source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:54:40 -0800 Subject: Danielou From: James Kukula For those who have enjoyed Alain Danielou's MUSIC AND THE POWER OF SOUND, I'd recommend his autobiographical THE WAY TO THE LABYRINTH. He spent many years in India - 1939-1955, something like that. He and his friend had the most Hindu of the palaces along the Ganges in Benares, so the Indian government would bring guests there to give them a flavor of authentic India. So he tells the story, anyway. There's a great musical story. He built some kind of instrument for experimenting with alternative tuning systems, something like that. This was in WW2. The British sent some secret agents over to investigate, they were worried that the thing was a spy contraption of some kind. Danielou wrote another book about music - it's not listed in the Inner Traditions publication, but I saw the book in MIT's library. It was some kind of examination of the social and political forces making it difficult for traditional music and traditional non-tempered tuning systems to survive. For example the introduction of the harmonium to India by the British screwed things up. Sorry I forget the title of this book. After Danielou returned to Europe he ran the UNESCO program of recording traditional music from around the world. I remember seeing those LP's years ago. Never bought any. Now I regret it! It would be great to see those recordings made available again. Maybe if the US pays its dues? Of course they'll probably require dissolution of UNESCO before they (we) pay. The Labyrinth of the autobiography's title has to do with Marsilio Ficino's Academy, a seed of the Renaissance. Danielou ended up living on the site of Ficino's academy. Thomas Moore's THE PLANETS WITHIN: THE ASTROLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY OF MARSILIO FICINO has a chapter on Music of the Soul: The Well Tempered Life. I think the folks on this mailing list would quickly set him straight about his choice for a chapter title! Rene Guenon was perhaps the greatest advocate of "traditional wisdom" in this century. He doesn't seem to take a musical perspective, however. Another curious advocate of traditional musical wisdom is Marco Pallis. His PEAKS AND LAMAS is a delightful travelogue. He trapeses around the Himalayas, perhaps this was in the 1950's, I'm not sure. But he & his buddies hauled around their fiddles and put on concerts of old English music for the villagers. What a scene! I have one LP, ENGLISH CONSORT OF VIOLS, on Turnabout - the notes on the back are signed by Marco Pallis, I imagine he also performs but it doesn't seem to say. Anyway I love to play the record and imagine some high mountain village, all the families gathered to hear the wild foreigners and their music. Jim Kukula Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 12:49 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA10425; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 12:49:07 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA10427 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id DAA17825; Tue, 18 Feb 1997 03:46:51 -0800 Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 03:46:51 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu