Lal / Hindustani Classical Music / What If Chopin Played Ragas... - NOSPR

Hindustani Classical Music for Solo Piano

One might venture to say that the Indian counterpart to the rational harmonic system of the West is the idea of a mystical contemplation of the depth of a single sound and its infinite microtonal structure. In linear vocal and instrumental practice, this is realised through the highly refined ornamentation of repeated notes and motifs, using intervals as small as one twenty-second of an octave. The European violin lends itself remarkably well to this tradition and has enjoyed considerable popularity in the world of Hindustani classical music for the past 150 years. The same cannot be said of the piano, whose extraordinary range, dynamic scope and wealth of colour come at the cost of the constraints imposed by equal temperament. On Chopin’s instrument, the note A above middle C always has one fixed pitch (usually 440 Hz), and even the greatest virtuoso cannot bend it by so much as a few cents in the course of a performance in order to probe the depths of a single note.

And yet Hindustani ragas can indeed be performed on the piano, as Utsav Lal – composer and improviser associated with New York’s vibrant Indian diaspora – has demonstrated on successive recordings. He reveals the rich inner harmony of individual notes through exquisitely nuanced gradations of dynamics and articulation, of a kind that connoisseurs of the lyrical dimension of Chopin’s art would surely appreciate. Does the sound of the piano still carry echoes of a profound cultural memory reaching back to the vast plains of prehistoric Anatolia, where the story of the Indo-Europeans is said to have begun?

Michał Mendyk

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