A dear friend of
mine recently shared this wonderful musical rendition created by Peter Pringle
entitled, Alexander in India - Surbahar & Kithara.
I am sharing
this unique musical interpretation for two basic reasons. On the one hand, I
find it quite amazing that Alexander
is still being remembered in India
although he hardly spent a full year in that country, which includes modern Pakistan
as well. On the other hand, I am very much impressed by the reconstructed Greek
lyre, Alexander’s favorite
instrument. As far as I am concerned, this beautiful kithara reminds me of the lyre Apollo is holding in his arms at the
Museum of Tripoliin Libya. This labeling, however, appears
to be incorrect since the lyre counts “only” four strings whereas the professional
kithara counts seven strings. The
instrument Apollo is holding seems to have even more than seven strings, or is
it my imagination?
For further information, I copy hereafter
the accompanying explanation about this piece of music and the instruments
involved.
The surbahar belongs to the Veena
Family of the classical instruments of India, and is comparable to the
western cello in size and register. The one you see in the video was made for
me about 50 years ago by the great Indian luthier, Kanai Lal of Calcutta.
The Greek “kithara” was built by master
luthier, Anastasios Koumartzis, of LUTHIEROS MUSIC INSTRUMENTS, which is
located in the Macedonian region of Northern Greece.
This is the same area in which Alexander the Great was born. The kithara was
the instrument of choice for professional musicians during the Golden Age of Greece
which reached its height around 500 B.C.E.
In his military exploits, Alexander
travelled east as far as the IndusRiver, which he reached
in 326 B.C.E. By that time, he was far from home, his men were getting tired,
and they were met by fierce opposition from the armies of the rulers whose
territories they invaded. As a result, Alexander never penetrated into the
Indian subcontinent, and died in Babylon
in 323 B.C.E., on his way back home.
This composition is in the Indian scale
(“thaat”) known as “bhairav” (flat 6th and flat 2nd). The surbahar was built to
be tuned to an F#, so the kithara is tuned F# G B C C# D F F#.
In more than one way, India is the missing link in my
earlier blogs about music and musical instruments in antiquity as I explored
ancient music starting with the Seikilos inscription (see: Revealing
ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph and Reconstructing
ancient Greek music, an impossible task?) and continued with Persia
(see: What
is Persian music like?) and Uzbekistan (see: A
thought for Roxane, Alexander’s Bactrian wife).
Music truly is of all times and certainly unites peoples
from around the globe! And I can’t help wondering what Alexander would have thought about all this. He must have liked
most of it!
