Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva (1988) 21'

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by William Radice

Orchestration: six solo voices: SSMsTBarB (each singer requires a pair of crotales)

Commissioned by the London Sinfonietta Voices

First performance

21 May 1988
London Sinfonietta Voices conducted by Terry Edwards
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Dedicated to my mother Khurshid Mehta

PROGRAMME NOTE

This is a setting of Tagore's famous poem for six solo voices, accompanied by crotales played by the singers. I was drawn to it not only for its direct and dramatic account of creation, preservation and destruction, the principle attributes respectively for the three gods featured in the poem, but equally for its pointed and vivid imagery involving sound and music. The musical references in which the poem abounds are not all surprising, coming as they do from a poet who was also a renowned musician.

The dramatic shape of the poem is that of an inverted arch. The most active and frenzied passages of Brahma and Shiva at the beginning and towards the end form the pillars which cradle the central Vishnu section, where the "roar of Creation" subsides to quietest expression in a passage for crotales, organised polyrhythmically to give metaphorical allusion to "the discipline of metre and rhyme".

I have used, for this setting, the English translation of the poem by William Radice. To frame Tagore's poem, and also to offer it an oblique commentary, I have super-imposed on it the ancient Rig-Vedic Creation Hymn Nasadiya which, because it is removed from the epic, cataclysmic drive of Tagore's narrative (maintaining instead the quiet, serene presence of a Sanskrit chant) directs us to more fundamental and searching questions about the nature and origins of Creation.

Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva is dedicated to my mother, to whose early inspiration and example I owe my music.

© Param Vir, 1988

A choral version of this work is now available. HE BEGINS HIS GREAT TRANCE is a substantial reworking of this music for SSAATTBB. Send a message if you are a choral ensemble interested in this work. 

Language: English and Sanskrit

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