গ্রন্থপরিচয় १SS language 'We have many kinds of rhythm, a great rhythmical variety. Our words have no individual idiosyncrasies. no accent of their own to be respected, as English words have. In that our language is more like French. Many rhythmical bars that are rare or quite in possible in English are common with us. We have a foursyllable bar and five-syllable bar. “Where does the verse-accent come ?” 'On the first syllable, usually. It is like the ehhing away of the breath. a bar of one of these rhythms- the full breath at the beginning- then the renewal at the beginning of the next bar. Dr. Tagore then kindly recitcd a few lines from one of his poems written with four-syllable to the bar. The rhythmical effect was very beautiful. While he was reciting I noticed that his finger, lying on the table. beat the time of the rests ut the end of the line. Evidently the poets of Bengal know that time is time in silence just as much as in sound. At this moment we were interrupted and went away with the memory of that gently wavering rhythm, like the cbbing away of the hreath', but clearly marked from bar to bar and line to line, wishing that I could have heard many more of these poems in the language which l did not understand, yet found so clearly musical. --Tagore and Marguerite Wilkinson : The Touchstone, vol. Vl, No. 5, New York, February 1921. Villeneuve, 24 June, 1926. ROLLAND ; Have you heard anything of Gluck He lived in the 18th century. Among nodern European composers he has the largest amount of what I may call the Greek feeling, retaining in music only what was serene and beautiful, and climinating with austere severity everything that was superfluous. Before him European music was something like medieval Gothic architecture. It possessed great exuberance of spirit, but was apt to get lost in a mass of details. The reform accomplished by Gluck at the end of the 18th century, just before the outbreak of the French Revolution, was coming back to pure line and pure form. He was a German, or rather a Bohemian, who lived much in France where he was well appreciated. TAGORE : T have always felt the immense power of your European music. I love Beethoven and also Bach. I must confess, it takes a good deal of time to understand and thoroughly appreciate the idiom of your music. As a youg boy
