A tradition of song developing the country’s cultural identity
Amaradeva passes away
The passing away of Pandit W. D. Amaradeva at age 88 signals the end of a musical icon and an era in Sinhala song we are unlikely to witness again.
I last saw him alive four years ago at the BMICH – he was giving a lecture not in the main auditorium but in a temporary structure behind it. To a small but captivated audience, Amaradeva together with wife Wimala reminisced about their life together, and how the music and songs came into being, along with quotations from the poetry of Keats and Shelley. It was a mesmerising evening and he was a mesmerising man.
Amaradeva built a magnificent resonant chamber on the foundation built by his older contemporary and pioneer of the modern Sinhala song Sunil Santha. In stark contrast to the ebullient, outspoken Sunil Santha, Amaradeva presented a more austere, even self-effacing personality but created a tradition of song based on research, innovation and sheer hard work to which every notable Sinhala saragi gi singer since is indebted.
Born in Moratuwa in 1927 to mixed Buddhist-methodist parentage, Amaradeva (nee Albert Perera) was given a violin at the tender age of seven by his father, a craftsman who repaired violins. Amaradeva as a child played the violin as his mother sang hymns, and he was introduced to classical music by his elder brother.
Amaradeva attended at least four schools, including Sri Sumangala Vidyayala at Panadura to which he gained entry by winning a scholarship for English. He led the choir of his inaugural school Sri Saddharmodaya Buddhist mixed school to a brilliant showing at a contest held by the Colombo Art Society. But winning a poetry contest gave him a chance to appear in a Radio Ceylon programme. In 1945, the young Amaradeva won a gold medal at a violin contest held at the Jana Kala Mandalaya.
Meeting the right person at the right time is crucial to success in many spheres, and Amaradeva met Sunil Santha, then the country’s premier musical star, at a concert. With his help, Amaradeva obtained work and lodging at Chitrasena Studios. Asokamala was being at a nearby location, and its music director Mohammad Ghouse employed Amaradeva as chief of the violin section in his orchestra.
Throughout the 1950s, Amaradeva worked steadily for Radio Ceylon, and his stature continued to grow after being sent to study at the Bhathkande Music Institute in India, the formative school of the Sinhala musical elite. After his return, Dr. Ediriweera Sarachchandra renamed him in a manner more in keeping with the young prodigy’s talent and his historic role in the country’s newly nascent cultural identity. Thus, W. D. Amaradeva was born.
Amaradeva did not have to struggle to be discovered. The country’s leading figures in culture were looking for new voices, and Amaradeva’s, so classically restrained and flowing like the darkest of honey in slow motion to parched auditory channels, provided one they could not just admire but revere. The veneration of Amaradeva as a singer was complete as the sixties came to a close. That decade and part of the 1970s, when his collaboration with poet and lyricist Mahagama Sekara reached its peak, were Amaradeva’s golden years.
His best songs date from this era. Amaradeva had other fruitful collaborators such as Madawala S. Ratnayake (‘Min dada hee sara’ is a notable example) but one wonders if anyone else could have sung ‘Sannaliyane’ (a poem by Sekara about a tailor preparing the funeral dress of a deceased young woman) so poignantly. The structure of the song is as starkly and tautly woven as the dress in question, without a single superfluous note.
Many of his songs from the period are in this vein, but not all are mournful. Some such as ‘Kumariyaka Paa Salamba Seluwa’ might even be termed playful, at least within such a usually stark context. In ‘Ran Dahadiya Bindu Bindu’ one can hear traces of the baila rhythms of his hometown. Such attempts drew derision from a noted pop singer, but this self-effacing man who hardly looked like a daring innovator had it in him to create memorable pop music if he cared to. The lovely melody of singer Neville Fernando’s song ‘Gayana Geyum’ from Lester James Pieris’ film Ran Salu was created by Amaradeva. But Amaradeva clearly didn’t want to waste his time with pop music.
Amaradeva did not waste his time anywhere. Back in his Radio Ceylon days, and in the course of his Janakaraliya programme, he energetically studied the rhythms and folk music of traditional dancers such as Pani Bharata, Ukkuwa and Suramba, and blended folk melodies with Indian ragas. Noting that these folk songs were based on single melodies, he expanded the form by adding verses, building up to a chorus and two parts like in the North Indian song (sthai and anthara) format that our Indian-trained modern musicians were used to.
In addition, he experimented with Western harmonies, counterpoint and other techniques, as well as south Indian forms. He was thus versatile, but his style was always austere, a reflection of the bashful figure in a simple white national dress. In his personal life just like in his music, it’s the content, and not the form, which came first.
Amaradeva composed music for at least nine films, and sang in many more. But his compositional style was again too austere for the world of film and his most successful efforts remain Ran Salu, Getawarayo, Delowak Athara, Rena Giraw and Sara wita. His greatest score may well be what he wrote for the Chitrasena-vajira ballet Kara Diya with its haunting, almost operatic evocation of fishermen’s traditional cries. This melody was very successfully incorporated into a pop song by singer Noel Ranasinghe.
Amaradeva is credited with many things, including the nurturing of some very famous singers, and the invention of a new musical instrument incorporating the mandolin and the harp. To the latter part of his life, he helped many deserving causes, but it’s sobering to remember that this largesse was only possible after winning the Simon Magsaysay Award in 2001. I remember him standing with his wife next to an old car with a boiling radiator along Bauddhaloka Mawatha one night. He politely declined my offer to help, saying that a mechanic was on the way. Despite his fame, he was just another struggling musician until someone in the Philippines thought he deserved to get a little money. Some people might find such a point of view a trifle embarrassing, but that is the stark reality of many of our serious artists, no matter how great their contribution to Sri Lankan culture might be.