A new culture, that of Latin Europe, embellished with music was implanted in Goa by the Portuguese in the early 16th century. Quickly assimilated, this musical culture acquired a distinct Goan identity in the 18th century, one which matured in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th. The extensive and varied work of Micael Martins is the apotheosis of this musical tradition; it will also be the elegy of the traditional Goan culture of which this music is the expression, when that culture, now disappearing, will have become no more than a memory.

It was the Jesuit Gaspar Barzeu (1515-1555), native of Flanders and heir to a great tradition of Gothic mysticism and Renaissance music, who implanted Western Music in Goa, when he instituted the post of choir master (mestre capela), and initiated the custom of sung mass and of chants accompanied by the organ. Some of the other activities he introduced also required musical performance, such as the Devotas, nocturnal chants for the souls in Purgatory; the Festival of Flowers, which included a procession to commemorate the birthday of the Blessed Virgin on September 8; and the Passos ("sufferings", tableaux of statues displaying the Passion of Christ. Church schools taught children to sing the catechism, and we are told that their chants, echoing through Velha Goa in the evening, made the city itself seem "a chorus of music".

Most assidious in training Goans in Western music were the Jesuits, and their pupils had already a high proficiency in the 17th century. In 1663, in the basilica of Bom Jesus in Velha Goa, on the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, seven choirs sang a composition by Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674), the greatest master of early Italian oratorio. Present in the congregation was an emissary of Alexander (Pope from 1655 to 1667) - one of the greatest patron of the arts in an age resplendent with artistic creativity - who felt he was listening to the singing of a choir in Rome.

Goan musical culture evolved further in the 19th century. In 1831 schools offering instruction in singing were elevated to the rank of parochial schools. The Viceroy Diogo de Sousa (in office, 1816-1821) had a palace orchestra, with a Eustaquio Lobo of Margao as first violinist. Church music was taught in the Seminario de Rachol/Raitur. There a reform of the style of singing the Gregorian chant was begun by the Patriarch Antonio Sebastiao Valente (in office, 1882-1908).

In these institutions students were intensively trained. They were expected to read books on musical theory and to study 10 to 15 difficult masses by great masters like Palestrina (c. 1525- 1594), Each (1685-1750) and Mozart (1756-1791), and by lesser ones like Marcos Portugal (1762-1830) and Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870). The instruments they were taught to play were the violin, the guitar, the mandolin, and the piano, and apparently also the clarinet and the clavichord. Singers were required to give a good rendition of the Magnificat (the hymn by Mary recorded in Luke 1:46-55), especially its last line, Sicut locuntus est ("As He spoke to our father Abraham"), which was often rendered in a low voice for a full half hour. The singers were assumed to have familiarized themselves with a number of motets, examples of a musical form that had been created in France in the 13th century, and had been fashioned by Flemish composers in the 15th. As introduced by the Flemish Jesuit Barzeu - "The Father of Goan culture", as we may call him - the motet was a polyphonic composition, based on a biblical or liturgical text in Latin, usually sung by four to six voices: these and other features in the Goan cultural complex explain why the music of Goa retained elements of the Renaissance musical tradition long after the latter had become extinct in Europe.

Choruses, bands and orchestras gave public performances: inside the churches during Vespers, which sometimes lasted three hours; and outside in the church squares, as musical concerts. Several pieces were executed in these concerts between displays of fireworks; the program not seldom ending in the early hours of the morning.

In the second half of the 19th century, it become common for every marriageable upper class girl to be taught music, and the teaching of it was assigned to this senhor-mestre. The girl was required to learn the piano, and to play pieces like the waltzes of Johann Strauss (1825-1899). She was also expected to sing arias, apparently from composers like Gounod (1818-1897), but certainly from the very popular Verdi (1813-1901); the favorite arias were drawn from three of his works, La traviata (1853), Un ballo in maschera (1859) and La forza del destino (1864). It was assumed that the damsel would also know the tunes of marches and of dances like Caledonians, Contredanse, Lanciers and Polka.

The expertise in performance thus laboriously acquired was accompanied more importantly, by creative compositions, in folk and art song. Goan folk song had had half a millennium of history before it received the impact of Western music, one which profoundly modified it. But few folk songs, if any, can be precisely dated before the 19th century. At the time of Micael's youth, the chief song types current among the Goan Christians were the Nuptial Chants (Brahmin, Sudra and Kunnbi); the Ovi (or Verses); the theatrical types of the Fell and the Zagor; and the dance songs of the Deknni and the Dulpod. (Martins began collecting Goan folk songs when he was 19, in 1933, and ended garnering about 11,000 numbers, only a few of which he was able to publish).

Goan art song types are principally two, the hymns and the Mando. To judge by the language, many of the hymns appear to have been composed in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Goan epic poet Eduardo de Sousa (1836-1905), speaking of them, remarks that "within a pure and simple diction (typical of those hymns), we see playing the most enchanting smiles of a celestial poetry." Most of the hymns are anonymous, but we can identify the authors of some of them, like Dona Barreto of Morhgoum, who flourished in the early years of the 19th century, and composed the solemn and melancholy Papianchi xeratinni ("Advocate of Sinners"), and Raimundo Barreto of Lotlli/Loutulim (18371909?), author of Sao Franciscu Xaviera, the most popular of Goan hymns, and one of the most moving.

The other Goan art song type is the Mando, a verse or verse-and-refrain dance song in six-four time, dealing with love, tragedy and contemporary events. It appears to have evolved from the Ovi, a type which, like the Mando's own early form, is a quatrain. A refrain or chorus was added to the Mando later, doubtless under the influence of Portugal's national song, the Fado, created in that country around 1840, and thus contemporaneous with the Mando. Martins, comparing these two types of song, once remarked: O Fado e triste, mas o Mando e triste e profundo (the Fado is sad, but the Mando is sad and profound). Unlike the Ovi, however, the Mando is dance song, created only after the introduction of social or ballroom dancing in Goa in the 1830s. As a dance song, as was noted, it conveys the emotions of love: a love yearning for union (utrike), achieving union (ekvott), or frustrated in its yearning and expressing itself in lamentation (villap). The Mando comments on contemporary events (fobro), many of them political. In its musical structure, as Martins himself describes it, the Mando is modulated with patterns of phrases that follow one another in the same order. Rhythmically it has six beats, with stresses on the first and (prominently) on the fifth. It is rendered by two voices, the first singing the principal melody and the second the contrapuntal one, the two melodic lines being harmonically and polyphonically combined. The second voice generally follows the first parallel motion, in thirds and sixths, and is sometimes modulated in contrary motions.

Saxtty/Salcete is the province of Goa where the Mando grew and flourished. Martins classifies it into two areas, the "hilly land" (dogorgaum) and the "sandy plain (renvott), to which Micael himself belongs. There is considerable variety in the style of Mando composition, depending on whether the composer is from one area or the other. A large stretch of the renvott is blanketed in coconut groves and immersed in a sort of penumbra. Its Mando music is tranquil and crepuscular, and is instanced in the work of composers like the Canon Antonio Joao Dias (fl. 1914) and Roque Correia Afonso (1859-1937).

More productive is the dodorgaum - a panorama of wooded hills rising along the banks of the Zuari - particularly the villages of Rai/Raia, Morhgoum/Margao, Lottli/ Loutulim and Kurhtori/Curtorim. The oldest dateable composer is from Rai, Frederico De Mello (1834-1888), author of the sublime Sorgo nitoll go nirmollu. Morhgoum has the popular Pascual Noronha (1872-1936, Paicha maincha moreantulim), originally from Lotlli. The latter village itself has Eduardo de Menezes (1862-1922), Anju tum arcanju), Milagres da Silva (1855-1931), Ek vorso bolanddilem), and the great Torquato de Figueiredo (1876-1948, Adeus kortso vellu pauta practically Goa's national anthem).

But most productive of all is Kurhtori, home to Ligorio da Costa (1851-1919), Tambrhe rozanch' tuje pole), Azavedo Diniz (1860-1907), Oulleam'bitory oulli sundori, mando-dulpod), Arnaldo de Menezes (18631917, Motim' sopnnantum naxlolem), Gizelino Rebelo (1875-1931, Suria noketranche proim porzolleta), originally from Vernnem/Verna, and Seabstiao Fernandes (1875- 1937, Bollcvancheri re boisotam). The two chief "schools" of the Mando are those of Kurhtori and Lotlli. Martins describes the music of Kurhtori, whose star is Arnaldo as having a horizontal and undulant motion, reflecting the rolling scenery of dogorgaum's terrain, and that of Lotlli, whose luminary is Torquato as having a movement that is vertical and ascendant, conveying the upthrust of some of that terrain's peaks.

All this traditional music displays great melodic beauty, rhythmic vitality and not seldom emotional profundity, but its productions are all on a small scale, making use of limited musical resources and confined within narrow emotional parameters. Traditional music having attained a state of maturity, a composer was needed to exploit its melodic and rhythmic treasures and to integrate them into large-scale musical forms capable of more sustained aesthetic power, organized in more complex structures, covering a wider emotional range, and using the abundant resources of orchestration. The need produced the man: that man was Micael Martins.

Micael Martins was born during World War I, in his mother's house at Corlim on 29 October 1914. On 13 January 1915 he was baptized in his father's village church of S. Miguel, his archangel namesake. The infant's full name, however, was Silvestre Micael Feliciano Martins.

His education began early. In 1919, at age 5, he entered the parochial school and the Government Primary School, in 1926, where, in 1928, he passed his segundo grau. From 1931 to 1933 he did his first three years of Liceu, in schools of Mapxem/Mapuca and Morhgoum, but was unable to continue because of financial difficulties. He was later to prepare privately for the Liceu's fourth and the fifth year. In 1935, with postal employment in mind, he took a two-year course at the Escola Practica de Correios e Telegrafos at Ponnji/Panaji/ Panjim.

Micael's musical education was also began early, but at home, by his mother Rosa, who played the Spanish guitar and taught her son to sing numbers of the modinha, a song that had been developed in Portugal around 1730 and consisted of sweet and sentimental words and music (not lacking a touch of malice) accompanied on the piano, viola, harpsichord or guitar - a song simple in melody, but capable of intricate musical effects. In the parochial school Micael's music teacher was one Joaquim Manuel Barreto, himself a composer of sorts, who taught the boy the solfeggio, and to sing hymns, litanies and motets, in Latin, Portuguese and Konkani, as well as Gregorian chant. It was Barreto who initiated him into the study of the instrument in which he was to excel, the violin.

His proficiency in this instrument - wide in range and preeminent in lyric melody, but capable of dramatic effect, subtlety of nuance, rhythmic precision and agility of movement - rapidly increased, most of all under the tutoring of Padre Sebastiao Luis of the Santa Cecilia College of Music at Margao, where the growing boy studied from 1928 to 1931. Young though he was not more than 17 - he was judged proficient enough to play in two symphonic concerts conducted in that town by Padre Luis.

Micael's musical training was completed in Bombay, where he earned the L.T.C.L. diploma, first in teaching (1947) and then in performance (1965). Among his teachers were Jules Craen, Guy Magreth, Adrian de Melo, Dominic Pereira, J. J. Castellino, Hans Koellreuter and Joaquim Buehler. Under their instruction he learnt the theory of music, musical history, the interpretation of composers' works, phrasing, articulation, the conducting of orchestra and chorus, and the technique of the bow. His teachers praised his alertness to the intricacies of the chosen piece, the mellowness and control of the tone, the firmness of purpose, precision of articulation, and flawlessness of intonation. By this time too, he had learnt enough of instruments like the mandolin, and the three types of guitar, Hawaiian, Portuguese and Spanish, to be able to provide instruction in them.

His musical career can be divided into two phases, the Ponnji phase (1937-1946) and the Bombay phase (1947-1992). His activities in Ponnji included the following: as a public teacher and private tutor, as director in musical groups like the Coro Sacro and the Micael Martins String Quartet; as a performer in literary and musical sessions; and as a conductor of orchestras, as well as of masses - like the Missa de Angelis; sung in 1943, by 100 students on the spectacular stairway of the Imaculada Conceicao church of Ponnji, the celebrant of the mass being the Patriarch Jose da Costa Nunes himself.

In 1946, Micael's friend Dr. Bossuet Afonso suggested he go to Bombay to continue his studies in music. In that city his activities included the following: as a musical recitalist, particularly in the All India Radio; as performer for musical societies like Cecil Mendonza's Bombay Philarmonic and Choral Society, Jules Craen's Bombay Symphony Orchestra, Victor Paranjoti's The Bombay Madrigal Singer's Organization, and Arnaldo De Andrade's Tuna Portuguesa; as opera conductor (of the opera Geisha, 1953); as orchestra leader of films (Ranjit Movietone Orchestra,. 1946; Films Division Orchestra, 1949; Rajkamal Kala Mandir Orchestra, 1949) and of other musical societies (Dadar Musical Society, 1949, Santa Cruz Amateur Dramatic and Musical Society, 1949); Newman Choir Orchestra, 1975). Martins also participated in concerts in Delhi, where he performed, in 1962, alongside the renowned Indian singers Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammed Rafi; and in 1972, at the inaugural function of the Delhi Symphony Orchestra. In Bombay, he continued to be a teacher in music, both privately and publicly (Bombay School of Music, 1970).

3. Compositions and research of Micael Martins

The achievement of Micael Martins falls into two interconnected groups; compositions and research. His oeuvre consists of well over one hundred items. Our careers have led us to different parts of the world, and so I have not had the good fortune to familiarize myself with the entire extent of that oeuvre I shall first discuss his studies of traditional Konkani Song and then classify his compositions.

Micael's research into traditional Goan Song, as I noted, began in 1933. His exploitation of Konkani music's rich heritage in his compositions is based on his first hand knowledge of it. In this sense he can be compared to the European composers who explored their respective folk traditions and organized the motifs derived from them into classically structured masterpieces - composers like the Czech Smetana (1824-1884) and the Hungarians Bartok (1881-1945) and Kodaly (1882-1967). I myself first got to know Micael exactly 40 years ago, in 1954 having been introduced to him by the late lamented Arnaldo de Andrade - when I was preparing a special number on Goa for the Bombay art magazine Marg. We published 16 mandos and 5 hymns and antiphons in the December number, 1954. Our information was gathered from the last representatives of the period of the Mando, singers who had had close contact with the composers themselves. These individuals now all deceased, include Semeao Costa, Roque Menezes, Placido Costa, Carmelina Pereira, Argentina Da Costa, and Utilcia Rebelo.

From 1956 to 1957 we published 2 mandos, 1 hymn and 1 folksong in the Bombay journal edited by Aloysius Soares, the Goan Tribune. In 1967 we produced our first monograph on Konkani Song, A Sheaf of Deknnis (Konkan Cultural Association). It contained 37 deknnis and some variations of them.

In 1968 and 1969 I visited the Kanaras and Kerala to collect the Konkani songs preserved by the descendants of Goans who had emigrated to those parts in the 16th and 18th centuries. I tape-recorded these songs and Micael transcribed them into staff notation. We were, however, unable to find anyone to publish the score, but I myself printed the text in some numbers of the Mangalore journal Panchkadayi (1969-1974).

In 1981 we published our second monograph on Konkani Song. Song of Goa. An Anthology of Mandos, in the Boletim do Institute Menezes Braganza (no. 128). It contained 45 specimens of mandos of yearning (utrike).

In 1990 Micael published "Traditional Goan Wedding Songs" in the same Boletim (no. 161, pp. 25-52), which he had started collecting as a young man. My participation in this project was minimal. There were 16 numbers, with both text and score. In 1993, in the same journal (no. 168), I myself compiled "A treasury of Dulpods", text only, no score, with 301 numbers. Though Micael did not directly participate in this project, many of the dulpods that were included in the collection had been gathered by Micael himself.

Micael's compositions can be classified into the following four categories:
1. Masses
2. Hymns and other religious songs
3. Profane songs
4. Instrumental pieces

Let us begin with the first category, masses. A good part of Micael's compositions are religious in and of these compositions, the masses take the first place. As a musical form the mass, which inspired some of the world's preeminent composers to produce some of their finest works, consists of five fixed prayers, the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. Micael's masses are in three languages, Latin, Konkani and English. He has one Latin mass, composed in 1958, which I call Missa de Nossa Senhora de Penha; two Konkani masses, Goddvaiechea kallza Jesuchea (in two versions, dated 1971 and 1975 respectively), and Tin Gorzanche Saibinnik (1987); and one English mass, dedicated to Our Lady of Victories (1985), titular of the Mahim church of which Martins was long a parishioner.

The Latin mass has a special meaning for me. It was composed during the visit of six of us to the island of Uran near Bombay to see the church of Nossa Senhora de Penha built by the Portuguese in 1535 on a hill in that island. These six, besides Micael and myself, included the painter Lancelot Ribeiro, the professor Eusebio Rodrigues, the physician Jorge de Andrade and the poet and singer Manuel Rodrigues. The path up this hill was not clear to us, so we tried to scale it on what turned out to be its steepest slope. Not being adept at mountain climbing, any one of us who had ventured to climb could have fallen to his death. However, Micael remained at the foot of the hill, and watched our upward progress with consternation. We did manage to reach the top, however, to everyone's relief, particularly Micael's, who decided to write a mass of thanksgiving, and spent five hours of the night doing so; in the remaining hours before dawn he and Manuel practiced the singing of the mass. Next morning we had a sung mass, the Missa Nossa Senhora da Penha, celebrated by the parish priest of Uran, who was proud of the way he wore his cassock; in the Roman style, he said.

As for the Konkani masses, their language is the contrived new Church Konkani that men insufficiently trained in the language have been fabricating since the late 60s. The quality of the music, however, hides most of the defects, and confers on the sorry text and undeserved immortality.

Our second category is that of the hymns and other religious songs. These are in four languages, Latin, Konkani, Portugese and English. Micael's first composition, at age 15, was in Latin, Venit Michael (1929), dedicated to his archangelic namesake. Some of his other Latin hymns are those to the Blessed Virgin (Ave maris stella, 1939; Ave Maria, 1960; Regina coeli, 1981), to saints (Iste confessor, 1960; Deus tuorum militum, 1967) and the melancholy chant of Veronica (1974).

The Konkani hymns, of which there are many, fall into two groups, those based on traditional and on newly composed texts. The former group includes the Mano Marie (1954), the version of the Hail Mary by the great Pramann Konkani English scholar Thomas Stephens (1549-1619) and the Sao Francisco Xaviera of Raimundo Barreto. Micael wrote an organ accompaniment for the latter hymn in 1965 and a version for a chorus of four mixed voices in 1981. In 1990, in the church of Espirito Santo in Velha Goa, it was superbly performed by the choir of the Gulbenkian Foundation of Lisbon. I was fortunate in being able to attend. The latter group, includes texts either written in the new Church Konkani or in the Barhdexi dialect (on which the former is based). The words of many of these hymns were composed by Micael's colleague, the late Manuel Rodrigues (as for example, Argam, 1967, and Ballok Jesu, 1972). However, one of these hymns is in the impeccable Konkani of the poet Manohar Sardessai (Mori Matiek Ballok Zala 1973). Of all the new text hymns, one of the best known is Mogall Jesu yo tum yo (1972), where the noble melody infuses the mediocre text with elegant feeling.

Our third category is profane songs, many of which have a noticeably religious tone. They are in three languages, Konkani, Portuguese and English. The Konkani songs fall into two groups, those with traditional and with new texts. The former is the more remarkable group, those with traditional and with new texts. The former is the more remarkable group, it consists of stylized arrangements of traditional Goan songs like mandos, deknnis, dulpods and fugddis. Some of the more notable examples of this group are the following: Mando-Sequences 1-3 (1961-1991), Mando-Rapsodias 1-2 (19611984), Deknni Sequences 1-4 (1961-1971), Deknni-Nach 1-2 (1988) and Fugddi Dance 1-2 (1970-1989). Among the next text songs are Fulam zai (1977, words by Manohar Sardessai), and the songs in the one-act operetta Dekik khast (1972). Martins also has a few Portuguese songs, like the early Cancao do escuta (1936); and more English ones, including marriage songs (1982 & 1989) and school anthems (People's High School, 1941; Canosa High School, 1968; and Jesus and Mary College, 1975, words by Armando Menezes).

Our fourth and last category is instrumental pieces, which perhaps contain Micael's finest achievement. In these pieces he has made expressive use of traditional motifs, besides creating others of his own. Most of these works are for the string quartet (or were so, originally), like Rapsodia (1952), O Carnaval em Goa (1953). Quatro Aguarelas (1953) and Utsov (1971). Some are for violin and strings, like Crepusculo (1960), or for violin solo, like Festival (1971). All these motifs now demand to be organized in one magnificent architectonic entity, the symphony - a specimen of which, one hopes, Micael will undertake to produce as the crowning achievement of his long career. For only a symphony could express, in the majestic sequence of its four movements, the drama, lyricism, passion, tragedy and exaltation of the four centuries of Goan civilization of which he, Micael, is one of the consummate products.

END

The above text from "Celebration of Life - Micael Martins , Maestro par Excellence"
published in 1994 to mark the 80th birthday of the Maestro.
Courtesy of Dr.Themistocles D'Silva of North Carolina, USA.
Transcribed for display by John J. D'Souza of GOACOM

 Back to "Celebration Of Life Page