting. Understandingly, it is widely played at joyous functions such as weddings.

 

Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary

The hugely popular piece known as ‘Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary’ appeared originally as ‘ The Prince of Denmark’s March’ in Jeremiah Clarke’s book ‘ Choice lessons for the Harpsichord and Spinet’, which was published in 1700 ( Michael Kennedy; Oxford Dictionary of Music ). Sometimes, it has also been erroneously attributed to England’s greatest composer Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695 ) and called ‘Purcell’s Trumpet Voluntary (Percy A. Scholes ; Oxford Companion to Music). This brilliant composition is often played at joyous occasions such as weddings and graduation ceremonies. Needless to say, it is a piece of processional music, par excellence. As its name suggests, it is probably best suited for solo trumpet and organ. However, it is often played for different combinations of instruments, with or without solo trumpet. It was composed by the English composer and organist Jeremiah Clarke.

Jeremiah Clarke was born in London in 1670. He was, like his elder contemporary Pachelbel, a musician of great repute during his time, and held important musical posts. He was the organist of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral and the composer of the Theatre Royal. He died in London in 1707 due to self – inflicted gun – shot injuries, supposedly resulting from a failed love affair.

 

Albinoni’s Adagio

The full title of the hugely famous piece known as ‘Albinoni’s Adagio’ is ‘Adagio for organ and strings in G minor’. However, due to its enormous popularity, the piece has been arranged for numerous combinations of instruments. It is also rendered as an organ solo. The composition, which epitomizes pathos, is structured as a chaconne with a brooding bass, which reminds of the inevitability and ever presence of death. Nonetheless, there is no trace of despondency in this ethereal music. On the contrary, its intense euphony transcends the feeling of death and calms the soul. The composition has been attributed to the Italian composer Tomaso Albinoni (1671 – 1750), who was a contemporary of Bach and Handel. However, the authorship of the work is shrouded in mystery. Michael Kennedy notes: “The popular Adagio for organ and strings in G minor owes very little to Albinoni, having been constructed from a MS fragment by the twentieth century Italian musicologist Remo Giazotto, whose copyright it is” (Michael Kennedy; Oxford Dictionary of Music).

 

Boccherini’s Minuet

The classical super-hit known as ‘Boccherini’s Minuet’ is quite different from ‘Albinoni’s Adagio’. It is a short piece of absolutely delightful music. It was composed by the Italian cellist and composer Luigi Boccherini. It belongs to his string quintet in E major, Op. 13, No. 5. However, due to its immense popularity, the minuet is performed on different combinations of instruments.

Boccherini was born in Lucca in 1743. He was a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart, and an elder contemporary of Beethoven. He was a prolific composer. His music shows considerable affinity to that of Haydn. He lived in Madrid for a considerable part of his life, and was attached to the royal court of Spain as a chamber composer. Boccherini died in poverty in Madrid in 1805.

Like numerous other souls, I have found immense joy by listening to popular classical pieces like Pachelbel’s Canon in D, Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary, Albinoni’s Adagio and Boccherini’s Minuet. They have often helped me to unwind and get over the stresses of daily life. Intriguingly, such music has also made me wonder how our world would have been if the likes of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert had never lived. Surely, the world would have been immeasurably poorer without them. However, in all probability, we would have still had Pachelbel’s Canon in D, Jeremiah Clarke’s Trumpet Voluntary, Albinoni’s Adagio, and Boccherini’s Minuet, to cheer us up and uplift our spirits.

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Midweek Review

The Tax Payer and the Tough

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By Lynn Ockersz

The tax owed by him to Caesar,

Leaves our retiree aghast…

How is he to foot this bill,

With the few rupees,

He has scraped together over the months,

In a shrinking savings account,

While the fires in his crumbling hearth,

Come to a sputtering halt?

But in the suave villa next door,

Stands a hulk in shiny black and white,

Over a Member of the August House,

Keeping an eagle eye,

Lest the Rep of great renown,

Be besieged by petitioners,

Crying out for respite,

From worries in a hand-to-mouth life,

But this thought our retiree horrifies:

Aren’t his hard-earned rupees,

Merely fattening Caesar and his cohorts?

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