Scan 72
The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1The Heart of Music
3Some of us have read versions of that marvellous poem Goethe loved, "Sakuntala," written by Kalidasa in the year 56 B.C. One scene is particularly significant musically. King Dushyanta enters his garden and is greeted by two singers. He seats himself with his friend, Madhawga. The sound of a vina is heard through the grove:
5"Madhawga: Hark, do you not hear the sound of song from yonder room? It is the harmony of a perfectly tuned vina.1 'T is there the Princess plays.
7"King: Hush! Let me listen! [The voice of Sakuntala is heard. She sings, accompanying herself on her vina.] Since hearing it, I feel a strange longing,—as though for a loved one far away!"
9Love songs, however, form but an inconsiderable portion of the lyrical poetry of India. The true Oriental—one should rather say the true Asiatic—spirit is more clearly manifested in religious chants, and in these the literature of the country abounds. Many of them were composed, obviously, to be sung to the accompaniment of vina, ravanastron, and other stringed instruments, and the most laggard fancy can intersperse the melancholy minor chords so beloved to
111 The phrase "perfectly tuned" seems to show that tuning-peggs were already in use in India.
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