Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 2. On Poets and Poetry
Philosophers, Intellectuals, Novelists and Musicians

On Some Musicians

As to Sahana’s question, I am unable to say much — I have no special competence in this sphere of music and do not know on what aesthetic ground she stands in this matter. These things are mysterious in their origin and so it is said “De gustibus non est disputandum” — “There can be no disputing about tastes.” Some connoisseurs of music exalt Wagner as a god or a Titan, others speak of him with depreciation and celebrate the godhead of Verdi who is disclaimed by their opponents. Yet I suppose the genius of neither can be disputed. So far as I can make out from her statement, Sahana does not dispute your genius or the aesthetic quality of your music, but something in her does not respond — if so, it is either a matter of temperament or it is that she is looking for something else, some other vibration than that given by your music. If it is only conservatism and an unwillingness to admit new forms or new laws of creation, that is obviously a mental limitation and can disappear only with more plasticity of mind or a change of the angle of vision — I don’t know that I can say anything more — or more definite.

As for Sahana’s singing, she seems to succeed when she can forget herself in her singing and to fail when she has to think of her audience or of success and failure. That would mean that she is in a certain stage of inner development where the inner state makes all the difference. I would hazard the conclusion that her future as a singer on the old psychological lines hardly exists, but she has to find fully her soul, her inner self and with it the inner singer.

8 September 1937