European strings don’t last in India. Western classical musicians have to use local strings, which makes violas and cellos sound louder. For Abraham Mazumdar, leading Indian conductor and pedagogue, that has multiple connotations.
According to norm at his school, Oxford Mission, he was not allowed to touch instruments before he turned 11. He hid behind trees outside the Principal Father’s office to hear Beethoven’s Chamber music ferociously, and transferred that aggrieved listening into oratorios and cadenzas for the rest of his life. After starting his own Kolkata Music Academy Chamber Orchestra (KMACO) in 1983, pristine renditions of Mozart, Bartok or Bach went begging for inadequate reception. He didn’t give up, but realised, spreading appreciation of Western classical music required blending it with tunes familiar to the audience. After KMACO played the Tagore tune khorobayu boy bege with interludes from Handel’s messiah at the Kolkata Film Festival 2011, it earned an invitation to play with Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany.
Mazumdar’s experiment with fusion ranges from Baul-Jazz, orchestration of Raga Behag on Western instruments, to the pioneering Bengali band Mohiner Ghoraguli (the sea horses), formed jointly with singer Goutam Chattopadhyay in 1976. Yet, he remains critical of the contemporary Bengali band scene on grounds of lack of exploration. “Jazz or Blues have their specific histories of struggle. Importing that style mechanically, without going through comparable pain, is bound to result in confusion rather than fusion,” he asserts. What Mazumdar retained from his childhood experience is the power classical music wielded and bewitched him. “You can improvise as much as you want, but the litmus test is whether it appeals to listeners at the deepest level. Even for writing avant-garde poetry one needs to learn grammar,” Mazumdar believes. Unlike at Calcutta Music School where he previously taught, he makes all his students play together, so that they can hear the music multiple times. “Knowing music is like knowing a person’s heart. It takes close acquaintance and remains a never ending process,” he feels.
Western classical music does not have state, church or media patronage in Kolkata. Mazumdar partly depends on instruments collected by his first teacher Father Mathieson, and struggles persuading his students to buy their own professional grade equipment. “If our best students stayed back in India, probably we would have a symphony orchestra by now,” laments Madhushree, Mazumdar’s wife and manager of Kolkata Music Academy. Mazumdar enthralled 20,000 enthusiasts at Nicco Park conducting a 100-member philharmonic orchestra in 2008 — an unprecedented event in Kolkata. Yet, Mazumdar has to focus on fast pieces, trim long scores to keep the audience interested and even lure parents of his students into learning. In every interview, he appeals to the government for support, and finally, depends on the zeal he acquired as a loner child. Beethoven remains his favourite composer.
As Professor Manas Ghosh recollects, a melee broke out at the homage concert for Goutam Chattopadhyay, organised by Jadavpur University students in 1999. “Usually when such incidents happen, performances have to be stopped. That day, a performance stopped the scuffle. It was Abraham Mazumdar playing solo violin,” remembers Ghosh, a veteran student volunteer.
In addition to passion, the louder strings bear the Indian legacy of Tansen therefore, where maestros like Mazumdar have to perform miracles like bringing rain or lighting lamps for survival, as part of the mundane.