Whodunnit? Unravelling the mystery behind the tune of Danno Budunge
I phoned a friend to help me with a matter in music. It was a small point, only a problem because my ear is not sensitive enough musically, and he’s a distinguished figure in Western classical music in Sri Lanka, but also a close friend.
It had to do with harmony in a choral version of the ‘Danno Budunge’ melody. We began a discussion on its origins. He told me about the theory of the Mendelssohn piece, #38-6 in ‘Songs Without Words’ (MWV U119), and of the existence of the CHOGM version.
It was an interesting whodunnit, although from the outset my idea was what finally (it seems) emerges as below, except about who Westernised it. To help him out, and at his urging, I followed various trails, on and off as I had time, mostly off I’m afraid. In this latterly I’ve been greatly helped and sped up by a relative, once a generous patron of Western classical music, who wishes to be anonymous.
That was September. Since February DB (Danno Budunge) has been in the news, and among the vast volume of resulting material on the internet and (I gather) in the media there have been a few items of much value to our search, acknowledged below.
There are many versions of DB. Some are widely regarded as Eastern or Easternised, with these short words being used here to refer to the North Indian tradition of music, others as Western/ised. It might be useful to have a simple criterion for this. The absence or presence of harmony does not work for all versions. I’d suggest the first note being either 3 or 4 tones below the second, the key note. In all or most recent Eastern/ised versions it’s 3, in all Western/ised it’s 4. From what I have listened to this holds back to the early 20th Century.
To know about its “ultimate” origins it is necessary first to wade through a fair bit of background. This is from a chapter in a book by a musician and academic. The text is much as sent to my friend. I have compared it with similar accounts by other authorities Sarachchandra, L.D.A. Ratnayaka and Tissa Kariyawasam, and there are a few discrepancies, but these are not very relevant here, and this is later than their publications.
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From Asiri Miyuru Sara 2008 Lionel Algama, translated from the Sinhala and much rearranged by me, with minor additions and subtractins.
Nadagam, a kind of musical play, came to Sri Lanka about 1750. The music consisted of simple forms used in South Indian village plays. Instruments were the drums mrdanga or maddal, the wind instr. nadaswaram, and kaitalam. Sinhala nadagam became popular, and by 1850 was a hobby of the elite. But it had become poor in musical content. The limited melodies failed to attract urban audiences. Another reason was the arrival of more lively North Indian music.
In India with Muslim rule Sanskrit drama had declined. But folk play traditions had continued. Local music had developed with new Arabian and Persian raga and tala.
In 1853 in Ayodhya the musical play ‘Indrasabha’, comparing an earthly ruler to a deity, was created, guided by classical and folk music. It became very popular.
Parsi entrepreneurs spread this and similar plays across much of India.
In these early Indian musical plays many melodies were based on ghazal, originally Persian, music for poetry.
There was also influence of Western melodies. Indian musicians, it is supposed, heard these from military bands. Europeans and their ways were sometimes uncritically emulated in India, and also in SL (as we see later).
On the other hand, Christian missionaries in India used Indian raga for Christian songs in English. These were now used in these plays, for travel and weddings scenes.
North Indian melodies came to SL in the latter half of the century, when travel by sea became easier. Indian traders visited and some settled in Sri Lanka. Indian pilgrims to Kataragama landing at Galle were sought and hosted by nadagam practitioners. Their experts had no training in music. They appreciated the elegance of Hindustani songs. There was some influx of the melodies into nadagam.
Beginning in the late 1870s C. Don Bastian and his followers staged plays which used North Indian music, such as his ‘Rolina’ in 1879. He called these nrtya, a Sanskrit word for a dance signifying a subject. In nadagam each actor first appears in a dance conveying his or her character, and CDB’s early plays continued with this. He may have intended the new name as a contrast to nadagam. In popular use it became nurti.
In 1880 the Indian musical play company of Baliwalla arrived in SL, followed by others from India. Their plays were influenced by ‘Indrasabha’. These often used emotional love stories, which suited musical plays. Baliwalla’s first in SL was ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Some of his others were based on stories of Arabic and Hindu deities.
CDB attended Baliwalla’s plays and learnt their melodies and instrumental passages. He too produced a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ which closely followed Bw’s. CDB’s Sinhalese Drama Co. continued until about 1900.
John de Silva set up his company after CDB. His first two plays contain much music from ‘Indrasabha’ and Baliwalla. But he was the first playwright in Sri lanka to try to understand the classical basis of Hindustani music. In 1885 he engaged Abdul Latif, a North Indian businessman in Colombo, to write the music for his ‘Nala Raja Charitaya’, an Indian-based play, and published a book with the raga and tala and the orig. Hindustani lyrics for each song.
A liking developed among Sri Lankans for Hindustani and Urdu. Sinhalese and others who liked Indian music regarded Hindustani as associated with music, as Italian was in Europe. A singer would follow a Sinhala song with a Hindustani one in the same melody to show it was authentic. Few in Sri Lanka knew Hindustani, and lyrics were often cleverly faked!
In 1888 JdS got down a Gujarati copy of ‘Indrasabha’. The play was staged from Colombo to Hambantota. Its songs became popular. Renditions though were not always accurate. Until 1900 all musical plays in Sri Lanka were influenced by ‘Indrasabha’. Its song of welcome, king’s song and others were used in many Sinhala plays, with also some deviation.
Early Sinhala musical plays contained several alien Western melodies. This is an example of the emulation mentioned above.
Around 1900, soon after CDB’s co. closed down, JdS brought new vitality to nurti by engaging Vishvanat Lavji, a professional musician involved in Hindustani and Gujarati plays. VL took music from such plays and altered it close to classical form. JdS produced six Sinhala plays with his guidance, including ‘Sirisangabo’. He believed that the earliest Sinhalese were Hindus and were hence heirs to Hindustani music.
Other producers of plays in SL at the time freely used music from the six plays by JdS and VL.
After VL went back to India the Tower Hall co. engaged other Indian musicians for JdS. Most of their music for nurti were popular melodies from Hindustani and Gujarati plays. In general, too, this was the case in Sri Lanka from the 1880s until the Tower Hall Company closed down. Three years before it did Butabhai, a North Indian musician, convened all [sic] leading actors in Colombo and taught them ‘Indrasabha’ in Hindustani.
Another source for nurti music were the “Malays” of Sri Lanka. They had heard Indian melodies from Indian soldiers in Singapore. They helped CDB by memorizing Baliwalla’s music and in his plays. Many were experts on the violin and dhol. Their saji meeting places were a source for the spread of nurti music.
From time to time well known SLn musicians composed for new plays, such as H.W. Rupasinghe, J.A. Sadiris Silva, [Lawyer] W. Satasivam.
Later there was much competition and secrecy among those involved in musical plays in Sri Lanka.
Nurti music declined because of the cost of getting down Indian musicians. Silent cinema brought an end to commercial musical plays in both India and Sri Lanka.
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Ediriweera Sarachchandra, the Sri Lankan who combined scholarship in both the Eastern and Western arts (as well as literature) most eminently, states that DB was composed in the pahadi raga, adding that some say it is in the maad raga. (Even an expert may be left uncertain in a short piece.) He gives in his Folk Drama of Ceylon an Eastern version as defined above, as a Western score provided by the musician Devar Surya Sena.
In the Sinhala translation of the book, by himself, he gives it as an Eastern score provided by the musician Jayantha Aravinda. The latter wrote it as he remembered it sung by his father, the musician Vincent Somapala, and others, who would have heard it in the days of its inception. He has no difficulty in identifying the whole of it as being in the pahadi raga.
L.D.A. Ratnayaka, a playwright of that era, who has done the most thorough research yet on John de Silva’s plays, assigns DB to that raga.
What happened then is narrated by Devar Surya Sena. W. S. Senior, he says, gave him the words of his ‘Hymn for Ceylon’, and suggested, “Someday you’re going to write a tune for this Bertie.” Later, “on my return from England…In a flash the thought came that the much loved melody of ‘Danno Budunge’, adapted slightly, would fit the metre…I…married the words to the tune, harmonising the melody in four parts”.
Timeline. DB: 1906. Senior’s comment: 1916-19, when he tutored D.S.S. The adaptation: between 1924 and the mid-30s; I cannot yet find this out more accurately, despite hours of efforts at it, e.g. a visit to the archives of the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, at whose Scott Hall he first “tried out the result” at an event.
DB sung in the Eastern manner has been subjected to many changes (before and after the Westernised adaptation). These are inevitable, for a melody sung in that tradition varies, “flies and flutters”, among different singers. What did it sound like originally? The answer may be here, and only here, if a copy exists: P. Orr & Co. of Madras made a gramophone record of some of John de Silva’s songs in 1908, where Lavji himself plays the harmonium, or “serpina”.
Sources. “Pahadi…maad raga”: E.S. 1997 Ping Eti Sarasavi Varamak Denne; the relevant passage was first seen in ‘dampatadedunna.blogspot.com’ in a post by Kumari Paranavithana. J.A.: personal communication. The research on JdS’s plays, disc recording: L.D.A.R. 1964 Nitijgna John de Silva Nataka Itihasaya, from the library of Rani Makalanda Jayasuriya. Adaptation: D.S.S. 10.02.1972 ‘Senior: poet, parson, prophet’ in Ceylon Daily News, from the library of Padmini Nanayakkara.
There we are, Watson.
(Part 2 next week)