MADRID / Ravi Shankar, a universal soul
Madrid. National Auditorium. 3- XII-2020. Tribute to Ravi Shankar on the centenary of his birth. Shubhendra Rao (sitar), Saskia Rao-de Haas (cello), Prabhu Edouard (tabla), Symphony Orchestra of Castilla y León. Director: David Murphy. Plays: Ravi Shankar Symphony.
“We are here to be moved, to celebrate his life, to perform an exercise in spirituality,” Shubhendra Rao said minutes before the concert began.
Amid glances of understanding and smiles of complicity, the duo formed by the cellist Saskia Rao-de Haas and the virtuoso sitar Shubhendra Rao — this time accompanied by Prabhu Edouard at the tabla— performed two Horn that, with a certain improvisational spirit, filled the skies of the Madrid Coliseum. It was striking to see the stage of the Symphony Hall practically diaphanous, with the empty chairs of an orchestra that would enter minutes later and, right in the center, an immense white stage where the three interpreters enjoyed music that we could consider a life experience. This concert was a tribute to his guru on the centenary of his birth, to a Ravi Shankar who had managed to introduce the sitar in the most important theaters and opera houses in the world, placing Indian classical music on the cultural map of the West. From the first notes of the sitar, the message was clear: we can all enjoy and be part of music that we are not native to. Both Horn who performed enjoyed that auditory game between east and west: the sonority of the sitar; with its parallel strings that leave the sound in suspension, and that of an ‘Indian cello’ which, despite having the meatiness to which the rubbed-string baritone is accustomed, has one string of more and ten parallel strings similar to those of of the sitar.
Shankar was his Paco de Lucía; our Ravi Shankar. A melting pot of cultures that crossed the mightiest rivers, even settling a new territory in which both civilizations celebrated their common elements and shared and enacted those of others; understanding that even if the languages are different, there is a connection in art capable of strengthening a communication that goes beyond words.
From the 60s, Indian classical music entered our lives fully thanks to George Harrison, Philip Glass, John Coltrane or Paco de Lucía himself. Ravi Shankar, unwittingly, had managed to universalize a centuries-old tradition, providing each of these musicians with that spiritual sound that takes for granted that musical art goes beyond the concert experience. Suddenly, the exotic of the Horn Y talas, were part of European popular culture. The sitar and tabla were no longer unknown instruments, and many interpreters of what we know as the West showed their interest in music that had been little explored until then.
The ‘Ravi Shankar Symphony’ could be considered one of the guru’s great final works. His desire to immerse himself in the sounds, forms and structures of Western classical music, led him to create this tram between cultures, capable of combining traditions separated by thousands of kilometers. He studied the symphonic structure in four movements and, taking a look at Prokofiev’s symphonies – because according to him, they had a clear and defined form – he managed to create a language common to both cultures, even later incorporating a sitar and a tabla as solo instruments. This symphony is a challenge for all its interpreters, since the orchestra must approach the polyrhythmic universe of Indian music, and the soloist to sitar understand the structures of a classical symphony. They are all natives and foreigners in the same work. That is why this symphony is universal, since all its interpreters have their own and other people’s elements that they must homogenize in order to carry it out. The work that the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra has been doing in recent years is worthy of mention. They have managed to consolidate their own and indisputable sound in the great symphonic repertoire, but at the same time, they adapt perfectly to works that may be more alien to them. All this, guided by one of the creative minds of the ‘Ravi Shankar Symphony’: David Murphy, served to show the versatility of one of the orchestras that has the most to tell on the national scene. Murphy and Shubhendra Rao move within the score like a fish in water. They know every detail, every little element that our ears often ignore. And that, for the orchestra, is a relief, since they can allow themselves to be seduced by that magic of the ritual to which the symphony leads.
This tribute and premiere in Spain of the ‘Ravi Shankar Symphony’ on the centenary of the guru’s birth, is a universal celebration that, in full dose horribilis, reminds us how wonderful the human being is as a culture: with our continuous heterogeneities and those common coincidences that we find thousands of kilometers away. Because Ravi Shankar is already a universal soul.
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