This Research Study on Goan Music is prepared by
Fr. Peter Cardoso Posted on 2nd March 2011
While the history of Goan Music on the lines of orthodox Indian classical music, may be said to be the same as that of the music of Hindustan, the History of Goan Music as cultivated by the Christian section of Goa's population can be a subject of great interest to historiographers of comparative music. If we try to represent the historical development and phases of western musical art by the names of the most important composers such as Palestrina, Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart ,Beethoven , Weber, Schubert , Mendelssohn, Schuman , Wagner, and Debussy, then can safely conclude that the impact of western Music on Goa had begun to be felt at least a century before the rise of secular music in Europe , that is about fifteen years before the birth of Palestrina himself.
Thus, right from the beginning of the sixteenth century the evolution of Goan Music , through the centuries, came under the influence of the successive stages of development of choral Music, secular music and instrumental music ,just like any other European country in the west likewise same order, Goa came in contact with instruments like the lute , organ ,guitar, violin and the pianoforte. Despite this early impact with western musical art, the new Goan music which resulted from the fusion therewith , retained all the strong features of its regional character , bearing at the same time distinctive traces of the early Italian Church music rather than of the Portuguese folk song.
The reason is obvious. The mellifluous Italian motets, hymns and masses taught by the early Franciscan missionaries and usually sung in two voices a third apart were introduced for religious service in the remote village churches in the interior of Goa. The direct influence of this music on the Goan folk song , known as the Mando , is noticeable to this day- it being usually sung in thirds after the Italian manner. The free parish -music-school introduced by St. Francis Xavier and established after in every Goan parish , popularized the solfa-tonic system and the cult of the violin-distinctive features these, which have characterized every Goan musician , with that extra sense of musicianship, wherever he has made his mark.
The multipilicity of church choirs, string orchestras , military and civil brass bands, manned exclusively by Goan singers and instrumentalists, provided the Goan musician with further opportunities in the creative field of musical composition. Numerous masses , motets and orchestral pieces, were composed by talented Goan musicians , some of whom emigrated and found their way into the important cities of greater Indian and into the palaces of Maharajas of the old Indian Natives States. Not only as performer of instrumental music but as teacher of music and director of string orchestras and military bands, the Goan musician made his contribution distinguished himself in greater India but in the principal cities of the neighboring countries. All these functions earned him the popular tile of ‘' The Italian of the East''.
Till 1980, in the cosmopolitan city of Bombay , Goan musician constitute an important element of Orchestral and Choral Society , a pioneer musical institution of its kind in Bombay , exclusively dedicated to the cultivation of Goan music and musical dance-drama , is entirely manned by Goan singers and instrumentalists. The historical process of evolution undergone by Goan music in the course of its development through the centuries has been the same as that of any cultural fusion of East and West anywhere in Asia and particularly in India , namely :- Manila in the Philipines, Hawaii in the Pacific, Saigon in Indo-china and Java or Batavia in Indonesia. In Goa , in particular, the musical evolution could take place on lines similar to those followed by Russian Music of strong Asiatic content or Spanish music of strong Arabic content.
At the advent of the Portuguese , the thousand and one ragas, modes or scales, prevailing in Goa at the time, in the traditional Indian styles-which are, incidentally, eminently well suited to the melodic type of music with its filigree embellishments and complex time-patterns-gave way, restricting themselves to only two scales out of the many available, namely Bilaval scale and the Assavari Scale, corresponding to the Major Mode and the Minor mode of Western Music, that is-the two principal scales on which Western music is largely built today. To compensate for the loss of varying moods ascribed to the numerous ragas existing, harmonization was introduced to provide the third dimension of depth with its consequent modulation involving chromaticism.
This course of events in the evolutionary process of universal music is only logical and rational. For precisely the same thing happened to the melodic systems in Europe , beginning with the ancient Grecian system and then the Gregorian system of Rome- a tradition of melodic music right up to the end of the 13th century- which like the classical Indian music today consisted of numerous ragas and modes.
The Gregorian melodic system of modal music in Europe similarly gave way at first to modal harmonization in the contrapuntal style and ultimately to modern harmonization and orchestration, losing in the process the various modes of old, and limiting itself to only two scales, the Bilaval and the Assavari , that is the Major and the minor modes, according to the demands of rationality involved in the harmonic chord- progressions.
Coming back to Goan music, the same price had to be paid in order to derive the full benefit of harmonization, without losing, however, any of the truly regional characteristics of Goan music in the process. This was done by drawing upon the rich traditional repository of Goan folksong and folk dance music.
Sporadic attempts at harmonizing and orchestrating Goan music have been made at various times by known and unknown Goan musicians. But the stupendous task of building up a solid structure of Goan music was truly made and well undertaken by the Goan Folksong and Choral society , founded in Bombay years ago.
Formally established in May 1941,the Society gave a series of full time concerts and stage shows in Bombay and Poona, and also participated in the U.N.O. and UNESCO festivals , thus making a rich contribution to the cultural activities of India.
The Konkani music of Goa , where the impact of western influences of art has brought about an unique and most interesting phenomenon of fused Eastern and Western culture , is made up of harmonized Goan melodies -these having easily yielded to the treatment because of centuries -old historical and natural evolution of harmony there.
The raw material utilized for the Society's performance was drawn from the traditional Goan songs and dances , such as -(a) The Dekni, a graceful song-and -dance in ‘'Kerwa rhythm'' and (b) the Mando ,a social dance of Goan village-folk. Other interesting types of music used, are the seasonal folk-dances of the fisher-folk and the ‘' Kunbis,'' the peasantry of Goa.
It was the Jesuit Gaspar Barzeu (1515-1555), native of Flanders and heir to a great tradition of Gothic mysticism and Renaissance music , who implanted Western music in Goa , when he instituted the post of choir master (mestre capela) and initiated the custom of sung mass and of chants accompanied by the organ. Some of the other activities he introduced also required musical performance, such as the Devotas, nocturnal chants for the souls in Purgatory ; the festival of Flowers, which included a procession to commemorate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin on September 8; and the Passos ("sufferings", tableaux of statues displaying the Passion of Christ ). Church schools taught children to sing the catechism and it is said that their chants, echoing through Velha Goa in the evening, made the city itself seem " a chorus of music".
Most assiduous in training Goans in Western music were the Jesuits and their pupils had already a high proficiency in the 17th century. In 1663, in the basilica of Bom Jesus in Velha Goa, on the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, seven choirs sang a composition by Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674), the greatest master of early Italian oratorio. Present in the congregation was an emissary of Alexander ( Pope from 1655 to 1667) - one of the greatest patron of the arts in an age resplendent with artistic creativity- who felt he was listening to the singing of a choir in Rome.
Goan musical culture evolved further in the 19th century. In 1831, schools offering instruction in singing were elevated to the rank of parochial schools. The Viceroy Diogo de Sousa ( in office, 1816-1821) had a palace orchestra, with a Eustaquio Lobo of Margao as first violinist. Church music was taught in the Seminario de Rachol / Raitur. There a reform of the style of singing the Gregorian chant was begun by the Patriarch Antonio Sebastiao Valente ( in office, 1882-1908).
In these institutions students were intensively trained. They were expected to read books on musical theory and to study 10 to 15 difficult masses by great masters like Palestrina (c.1525-1594), Bach (1685-1750) and Mozart (1756-1791), and by lesser ones like Marcos Portugal (1762-1830) and Saverio Mercadante(1795- 1870). The instruments they were taught to play were the violin, the guitar, the mandolin and the piano and apparently also the clarinet and the clavichord. Singers were required to give a good rendition of the Magnificat ( the hymn by Mary recorded in Luke 1:46-55,) especially its last line, Sicut Locuntus est( "As He spoke of our father Abraham"), which was often rendered in a low voice for a full half hour. The singers were assumed to have familiarized themselves with a number of motets, examples of a musical form that had been d in France in the 13th century, and had been fashioned by Flemish composers in the 15th. As introduced by the Flemish Jesuit Barzeu - " The Father of Goan culture", as we may call him - the motet was a polyphonic composition, based on a biblical or liturgical text in Latin, usually sung by four to six voices; these and other features in the Goan cultural complex explain why the music of Goa retained elements of the Renaissance musical tradition long after the latter had become extinct in Europe.
Choruses, bands and orchestras gave public performances: inside the churches during Vespers, which sometimes lasted three hours; and outside in the church squares, as musical concerts. Several pieces were executed in these concerts between displays of fireworks; the program not seldom ending in the early hours of the morning.
In the second half of the 19th century, it became common for every marriageable upper class girl to be taught music, and the teaching of it was assigned to this senhormestre. The girl was required to learn the piano, and to play pieces like the waltzes of Johan Strauss (1825-1899). She was also expected to sing arias, apparently from composers like Gounod (1818-1897), but certainly from the very popular Verdi (1813-1901); the favorite arias were drawn from three of his works, La traviata(1853), Un ballo in maschera(1859) and La forza del destino (1864). It was assumed that the damsel would also know the tunes of marches and of dances like Caledonians, Contredanse, Lanciers and Polka.
The expertise in performance thus laboriously acquired was accompanied more importantly by creative compositions, in folk and art song. Goan folk song had had half a millennium of history before it received the impact of Western music, one which profoundly modified it. But few folk songs, if any can be precisely dated before the 19th century. At the time of Micael's youth, the chief song types current among the Goan Christians were the Nuptial Chants (Brahmin, Sudra and Kunbi); the Ovi (or Versos); the theatrical types of the Fell and the Zagor; and the dance songs of the Dekhnni and the Dulpod. ( Micael Martins began collecting Goan folk songs when he was 19, in1933, and ended garnering about 11,000 numbers, only a few of which he was able to publish.
Goan art song types are principally two, the hymns and the Mando. To judge by the language, many of the hymns appear to have been composed in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Goan epic poet Eduardo de Sousa (1836-1905, speaking of them remarks that, " within a pure and simple diction (typical of those hymns) , we see playing the most enchanting smiles of a celestial poetry". Most of the hymns are anonymous, but we can identify the authors of some of them ,like Dona Barretto of Morhgoum, who flourished in the early years of the 19th century and composed the solemn and melancholy Papianchi Xeratini ("Advocate of Sinners" ) and Raimundo Barretto of Lotill/ Loutolim (1837-1909) author of ‘Sao Franciscu Xaviera', the most popular of Goan hymns, and one of the most moving.
The other Goan art song type is the Mando, a verse or verse-and-refrain dance song in six- four time, dealing with love, tragedy and contemporary events. It appears to have evolved from the Ovi, a type which like the Mando's own early form, is a quatrain. A refrain or chorus was added to the Mando later, doubtless under the influence of Portugal's national song, the Fado, d in that country around 1840 and thus contemporaneous with the Mando. Martins, comparing these two types of songs, once remarked : O Fado e triste, mas o Mando e triste e profundo ( the Fado is sad, but the Mando is sad and profound). Unlike the Ovi, however, the Mando is dance song, d only after the introduction of social of ballroom dancing in Goa in the 1830's. As a dance song, as was noted, it conveys the emotions of love; a love yearning for (utrike), achieving (ekvott) or frustrated in its yearning and expressing itself in lamentation (vilap). The Mando comments on contemporary events (fobro), many of them political. In its musical structure, as Martins himself describes it, the Mando is modulated with patterns or phrases that follow one another in the same order. Rhythmically it has six beats, with stresses on the first and (prominently) on the fifth. It is rendered by two voices, the first singing the principal melody and the second the contrapuntal one, the two melodic lines being harmonically and polyphonically combined. The second voice generally follows the first parallel motion, in thirds and sixths, and is sometimes modulated in contrary motions.
Saxtty/ Salcete is the province of Goa where the Mando grew and flourished. Martins classifies it into two areas, the "hilly land" (dogorgaum) and the "sandy plain" (renvott), to which Micael himself belongs. There is considerable variety in the style of Mando composition, depending on whether the composer is from one area or the other. A large stretch of the renvott is blanketed in coconut groves and immersed in a sort of penumbra. Its Mando music is tranquil and crepuscular, and is instanced in the work of composers like Canon Antonio Joao Dias (fl.1914) and Roque Correia Afonso(1859-1937).
More productive is the dogorgaum- a panorama of wooded hills rising along the banks of the Zuari- particularly the villages of Rai/Raia, Morhgoum/Margao, Lottli/Loutolim and Kurhtori/Curtorim. The oldest dateable composer is from Rai, Frederico De Melo (1834-1888), author of the sublime" Sorgo nitoll go nirmollu". Morghoum has the popular Pascoal Noronha (1872-1936, Paicha Maincha moreantulim), originally from Lottli. The latter village itself has Eduardo de Menezes, (1862-1922), Anju tum Arcanju), Milagres da Silva (1855-1931), Ek vorso bolanddilem) and the great Torquato de Figueiredo (1876-1948), Adeus kortso Vellu Pauta) practically Goa's anthem of that time.
But most productive of all is Kurthori, home to Ligorio da Costa (1851-1919), Tambrhe rozanch' tuje pole), Azavedo Diniz (1860-1907), Oulleam ‘bitory oulli sundori, manddo-dulpod), Arnaldo de Menezes(1863-1917), Motim' sopnantum naxlolem), Gizelino Rebelo (1875-1931), Suria noketranche porim porzolleta), originally from Vernnem/Verna, and Sebastiao Fernandes (1875-1937), Bollcavancheri re bosoitam). The two chief "schools" of the Mando are those of Kurhtori and Lotlli. Martins describes the music of Kurhtori, whose star is Arnaldo as having a horizontal and undulant motion, reflecting the rolling scenery of dogorgaum's terrain, and that of Lottli, whose luminary is Torquato as having a movement that is vertical and ascendant, conveying the upthrust of some of that terrain's peaks.