Alexander in India, a musical intermezzo

A dear friend of mine recently shared this wonderful musical rendition created by Peter Pringle entitled Alexander in India - Surbahar & Kithara.

I am sharing this unique musical interpretation for two basic reasons. On the one hand, I find it quite amazing that Alexander is still remembered in India, although he hardly spent a full year in that country, which includes modern Pakistan as well. On the other hand, I am very much impressed by the reconstructed Greek lyre, Alexander’s favorite instrument. As far as I am concerned, this beautiful kithara reminds me of the lyre Apollo is holding in his arms at the Museum of Tripoli in Libya. This labeling, however, appears to be incorrect since the lyre counts “only” four strings, whereas the professional kithara counts seven strings. The instrument Apollo is holding seems to have even more than seven strings, or is it my imagination?

For further information, I copy hereafter the accompanying explanation about this piece of music and the instruments involved.

The surbahar belongs to the Veena Family of the classical instruments of India, and is comparable to the western cello in size and register. The one you see in the video was made for me about 50 years ago by the great Indian luthier, Kanai Lal of Calcutta.

The Greek “kithara” was built by master luthier, Anastasios Koumartzis, of LUTHIEROS MUSIC INSTRUMENTS, which is located in the Macedonian region of Northern Greece. This is the same area in which Alexander the Great was born. The kithara was the instrument of choice for professional musicians during the Golden Age of Greece which reached its height around 500 B.C.E.

In his military exploits, Alexander travelled east as far as the Indus River, which he reached in 326 B.C.E. By that time, he was far from home, his men were getting tired, and they were met by fierce opposition from the armies of the rulers whose territories they invaded. As a result, Alexander never penetrated into the Indian subcontinent, and died in Babylon in 323 B.C.E., on his way back home.

This composition is in the Indian scale (“thaat”) known as “bhairav” (flat 6th and flat 2nd). The surbahar was built to be tuned to an F#, so the kithara is tuned F# G B C C# D F F#.

In more than one way, India is the missing link in my earlier blogs about music and musical instruments in antiquity as I explored ancient music, starting with the Seikilos inscription (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph and Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task?) and continued with Persia (see: What is Persian music like?) and Uzbekistan (see: A thought for Roxane, Alexander’s Bactrian wife).

Music truly is of all times and certainly unites peoples from around the globe! And I can’t help wondering what Alexander would have thought about all this. He must have liked most of it!