Song of Goa (Mandos of Union and Lamentation)

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Konkani Song of which Goan Song is a Pre-eminent branch is a treasury of the traditional music of the Indian subcontinent. It 35 types include the monophonic and harmonic varieties the former prevalent before the Portuguese brought western music into India and the latter, consequent to the western impact. It was in Goa that India musicians first began to compose in western musical forms incorporating into then motifs and nuances of their own immemorial tradition.

Among the 35 types figures the Mando a dance song typically of quatrains, often having appended choruses set in six-four time. Its main themes are love and events the latter social and political in nature. But its favorite theme is love oriented toward marriage where the lover yearns for union with the beloved achieves it, or laments his failure to realize it. The melody of the Mando is uniformly melancholic but the text scintillates with luminous imagery as of suns stars flowers and diamonds. As a dance the mando, India’s ballo nobile, was the last aristocratic dance created anywhere.

Jose Pereira (1931) is Professor Emeritus of theology of Fordham university, New York, where he lectured on history of Religious. He has taught and done research in various academic institutions in Lisbon, London and Varanasi and has published 16 books and over 130 articles on theology history of art and architecture and on Goan and Konkani culture language literature and music.

Micael Martins (1914-1999), of Ol-ill/ Orlim, Goa. Studied music in Goa, and in Bombay with renowned music teachers. Performed for various societies in Bombay and Delhi and led orchestras of films in Bombay. Began collecting traditional Goan songs art and folk in 1933 and collaborated with Jose Pereira in recording Konkani songs from 1954, collecting as many as 11,000 numbers. Martins incorporated several motifs from traditional Goan song into his classical musical compositions.

Antonio Da Costa1943, a priest by ordination a psychotherapist by profession and a musician by vocation is Director of counseling, Terros Behavioral Health Services, Arizona. As a musician he was trained in the Saligao and Rachol Seminaries, the London Trinity school of Music (in Bombay) and at the Juilliard school of Music and Columbia University, New York. Inspired by his mother Arsentina, he began collecting specimens of traditional Goan song form the ago of 16, and for several years broadcast mandos, dulpods, Deknnis, furgrhis, hymns and motets over Radio Goa, with the assistance of the choral group he had founded and directed. He also organized concerts of Goan music in Bombay, Pune and Mangalore to expose Goan audiences to their traditional musical treasures.

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