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w-d-amaradeva

Amaradewa, Mahagamasekara

Reflections on some wonderful friends

July 26, 2020 by admin
Mahagama Sekara, Uditha Devapriya, Victor Ratnayake, W. D. Amaradeva

My friend Hiruna, who is studying for his A Levels, yet somehow finds the time to write the most beautiful Sinhala poetry I have ever read from someone his age, is something of a rarity. Not because he writes poetry (don’t we all, at some point?) but because his preferred cultural icons are so far removed from the Sanukas and the Santhushes of this era that he has become virtually isolated. He has written essays and essays on everything from the era he panders to – the sixties, seventies, and eighties – ranging from Hansa Vilak to T. M. Jayaratne to Amaradeva to Sekara. Because of my inability to read between the lines when it comes to poetry, sivpada or nisadas, I have come to appreciate the critic in him rather acutely. He has read much more on the subjects he tends to than anyone his age.

And yet, he is not alone. There are others. Perhaps not as “into” what he likes as he is, but nevertheless with a sensibility which has been honed to past objets d’art that the young today are rubbishing day in and out. It’s hard to tell whether this is a miniscule minority or whether it has the potential to grow up and mature. In that sense there’s a lot to be expected from the families and friends of these youngsters, because with the correct guidance, they can and will become the wielders of the arts tomorrow.

The most common excuse dished out by those who are fascinated by the icons of the present is that “the past is dead, live with it!” It’s a flimsy excuse, though one I’ve come across from youngster after youngster wherever I go and am. Perhaps it’s to do with how the media has suppressed the old in the programs they broadcast. Either way, an entire generation is growing up not even having heard of the usual icons – Amaradeva, Victor Ratnayake, even Clarence – and this despite the fact that these names are hardly ones we can pass over. Someone once said somewhere (I can’t remember the name or the time, though it was way, way back, a long time ago) that if Sri Lanka chose to send something that demarcated “ape kama” to the moon, it would send the songs of Amaradeva. Laudable, but consider that we have children, and students at that who are studying in GOVERNMENT schools, who have not even heard of his name, much less his songs. So yes, people like Hiruna are rather rare.

Amaradeva
Amaradeva
Victor Rathnayake
Victor Rathnayake
Clarence Wijewardena
Clarence Wijewardena

There are reasons. For one thing, schools have rarely produced artists the way they produce and are structured to produce engineers, lawyers, doctors, and accountants. Parents have set notions about what they want their children to become and this impedes on the ability of individual societies to do with the arts to nurture up and coming artists. If you are studying science for your A Levels, chances are that no matter how suitable for chairing and leading literary, drama, and debating societies you may be, you will be compelled to exit them abruptly to concentrate on passing that Z score and entering university. And this isn’t resolved by handing these societies over to those who study arts. As Ayath, whom I interviewed last year over how Sinhala drama is taught and sustained at schools in and around Colombo, argued, there is a discrepancy between those who take to the arts and those who debate, do drama, or write poetry for competitions. More often than not, it’s those other streams – Science and Commerce – which produce the bulk of the members who want to do something. More often than not, also, those who choose arts opt for it because they have nothing else to offer. “They just aren’t interested” was what Ayath told me.

That’s one reason. Not the only reason. It’s easy to go on lambasting structures and institutions. Looking inward, at the fault in ourselves, however, is much, much more difficult. The truth is that many of us from this generation and generations after us are rabidly averse to the past, or anything that is too old to be venerated in hagiographic terms. When Amaradeva passed away, for instance, there were howls of protest over one particular young vocalist who contended that there were much better voices than the maestro’s among his (the vocalist’s) colleagues. Whether or not this was true (such judgments, subjective though they are, can be assessed), the timing of the statement was hardly apt. And yet, this is but just one part of a broader phenomenon. Young people I talk to take to the guitar and the microphone as though God has willed it. The richness of technology, in other words, is drowning the richness of imagination, and imagination, a key prerequisite to the production of art, is lacking among them. Sure, they know how to please the ear. It’s just that they don’t know how to please the mind.

Poetry, the most potent and literary of all cultural forms (the novel and the short story, by comparison, are newer, more recent), is a veritable yardstick when it comes to other cultural spheres, in particular music. “The young don’t have the time to read, and even if they do, they just aren’t interested” was what Ajantha Ranasinghe told me during our interview. He has a point. As a people, we aren’t reading enough. Literacy rates, premised as they are on the ability to read and write on a rudimentary level, are hardly adequate by way of assessing whether we should be reading and writing more.

How can the culture of a country thrive if its poetry languishes? As Garett Field notes in his book “Modernising Composition: Sinhala Song, Poetry, and Politics in 20th Century Sri Lanka”, the cultural revival we saw in the preceding century was supported by a plethora of lyricists who were able to preserve the literariness of their work while contributing to the country’s musical sphere. It was for this reason, Field observes, that Chandrarathna Manawasinghe was able to come up with a new poetic meter for his masterpiece, “Wali Thala Athare”, and that his “student” Mahagama Sekara contended in a 1966 lecture that “a test of a good song was to take away the music and see whether the lyric could stand on its own as a piece of literature.” (This quirk, which we are used to in Sri Lanka, confounds Field so much that he admits the inadequacies of Western ethnomusicology when it comes to the Sinhala lyric.)

Ultimately, in a country and a region which has historically privileged the fusion of words and rhythms (regardless of how sophisticated or not our ancestors were, they were able to musicalise what they read in ways which baffle scholars today), the first step towards the flourishing of a cultural sphere is the dissemination of our poetry, and lyrics, among our students. This is not an easy task, but it is a task which we must engage in. After all, we’re talking about generation after generation who grow up indifferent to history (which, during the social studies experiment of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike regime and even the dates-driven approach of the curriculum prior to it, was taught rather well). We’re talking about an entire generation neglecting the need for the lyric, in favour of technology. The allure of the guitar and the boy band is too strong to be overcome. If ever they venerate the bands of the past – the Moonstones, the Super Golden Chimes, right down to the Gypsies and Marians and the Jayasri Brothers – we forget that these groups, superficially appealing to juvenile, adolescent tastes, nevertheless had members who did not neglect the lyric. Such a generation, growing up in indifference, can only be salvaged by our generation.

And it doesn’t end with poetry, by the way. We all write poetry, especially Sinhala and Tamil poetry, when we are young. It’s when we grow up that our tastes “part ways” and compel us to follow one path at the cost of all other paths. It’s the same story when it comes to other cultural spheres, be it drama or literature or painting. Many of those teenagers I talk to who like drama, for instance, tend to be interested in the movies. Hardly remarkable, until you consider that the film industry in Sri Lanka has almost always depended on the theatre for its reserves of not only actors, but also scriptwriters. (If ever there was an actor here, a proper one, who did not hail from the theatre, I am yet to hear of him or her.) And of course, until you consider that acting today has been confined to models and dilettantes who lack the seriousness, the controlled grace, of the actors I admire: from the very recent past, Uddika Premaratne, Saranga Disasekara, and the newest face of them all, Thumindu Dodantanne.

Hiruna isn’t alone, as I mentioned before. There are others. Many others. All of whom profess an interest in various other spheres, the movies included, with an interest in being active participants in those spheres. Hiruna, by nature introspective, prefers the path of the poet. Those others prefer the path of the director, the scriptwriter, and the discerning actor. To be all these things, it is necessary to be a discerning human being. Are our institutions, of learning and power, enough to channel their innate sensibilities and respond positively to what they want to become? I certainly hope so. Until that transpires, though, I can only hope and continue being friends and talking with them.

සිහිනෙන් තැවරූ අංජන – එදවස සවනත වැකී මෙදවස මිළිණව ගිය හෙළ ගී මං සළකුණු – 1970

July 19, 2020 by shamilka
Prabath Rajasooriya, W. D. Amaradeva

හෙළයේ මහා ගාන්ධර්ව පන්ඩිත් අමරදේවයන් ප්‍රණාම පූජා

————————————————————-

බොදු වත්පිළිවෙත් දහම හී හැසිර ඊ මත පාදක වූ කවි ගී වෙනත් කලා නිර්මාණ රසවිඳීමේ භාග්‍යය ලත් මෙදිවි වැසියන්හට කවර කලෙක හෝ අල්ප නොවේ

එයිනුදු වඩාත් සුලභ මුලශ්‍රය බවට හැරුනේ බුදුන්වහන්සේගේ පූව_ ජන්ම විස්‌තර කෙරුණු ඇතැමිහු එදවස මෙහි හා භාරතයේ පැතිර පැවතුනා යෑයි අනුමාන කෙරෙන ජනකථා සංග්‍රහයක්‌ ලෙස හඳුන්වාගනු ලැබූ පූජනීය පන්සිය පණස්‌ ජාතකයයි

එයිනුදු චුල්ල ධනුද්දධර / චන්දකින්නර / වෙස්‌සන්තර කථා පාදක කොටගත් නෙක කලා නිර්මාණ කලින් කල බිහිවිය

ඒ අතර අපි කවියාණන් ඇසුරුකර ඇත්තේ එහි පැණුනු කවි ගී ලොවේ එතරමි කථාබහට ලක්‌ නොවුනු එහෙත් ඉහත කථාංගයන්ට දෙවනි නොවූ සුන්දර කථා පුවතකි

ඒ විධුර ජාතකයයි

මෙහි බෝසත් චරිතය විධුර පන්ඩිතයන් වූ අතර පූර්ණක්‌ යක්‌ සෙනවියාද හෙතම පියඹ එරන්දතී නමි නා මෙණෙවිය ද විය

හෙළ ජනප්‍රවාදයේ පැණෙන ඒදමිපතීන්ගේ පුත්‍රයාණෝ දැඩි නාමය දැරූ මාණවකයාණෝය
තවද එතුමෝ අඵත්නුවර දැඩිමුණ්‌ඩ දෙවියන් ලෙස අදද බොදුදන පුදපුජා ලබයි

69-70 වකවානුවේ එක්‌ දිනක තම ප්‍රිය බිරිඳගේ ගමි පියස වූ රඹුක්‌කන ප්‍රදේශයට පියමං කරන්නට සිදුවු අප කවියාණෝ එකළ බහුල දසුනක්‌ වූ කවිකොළ පොත් විකුණන්නෙක්‌ ඇස ගැටී පෙරළා අගනුවර කරා එන ගමනේ පරිශීලනය කරනු වස්‌ මිළදි ගනුලැබූ විධුර ජාතක පුස්‌තකයේ රසභාවයෙන් උදමිව තම සිත්තුළ ජනිත වූ නවමු සිතිවිළි වළා කැටි ඔස්‌සේ උපන් කවිරස මල් වරුසා රසිකයා වෙනුවෙන් පසුදිනක එදා ගුවනින් පතිත වූ අයුරින් බිඳකුදු නොවෙනස්‌ව අද රසික සවනට මෙසේ ගෙන එමි

තවද

අප කවියාණෝ උපුටා දක්‌වමින් සටහන් කළ යුත්තක්‌ නමි මෙයින් කියවෙන්නේ විධුර ජාතක කථා පුවතම නොවන වගයි එහෙත් එයින් ජනිත වූ කවි සිතිවිලි මාලාවකි

මේ නිර්මාණයේ ස්‌වර රටා ඇමිණුම මිට විසිවසරකට පෙරාතුව ඔබ මා අතරින් සමුගෙන ගිය ගුවන් විදුලියේ ප්‍රවිණ සංගීතවේදී වික්‌ටර් දඵගම විසින් කරනු ලැබ ඇත්තේ අතිශය සුන්දර ලෙසය ඊට ඔහු යොදා ඇති නාද මාලාව පදමලාවෙන් ජනනය වන අදහසට අතිශයෙන්ම ගැලපී යන බව වැටහෙනවා ඇත
මෙයින් මැවූ එරන්දතිය නිසැකයෙන් ම ඔබේ මනසේ මැවි මැවි පෙනෙනවා ඇත

ඒ කිමිද ?

70 දශකය උදා විකාශනය එකළු කල හෙළ නාදමාලා කැටිව එදා ඇසුණු සුන්දර ගීපදවැල් ගොන්නක හිමිකරු වූ මේ ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ පරිපාලකයාගේ නිසඟ ප්‍රතිභාවයයි ඒ

Sunil Sarath Perera

මුල් ගුවන් විදුලි තැටිගත කිරීම – 1970
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නළලත කුංකුම තිලක තියාලා
නීල වර්ණයෙන් කැඵමි පෙරළා
පාද කිකිණි සොළවා
එරන්දතිය එනවා ……….
……………………..
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ගේය පදරස කැලතීම- ප්‍රවිණ ගී පද රචක ජ්‍යෙෂ්ඨ පරිපාලක නිලධාරී සුනිල් සරත් පෙරේරා

තනුව හා සංගීත අදියුරු රටා – ප්‍රවිණ සංගීතවේදී අභාවප්‍රාප්ත වික්‌ටර් දඵගම

ගායන ලීලා – පිලිපීනයේ රැමෝන් මැග්සාසෙයි හා භාරතයේ පද්ම ශ්‍රී අභිධාන සමිමානිත පන්ඩිත් අමරදේව හා සහය ශිල්පිනි (එවකට ආධුනික) අමිතා වැදිසිංහ දඵගම

——————————–
(මුලාශ්‍රය සුනිල් සරත් පෙරේරා මහතාණන් හා කරනු ලැබු දුරකථන සංවාදයකිනි)

~සටහන් පෙළගැස්ම‍~

Prabath Rajasooriya

ලිපියේ දැනුම මිතුරන් සමගින් බෙදා ගන්න

ඔබගේ අදහස් ඉදිරිපත් කරන්න…

W. D. Amaradeva

A melody for a milieu: From Hubert to Clarence

December 29, 2017 by admin
Uditha Devapriya, W. D. Amaradeva

As an art form, as a means of self-expression and articulation, music is largely self-referential. It has nothing outside itself: the standards and the yardsticks created for it, by various exogenous factors, are subsumed, sometimes eventually, almost always at once. This is why of all the art forms we are acquainted with now, music is the least easy, and the most difficult, to propagandize. The moving image and the live theater thrive on the mediation of two levels of consciousness: that of the performer and that of the spectator. As such it’s easy and despicably so to elevate those levels of consciousness by resorting to a message, whether that act of elevation debases rather than elevates the art itself being a topic for another debate. Music, in any case, is purely a product of its milieu, the milieu that manufactures and then consumes it. The act of consumption, in other words, is no different to the act of production: there can be no mediation between the two, only a levelling down of any and every barrier.

Part of the reason for this, of course, is the comparatively frugal economic base that can sustain a song or for that matter an orchestral performance. The movies will always remain the most industrial of all art forms, reliant on technology in ways that no other art form can hope to match, but the advent of digitalisation and web helped liberate music from the opera house and the concert hall in much the same way that the blogosphere and YouTube helped disseminate criticism and the moving image. And yet, even before this advent of digitalisation, the frugality entailed in enjoying a song was very much apparent, because the act of consumption does not involve an explicit cost (especially if you are listening to a song with the rest of the country, over the radio) and because it reaches its audiences quickly. This is the same with respect to operas and symphonies, which have frequently been played over the radio as well. The dichotomy between production and consumption that you come across in the cinema, television, and of course literature is simply not there in the realm of music.

And because such a dichotomy does not exist, the milieu to which the producer – the vocalist, the lyricist, and the composer – belongs is roughly also the milieu to which the audience, despite any personal quirks individual members may have, belongs as well. The 20th and 21st centuries, with its differentiation between production houses and opera houses, with its democratisation of an entire art, helped sharpen this unique quality, which is how in Sri Lanka you can trace the evolution from the high-flown, high-strung rhetoric of the old composers – who derived their inspiration from the Parsee theatre and a mishmash of Hela Sinhala and several Indian languages, in their songs and musical pieces – to the Pop quality, low key to some, of Neville Fernando, Clarence Wijewardena, and closer to our time, Bathiya and Santhush and Sanuka Wickramasinghe. It is this latter pop sensibility that I wish to explore in some detail here, because in their milieu we see an interesting phenomenon being played out.

The transformation of our cultural sphere, from a largely esoteric affair reserved for the colonial elite to the more plebeian catalogue of art forms (cinema, theatre, literature, etc) after 1956, and the revolution it wrought, went hand in hand with an explicit need to liberate those art forms from the straitjacket of verbal and visual profundities (which were really, at the end of the day, shallow and hollow) indulged by, inter alia, the plays of John de Silva and Sirisena Wimalaweera, the novels of Piyadasa Sirisena and W. A. de Silva, and the cinema of the Minerva Players. Kadawunu Poronduwa begins with a tableau which culminates with the death of the main character Ranjani’s (Rukmani Devi) father: this tableau, in which the individual characters are identified with reference to their race and social position, reflected the verbosities that our filmmakers, playwrights, and writers in general liked to go for. It is with W. D. Amaradeva that we see a much needed toning down of those verbosities, with his attempts at linking the literary with the romantic through his sarala gee canon.

In a retrospective review of Rekava and Maname, written for the Lanka Guardian in 1982, Regi Siriwardena, our foremost critic writing in English, contended that contrary to the belief held at the time, Sarachchandra’s plays (especially Maname) initially appealed, not to the poor, but to a class that had been left out (absented) by every government until then: the middle class Sinhala speaking bourgeoisie. This was not really a bourgeoisie, rather a petit bourgeoisie aspiring to be the bourgeoisie, who would patronise the moral exhortations, at times chauvinistic, at times explicitly archaic, echoed in not just Sarachchandra’s early plays but also the work of the Colombo Poets and the moralistic yet romantic films of L. S. Ramachandran (Deiyange Rate, Kurulubedda, Sikuru Tharuwa). Eventually this petit bourgeoisie, alluded to as a distinct social subset by Ajith Samaranayake in a tribute to Camillus Perera, congealed into a class who called the shots in our cultural spheres. Amaradeva was their icon, their manifest destiny.

Amaradeva was the peak and the grand culmination of a trend that began with Devar Surya Sena, whose attempts at compounding our traditional sivpada and pal kavi with the grandiosity of the opera and the Church service were criticised as imitative by Sarachchandra and warmly reflected on by Tissa Abeysekara (indicating the manifest differences of opinion Sena’s work compelled and continues to compel today). Those who laid the groundwork for the later masters – including Hubert Rajapakse, whose eloquent recitation of Danno Budunge, misconceived as a Buddhist song by our nationalists, would find its pivot decades later with Kishani Jayasinghe (only this time provoking, not infatuation, but hatred) – were not fully aware of what they were doing. They were enthralled by the cosmetics of the culture they had shirked during their childhoods  – listen to Rajapakse and Sena today, their peculiar accents, their carefully calculated inflections, and discern how far away from the pal kavi they were – but what they lacked they made up for by their fervent devotion to that same culture.

From these two masters we come to Ananda Samarakoon and Sunil Shantha. Rajapakse and Sena were scions of the Anglican elite, who reflected a sensibility different to the more vernacular community from which the latter two hailed. Shantha in particular, who extensively resorted to the piano and organ (a staple of the Catholic Church) in his work (including his tribute to Munidasa, “Kumarathungunge”), did not have a polished voice that could reckon with the past masters, and neither did Samarakoon, but they were truly, deeply connected with the Buddhist ethos which they went to in some form or the other (Samarakoon converted to Buddhism, while Shantha, a fervent Catholic, in his later phase pared down his melodies to invoke the unmusical intonations of the Buddhist faith, particularly with “Po Da Daham Sihile”). The shift from the Anglican elite to the Catholic poor was essential at this juncture because it opened up a crevice that would be filled, after 1956, by the baila and the calypso singer: from Neville Fernando (“Gayana Gayum”) to Paul Fernando (“Golu Hadawatha Vivara Karanna”). Amaradeva was a product of all these.

At the heart of the baila and calypso that preceded Amaradeva was a contradiction, particularly with the two foremost second generation singers, M. S. Fernando and Anton Jones. Their lyrics, which are for the most devoted to their own workings and rhythms and nonsensical shades of meaning, articulate a dichotomy between a life of luxury and ease and enjoyment and the lack of any money or financial security which was needed to maintain such a life. In many of these second generation baila songs – “Manike Mama Aye Gedara Enawa” and “Mama Enne Dubai Rate Indala” by M. S., “Mini Gavuma” and “Kanthoruwa” by Anton – this self-contradiction is very much pervasive, and it accounted for their tepid reception by the public, particularly the middle class (who didn’t want to reminded, as Fernando and Jones did, that the lives they hankered after were cut off from their economic realities). The transition from them to Clarence Wijewardena was, hence, significant and to an extent inevitable.

Clarence pandered to the milieu which, while shirking the proletarian (if one can use that term) and self-indulgent ethic of the second generation baila vocalists, enthralled the milieu which produced them (the petit bourgeoisie, the middle class, the thuppahi) by bringing about a fusion between their low key sensibilities and the sensibility that thrived on a more literary, witty, and meaningful conception of music. For it to work, and for it to ensnare the consumerist, hedonistic middle class (Buddhist or Catholic, located predominantly in the metropolis), however, the songs that Clarence put out had to subsist on a class rift between the householder and the servant. It is this rift, which you come across in “Mango Kalu Nande” and “Mame Ape Kalu Mame”, which earned Clarence, the Moonstones, and the Super Golden Chimes their place in the sun. They were poking fun at a way of life they had got out of, a way of life Anton Jones celebrated, a way of life they attributed to their helpers, their maids, their aayas.

In the end, therefore, by parodying them, he parodied the men and women we wanted to be. This curious paradox – between our affections for and repudiation of them – became its own standard, its own yardstick. And our own standard, our own yardstick.

Written for: Daily Mirror, December 28 2017

By Uditha Devapriya

Amaradeva(fragmenteyes.blogspot.com)

Amaradeva: the Voice of the Nation for the Nation

November 13, 2017 by admin
Uditha Devapriya, W. D. Amaradeva

ගංගා තරංග රාව දී රිදී වනින්
මල් පිපී කුලින් කුලේ හැපී
ගායනා කරන්නේ ආකාශයේ නැගී
වීරයින්ගෙ ඒ යශෝ ගීතයයි…

His songs roll off the tongue easily, as though their lyrics were stuck in our throats and needed his melodies to be unleashed. They are addressed to us, the collective “we”, the entire country, in ways few singers have or ever will. There must be a secret to this, and I don’t deny that, but the truth of the matter is that he has tapped into the collective unconscious of the nation remarkably well. Wherever he has been and whatever he has contributed has been etched across our minds forever. He is immortal, in whatever he has sung and whatever he has written.

He is Amaradeva.

I remember arguing with a music lover over the “ultimate” aim of a song once. He put it to me that music (and indeed art) will be vindicated only when it runs parallel with the “truth”. I asked him to elaborate on this. He explained. Truth, according to him, was political, and hence defied the “saundarya” (aesthetic) quality music is filled with. He argued that songs would “dig” into us only as long as they drifted away from what he called the “indifference of the aesthete”. He was an activist. A connoisseur. A fiery critic.

I begged to differ, needless to say. I told him that as long as songs were made to be reflective in an aesthetic way, and as long as songs which talked about political realities were aesthetically crafted, they would gain popular appeal. Otherwise, they would be so specific to the time and place they were made in that they would lose popularity as time passed. I brought up some singers. He brought up some singers. We argued. Heavily.

Then we got to Amaradeva. The man quietened down. Quickly. I didn’t even have to prove what I was saying. And I won that day. Why?

I wish I knew.

There are some songs which remain alive in our memory no matter what. There’s a reason for this, obviously. Perhaps they dig deep into the reserves of our minds in a way no political song ever can. They are memorable. Lovable. Poetical. And so, those who criticise them as being too indifferent, too aesthetically crafted, are not telling the whole story. They are partial. What they say and think, hence, cannot last. Not for long.

Amaradeva’s songs cut across any divide, real or imagined. They at once beckon what we secretly nurture in ourselves. “Sasara Wasana Thuru”, for example, reflects our collective wish to be born in this country, frail and fragile though it is, over and over again. It is our “pathuma”, our wish, that we are brought up on this soil and return to it even when our remains disappear. Yes, it’s a collective wish. The same kind of wish Amaradeva sings about in countless other songs, penned by him or by other illustrious lyricists, prime among them Mahagama Sekara.

It’s not just songs of course. The true worth of the man, I feel, is to be seen in how he has imbibed different styles and idioms to present a truly “Sri Lankan” music. Take those films he has scored, for instance. I remember the first theme of his I listened to. It was from Gamperaliya. I remember the opening sequence of that film, the music tuned perfectly to a potter ambling his way along the Southern coast of Koggala. There came a point in that film when its theme took on a life of its own and exemplified a nostalgic attitude to the way of life it was portraying, something the critic Philip Cooray noted when he wrote just how dirge-like Amaradeva’s score was.

There were other films, other scores. There was Delovak Athara, a world away from Gamperaliya in terms of mood, scored completely by a Western orchestra. Amaradeva’s theme for that film was unique. Unsurpassable. In its orchestration, its mood and texture, I realised at once how eclectic, how flexible, the man was in his ability to weave together different musical traditions together. This and nothing more accounted for my love for his music. And songs.

Amaradewa (fragmenteyes.blogspot.com)
Amaradewa (fragmenteyes.blogspot.com)

He didn’t do it all alone, by the way. There were songwriters, as I pointed out before. There were also filmmakers, whose vision he would perhaps absorb when scoring their works. I haven’t come across very many Sinhala films to identify what would constitute the best musical score, but Thunman Handiya came very close to it. There was that same nostalgia, that same bittersweet dirge, which went in line with the film’s story. I wasn’t surprised by the fact that Mahagama Sekara had directed it. Yes, Sekara. The “gee potha” (“book of verse”) to Amaradeva’s “mee vitha” (“glass of wine”).

I haven’t met him personally. Regrettably. Still, I have come to terms with the fact that one does not need to meet him to savour him. His attitude to music is at once recognisable in any of his songs. To him, and I’m pretty sure of this, music cannot be defined. It cannot be put down in words, as a novel or poem can, and it cannot be replaced by textbooks or academic treatises. He has written of how he has made communicating his innermost feelings through music his “jeevana pranidhana” (life mission). Nothing could be truer. I have heard the man more than I have read him. He is music exemplified. He doesn’t need a biographer. His voice and melodies are his life.

This isn’t all. At a time when trends change and change fast, his is the voice of sanity that prevails. I’ve talked with friends of all races, of all religions, be they Muslim, Tamil, or Burgher. They all love him. They have made it a point to sing one of his songs whenever chance permits, the most popular being “Ratna Deepa Janma Bhumi” (for some reason). They have all committed his lyrics to memory, probably more so than those of any other artist dead or alive. I can’t think of any other singer who has inspired my countrymen this much. Maybe Sunil Santha, or even C. T. Fernando. I don’t know.

Each of his songs pithily embodies a human condition. “Nim Him Sewwa” speaks to the lover in us, hoping that one day she who is sought will return to us, forever. “Ran Dahadiya” is about the sweat and toil, the dignity, of the goviya who sustains us in a way we will never be able to pay back. “Sannaliyane” is about the inevitable vicissitudes faced by a weaver who weaves for the living and the dead. “Siripa Piyume” tunes in perfectly with the pilgrim’s yearly progress to the Holy Peak of Samanalakanda (Adam’s Peak). They are timeless, true, but are also ingrained with a Sinhala Buddhist ethos which at once cuts across to every community in our land.

He’s much more than a singer or composer. I don’t need to write down his CV for you. It’s there for everyone to see. He was there when Queen Elizabeth wanted a national anthem for the Maldives. He was there in the Philippines when he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay award. He was there, with his beloved wife adding to what he said and sang by his side, one month ago, at Ananda College. He was there, everywhere. We saw him, and when we did, a kind of hush came over us. That hush I’m yet to see with another singer or artist, whether here or elsewhere.

The truth is, and this I’m sure of, that he is a national force. He remains alive in us and in the memory of those who cherish him. If it’s about bringing together different communities, be it on either side of the racial or religious divide, no greater unifying force can be found. For he has touched what academic theses and political frameworks cannot: that timeless, space-less wish which resides in every human being: the wish to capture emotion and give it to the world (as he put it once) with no antipathies to any community. He is a communicator, a tool for harmony, and wherever he may be, he exudes that charm and humility which immediately draw us, whoever we are, to him.

He is Amaradeva. A Voice of the Nation, for the Nation. He turns 87 today. May we all put our hands together. May we all wish him: “Chiran Jayathu!”

Written for: Ceylon Today ESCAPE, December 5 2014

By Uditha Devapriya

Amaradeva(Pic by Sandra Mack)

Amaradeva: a name for everything that is our little island

November 7, 2017 by admin
Classical, Malinda Seneviratne, W. D. Amaradeva

There are rain clouds, not too dark and not threatening.  It might rain later.  There was rain last night.  Tomorrow, there will be other clouds of similar shade.  Non-threatening for a while.  There might be rain.  The city pulsated in rhythms acquired over the years.  In some village in the Dry Zone, there are children at play.  The potter is at his wheel.  Someone, somewhere is listening to music.  The country called Sri Lanka in determination and resilience, hope and foreboding, meanders through the hills and vales of joy and sorrow at a pace that suits her people.  Sounds of yesterday are heard now and will be heard tomorrow.  And through it all a silence that is strangely also a song.  A sad song.  Amaradeva is no more

Pundit W.D. Amaradeva, known in an earlier avatar as Wannakuwatta Waduge Don Albert Perera, born in Moratuwa on the fifth day of December in the year 1927. Don Girinoris Perera and Maggie Veslina Mendis may never have imagined that their sixth and youngest child would, almost 89 years later, make music so silent and so poignant that it matched and in many ways surpassed everything he did with voice. Amaradeva breathed his last a few hours ago.  The nation skipped a heartbeat.  Breaths drawn were held for a moment longer than usual and then released as a collective sigh.

How can one speak of an incomparable voice that will not sing again? What do we say of a man who left us speechless with his songs? Those who want appropriate words to articulate their respective sorrows, their gratitude and sense of loss can of course delve into the lyrics. Song titles alone would yield enough lines to pick from. But that’s not him. That’s his friends, as gifted with word as he was with voice: Mahagama Sekera, Madawala S Ratnayake, Dalton Alwis, Chandraratne Manawasinghe, Ajantha Ranasinghe, Arisen Ahubudu, K.D.K. Dharmawardena, all of whom have passed on as has Prof Nandadasa Kodagoda (one of several one-lyric contributors), and among the living the highly accomplished but most infrequently recognized Sunil Sarath Perera, not forgetting Ratna Sri Wijesinghe and the more ‘present’ Prof Sunil Ariyaratne.

He will no doubt be remembered for offering his amazing voice to equally amazing lyrics, but what singles him out will always be the voice.  And as he often said, the music was only carried by the voice — it was born and nurtured in heart and mind.  Every word, every syllable and the spaces between were heart-made and mind-nurtured and that what sets him apart.  His heart and mind were made of this nation in all its glory, all its inadequacies, and it held everyone cutting across every conceivable distinction.  Amaradeva cleared the high noted of our multiple histories and held the integrity of the deep foundations of our cultural ethos.  That’s how he became and for a long time will remain the voice of our nation.

Time will pass and his name will pass into the many names among the forgotten in the birth-decay-death of our common human condition, but there will be days, now and for a long time to come, when Amaradeva will be present and ready for renewal and rediscovery, endowed with history and heritage giving us in his own indescribable ways the forgotten yesterdays and inhabitable tomorrows.

There can be no short tribute.  And no long tribute will be long enough.  It is tempting to draw from one of the hundreds of songs that many of us grew up with, many of us were consoled by in times of grief, many of us were lifted by for countless reasons, but that would be disservice to both singer and lyricist.

For this reason, I choose the words scripted for a TV show on Amaradeva.  They were written by Bandula Nanayakkarawasam who, interestingly, had just one ‘Amaradeva Song’ to his credit, never recorded but sung by the maestro on May 18, 1989 when Amaradeva’s classic book ‘Nada Sittam’ was launched.

This is what Bandula wrote:
ගම අමතක වීද ඔහුගෙන් විමසන්න 
නගරය මග හැරුනිද ඔහු සොයා යන්න 
රට අමතක වීද ඔහු ඇති බව අදහන්න 
ගහ-කොළ, ඉර-හඳ, ඇළ-දොළ, සමුදුර, කුරුළු-ගී 
ඈ නෙක දියදම් අරුම නොපෙනී නොඇසී ගියේද 
ඔහු ඇසි දිසි මානයේ රැඳෙන්න 
මේ පුංචි කොදෙව්වේ,  මව් දෙරණේ 
මේ සියල්ල ඔහුය  
‘If you’ve forgotten the village, ask him
If you are lost in a city, go find him
If you forgot the nation, believe that he lives
The trees, the sun and moon, the ocean, bird song…
These and other enchanting things……..
should you not see them, should you not hear
Go stand before him, stay within the circle of his gaze.
In this tiny island, in our motherland 
He alone is all these things.”

My friend Nishad Handunpathirana who knows much more about music than those who make knowing-claims and therefore, perhaps, says little, said a few words: ‘He was our Tagore’.  Perhaps that’s one way of putting it.  Another way is possible, Bandula has shown.  He was Amaradeva. Ours.

There is silence amid the clutter of sound.  It’s the silence of a singular passing.  The voice of the nation has gone silent.  And strangely, in this world made of transience, it would probably linger. More tenderly.  Yes, softer still.
 
This article was first published in the ‘Daily Mirror’ (November 4, 2016).  
Amaradeva(Pic by Sandra Mack)

AMARADEVA: THE VOICE OF OUR NATION

September 23, 2016 by admin
Malinda Seneviratne, W. D. Amaradeva

පින් කේත හෙළ රන් දෙරණේ යලි උපදින්නට හේතු වාසනා වේවා !

Pundit W.D. Amaradeva [Pic by Sandra Mack]

‘Amaradeva: yesterday, today and tomorrow’ was a show held at the Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Performing Arts Theater.  It was a grand 85th birthday party for the maestro and his wife who shares his birthday, even though the latter as she always has been was in his shadow.  Before the show, there were rehearsals, light and heavy both.  Years before, I had the honor of interviewing him, once for the Sunday Island and once for the ‘P.O. Box’ a magazine published by Phoenix-Ogilvy Advertising.  On both occasions, he kindly and readily obliged when I requested that he sing. There are differences in playing to a full and captive audience in a magnificent theatre, engaging in a light rehearsal at home with table and hand-pumped harmonium or a full rehearsal with an entire orchestra and sophisticated sound system, and in responding to a simple request by an admirer.  The place, moment, ambiance, sense of occasion and size and character of the audience naturally make for difference in setting and context.  For Pundit W.D. Amaradeva however what matters is music and its appreciation, the opportunity to do what he knows and loves best, to experience and make for appreciation.

Pundit Amaradeva does not require request or invitation.  One talks with him and as he explains or describes he would break into song.  Indeed, his mastery of Sinhala and English, as well as his long and deep association with the classics, was such that his words pour out like music, not one note out of place, not one missing.

His son, Ranjana, observed during a short break at a light rehearsal at his father’s house, ‘this is what makes him happy; to sing, to have people around him who he can sing to.’  At home, like on stage, in practice as in performance, Amaradeva indulges in a heady narrative mix of song and commentary. That night, a few days before the performance, he was explaining how he composed the melody for what is known as ‘The Unofficial National Anthem,’ Ratnadeepa Janmabhoomi:

‘When Sekara (that’s Mahagama Sekera his friend and principal lyricist referred to as the ‘Gee potha’or ‘Book of Songs/Verse’ to which he, Amaradeva, was ‘Mee Vitha’ or wine, following the song-title ‘Gee pothai mee vithai’ or ‘The book of verse and the [glass of] wine’) sent me the lines, I was teaching a raga to some students.  It was perfect.’

He mentioned the name of the raag but not being a student of music it did not register.  He was at that point surrounded by family and students, both young and old.  Ranjana played the table, Subhani, his daughter, was by his side prompting him if he missed a line or word.  Sunil Edirisinghe, Rohona Bulegoda and Krishantha Eranda were there to pick him up when necessary.  He didn’t stop smiling.

It was the same a couple of days before that when he practices with a full orchestra under the gentle direction of that perfectionist, Rohana Weerasinghe.  That was the first practice session in years.  Age takes things away.  There were lines that were missed and verses that got jumbled.  The voice faded on the lower notes.  The nuance of melody, however, was a life-twin and the other beat of a heartbeat.  He had not been abandoned.

The ‘big day’, therefore, was just another day, just another show, but as always a moment to be happy, to experience fully the exercise of singing and in singing to entertain.  To those in the audience, though, it was not just another show, another day.  This was moment for renewal and rediscovery, not with and of Amaradeva alone, but with being, with history and heritage, forgotten yesterdays and inhabitable tomorrows.

It was nothing like the ‘Amara Gee Sara’ shows of a different era.  No one expected it to be.  When the curtain was raised, the artist seemed older than I could remember, even though I had seen him just two days before.  When he sang the Sarasvathi Abhinandana Geethaya his age showed.  And yet, imperceptibly, song by song, minute by minute, he warmed to the task, reveling in the moment, each prefaced by Jackson Anthony, at times laboriously and at times with wit and commentary that was less insufferable.

It was not the typical Amaradeva show, as I said.  It was a national commendation of sorts, the kind reserved for the best teachers and the most exalted of citizens.  He put it best, alluding to the analogy of the fish and water.  He was in his elemental liquid, his rasika kela, the admiring listeners.  He had his students, the best of them in fact, around him, accompanying him now as chorus and paying tribute with voice and word.

He once said ‘one sings not with vocal chords but with heart’ and said that of all the voices he’s heard, only Nanda Malini’s was heart-made.  She demonstrated, both with Udangu Liyan (Proud Women) and with Galana Gangaki Jeevithe (with Amaradeva).  In all the duets, the younger voices were stronger, naturally, but when it came to ‘feeling’, Amaradeva was without doubt supreme.

Sanath Nandasiri located the Master in the musical firmament: ‘geyuma meyai’ (this is what singing is), he said, was what Amaradeva taught.  True.  He set the standard and he set it high, so high that few reached it even on occasion, so high that aspiring to reach it made everyone better.

Apart from Nanda Malini and Sanath Nandasiri, there was Victor Ratnayake, whose rendering of ‘Obe Namin Saeya Bandimi’ was probably the most exquisite piece of the evening.  There was also Sunil Edirisinghe, Edward Jayakody, Neela Wickramasinghe, Latha Walpola, Nimal Mendis and Nalin and the Marians, and of course the less visible but as enthusiastic, capable and devoted chorus.  They all spoke of teacher and teaching and he responded with anecdote, affection and humility.

The father-son and father-daughter items were not usual.  Ranajan, self-effacing, modest and consciously out-of-shadow, did a wonderful rendition of Aradhana, letting the father seal the song with last-line signature.  Subhani’s duet was Chando Ma Bilinde, a lullaby that was apt.  She had the stronger voice-presence that night.

There were two men missing from the show, one alive and one, sadly, no more.  The first, Bandula Nanayakkarawasam ought to have scripted the program, but the script that played contained a clip of the Master done by ITN.  It was a 4-5 capture-all that he had written.

Gama amathaka veeda…ohugen vimasanna
Nagaraya maha herunida…ohu soyaa yanna
Rata amathaka veeda…ohu ethi bava adahanna
Gaha-kola, ira-handa, ela-dola, samudura, kurulu-gee
Aee neka diya dam aruma nopenee no-asee giyeda
Ohu esi disi maanaye raendenna…
Me punchi kodevve, ape mau derane
Me siyallama ohuya

‘If you’ve forgotten the village, ask him
If you are lost in a city, go find him
If you forgot the nation, believe that he lives
The trees, the sun and moon, the ocean, bird song…
These and other enchanting things……..should you not see them, should you not hear
Go stand before him, stay within the circle of his gaze.
In this tiny island, in our motherland
He alone is all these things.

Amaradeva, then, is not just marker of singing standard.  He personifies for many reasons and many ways who we are as Sri Lankans, what in this country gives pride, where we stand; he defines the horizons we can aspire to travel to and tells us the geographies we cannot leave behind.

This is why, quite early in the program, Amaradeva not just sang Sasara Vasana Thuru but affirmed and underlined his personal wish to be re-born again and again in this land, a wish that Jackson correctly pointed out is the quintessential Jathika Pethuma or National Wish of all Sri Lankans who have any root that has sought and obtained nourishment from the deepest and most fertile of the country’s cultural and historical soil.

The other ‘absentee’ was of course Mahagama Sekara.  He was referred to many times, by many people.  Amaradeva, as he often does, referred to him as the gee potha and himself as the companion,mee vitha, deftly dodging Jackson’s attempt to establish that the reverse was also true.  Sekara was the Book of Verse, Amaradeva the (glass of) wine.

With song, accompaniment, the forgetfulness at times, with lucidity too and of course anecdote, he would have drawn many a tear to many an eye that night.  It was not a ‘finale’, and perhaps nothing demonstrated this than his forceful interruption or rather voice-add to a Marians’ rendition of Shantha Me Rae Yaame.  He said, without saying it, ‘geyuma meyai!’  To his credit, Nalin acknowledged and expressed regret that they hadn’t met Amaradeva earlier, for had that happened their path may have been different, he said.  But he wished him long life, as did everyone else, who in the gratitude of adoration expressed the hope that their own years be added to what’s left of his.

At one point he sang the up-tempo Bindu Bindu Ran which ended with the line pirivara soyaa maa thanikara yanna epaa (Don’t abandon me as you go looking for an entourage).  That pirivara never left him, perhaps most of all because he did not leave them, even though he never held them in a vice-like grip. He had, after all, only a voice, but that sufficed, for his is a voice that enters hearts and stays there, a voice that contain the echo of our past and the distinct score of our future, a voice that is undoubtedly the incomparable voice of our nation.

Bandula ended the script to that short docu-film with the lines from one of Amaradeva’s best loved songs, Nim him sevva maa sasare, favorite of lovers and those seeking love or waiting for love’s ‘someday’ return.  It could be also about the ties and longings of lyricist and singer to listener/fan (and one another) and also to land.

Nim him sevva maa sasare
Hamuvee, yugayen baendi yugaye
Lanvee venvee varin vare
Oba ha maa ran huyakini baendune

I’ve searched the limits of this sansaara
We’ve met in lifetimes gone
We’ve embraced and parted again and again
(but) you and I are bound together by a single, golden thread.

There is no beginning and no end to timeless things.  Like the voice of W.D. Amaradeva.  We don’t know where it was born and which territories it has and will enrich.  We can but wish this national icon, this incomparable Voice of our Nation, good health and long life.  Chirang Jayathu….

 

Published in ‘The Nation’ (FINE Section), December 9, 2012, pics and page layout by Sandra Mack

Source: http://malindawords.blogspot.com/

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