Tagore and Einstein???

[Guest guest]

i did not know that they had met and that there is a recorded conversation

in existence....this is very interesting...

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TAGORE: I was discussing with Dr. Mendel today the new mathematical

discoveries which tell us that in the realm of infinitesimal atoms chance

has its play; the drama of existence is not absolutely predestined in

character.

 

EINSTEIN: The facts that make science tend toward this view do not say

good-bye to causality.

 

TAGORE: Maybe not, yet it appears that the idea of causality is not in the

elements, but that some other force builds up with them an organized

universe.

 

EINSTEIN: One tries to understand in the higher plane how the order is. The

order is there, where the big elements combine and guide existence, but in

the minute elements this order is not perceptible.

 

TAGORE: Thus duality is in the depths of existence, the contradiction of

free impulse and the directive will which works upon it and evolves an

orderly scheme of things.

 

EINSTEIN: Modern physics would not say they are contradictory. Clouds look

as one from a distance, but if you see them nearby, they show themselves as

disorderly

drops of water.

 

TAGORE: I find a parallel in human psychology. Our passions and desires are

unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole.

Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the

elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a

principle in the physical world which

dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?

 

EINSTEIN: Even the elements are not without statistical order; elements of

radium will always maintain their specific order, now and ever onward, just

as they have

done all along. There is, then, a statistical order in the elements.

 

TAGORE: Otherwise, the drama of existence would be too desultory. It is the

constant harmony of chance and determination which makes it eternally new

and living.

 

EINSTEIN: I believe that whatever we do or live for has its causality; it is

good, however, that we cannot see through to it.

 

TAGORE: There is in human affairs an element of elasticity also, some

freedom within a small range which is for the expression of our personality.

It is like the musical

system in India, which is not so rigidly fixed as western music. Our

composers give a certain definite outline, a system of melody and rhythmic

arrangement, and within a

certain limit the player can improvise upon it. He must be one with the law

of that particular melody, and then he can give spontaneous expression to

his musical feeling

within the prescribed regulation. We praise the composer for his genius in

creating a foundation along with a superstructure of melodies, but we expect

from the player

his own skill in the creation of variations of melodic flourish and

ornamentation. In creation we follow the central law of existence, but if we

do not cut ourselves adrift

from it, we can have sufficient freedom within the limits of our personality

for the fullest self-expression.

 

EINSTEIN: That is possible only when there is a strong artistic tradition in

music to guide the people's mind. In Europe, music has come too far away

from popular art

and popular feeling and has become something like a secret art with

conventions and traditions of its own.

 

TAGORE: You have to be absolutely obedient to this too complicated music. In

India, the measure of a singer's freedom is in his own creative personality.

He can sing

the composer's song as his own, if he has the power creatively to assert

himself in his interpretation of the general law of the melody which he is

given to interpret.

 

EINSTEIN: It requires a very high standard of art to realize fully the great

idea in the original music, so that one can make variations upon it. In our

country, the

variations are often prescribed.

 

TAGORE: If in our conduct we can follow the law of goodness, we can have

real liberty of self-expression. The principle of conduct is there, but the

character which

makes it true and individual is our own creation. In our music there is a

duality of freedom and prescribed order.

 

EINSTEIN: Are the words of a song also free? I mean to say, is the singer at

liberty to add his own words to the song which he is singing?

 

TAGORE: Yes. In Bengal we have a kind of song-kirtan, we call it-which gives

freedom to the singer to introduce parenthetical comments, phrases not in

the original

song. This occasions great enthusiasm, since the audience is constantly

thrilled by some beautiful, spontaneous sentiment added by the singer.

 

EINSTEIN: Is the metrical form quite severe?

 

TAGORE: Yes, quite. You cannot exceed the limits of versification; the

singer in all his variations must keep the rhythm and the time, which is

fixed. In European music

you have a comparative liberty with time, but not with melody.

 

EINSTEIN: Can the Indian music be sung without words? Can one understand a

song without words?

 

TAGORE: Yes, we have songs with unmeaning words, sounds which just help to

act as carriers of the notes. In North India, music is an independent art,

not the

interpretation of words and thoughts, as in Bengal. The music is very

intricate and subtle and is a complete world of melody by itself.

 

EINSTEIN: Is it not polyphonic?

 

TAGORE: Instruments are used, not for harmony, but for keeping time and

adding to the volume and depth. Has melody suffered in your music by the

imposition of

harmony?

 

EINSTEIN: Sometimes it does suffer very much. Sometimes the harmony swallows

up the melody altogether.

 

TAGORE: Melody and harmony are like lines and colors in pictures. A simple

linear picture may be completely beautiful; the introduction of color may

make it vague

and insignificant. Yet color may, by combination with lines, create great

pictures, so long as it does not smother and destroy their value.

 

EINSTEIN: It is a beautiful comparison; line is also much older than color.

It seems that your melody is much richer in structure than ours. Japanese

music also seems

to be so.

 

TAGORE: It is difficult to analyze the effect of eastern and western music

on our minds. I am deeply moved by the western music; I feel that it is

great, that it is vast in

its structure and grand in its composition. Our own music touches me more

deeply by its fundamental lyrical appeal. European music is epic in

character; it has a broad

background and is Gothic in its structure.

 

EINSTEIN: This is a question we Europeans cannot properly answer, we are so

used to our own music. We want to know whether our own music is a

conventional or

a fundamental human feeling, whether to feel consonance and dissonance is

natural, or a convention which we accept.

 

TAGORE: Somehow the piano confounds me. The violin pleases me much more.

 

EINSTEIN: It would be interesting to study the effects of European music on

an Indian who had never heard it when he was young.

 

TAGORE: Once I asked an English musician to analyze for me some classical

music, and explain to me what elements make for the beauty of the piece.

 

EINSTEIN: The difficulty is that the really good music, whether of the East

or of the West, cannot be analyzed.

 

TAGORE: Yes, and what deeply affects the hearer is beyond himself.

 

EINSTEIN: The same uncertainty will always be there about everything

fundamental in our experience, in our reaction to art, whether in Europe or

in Asia. Even the

red flower I see before me on your table may not be the same to you and me.

 

TAGORE: And yet there is always going on the process of reconciliation

between them, the individual taste conforming to the universal standard.

 

 

 

 

 

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