CYCLE OF SPRING for English-Speaking Singers
A play by Nobel Laureate Poet Rabindranath Tagore, woven with an abundance of exquisitely melodious songs
Though Rabindranath Tagore is more renowned as a poet and philosopher, his dramatic achievements are also noteworthy. Cycle of Spring is one of his symbolic dramas. It is a play, one nested in another.
Cycle of Spring is the English version of original Bengali drama Phalguni [of or about the spring month of Phalgun, which covers February-March]. This play was written to be staged by the schoolboys of Shanti-Niketan (an abode of peace), at Viswa-Bharati University, founded by the poet himself. Later in 1921, it was staged in Germany with great success. Dr. Edward Thompson, Lecturer in Bengali, University of Oxford, comments, “The songs were of ravishing beauty, and far more important than the words of dialogue.”
Since the melody surpasses the dialogue, staging of this play might be an important variation on the stages across English-Speaking world. To make the singers ready with the fundamental concepts of Indian music, a textbook on this subject, Indian Music for English-Speaking Singers has already been designed and published by the present writer.
Synopsis
This book has four parts. In the first part, topics like life history of the poet, brief discourse on symbolic dramas and broad idea of his musical specialty have been discussed. The second part is the text part, which consists of an introduction, a drama itself and another drama, which is nested in the first one; the second drama has four acts, namely morning, noon, evening and night. The first drama does not have any song, where as the second has all 28 songs. The third part is the main part of the book and it consists of 28 songs in English along with their corresponding Bengali equivalents and alphanumeric notations. Alternative tunes and rhymes are added wherever it is needed. Back matters like appendices and indices are in the fourth part of the book.
The song No. 3 of Act IV is depicted on the cover.
