A night of Tagore

What a wonderful evening! Last night we attended a concert put on by the Talisker Players called the Harp of Fire. It was amazing! The concert was a set of songs inspired by the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, a late nineteenth, early twentieth century Indian poet and philosopher, pictured below. It was held in a church on Bloor Street, shown on the right. The music was phenomenal - I really can't say enough about it.

One song was particularly moving, called 'Baajay koruno shurey...' or 'The plaintive tune'. The music was performed by a string quartet and a flute, with the lyrics sung by mezzo soprano Krisztina Szabo. It's sung in another language (I don't know which one), so I had no idea what the words were, but as I was listening I was filled with this sense of longing and grief. The music and the singing worked together so well that the entire audience was spellbound, even after the song was finished. Then I read the translation of the Tagore poem provided in the program and everything came together:

The plaintive tune, heard from afar,

Is the music of the path kissed by your feet,

This, my wandering mind, is unquiet,

I know not why.

As the fragrance of jasmine flowers

Spreads restlessly in the fretful air,

So my mind, in slow sorrow

Grieves in the extreme dark of our separation.