A Tribute to Pandith Amaradeva
[Introduction] [News] [Articles] [Songs] [Lyrics] [Slide Show] [Chat Room]
A Tribute to Pandith Amaradeva
[Introduction]
[News] [Articles]
[Songs] [Lyrics]
[Slide Show] [Chat Room]
Today Pandit W. D. Amaradeva, the
undisputed doyen of Sinhala music, celebrates his 69th birthday as does his wife Wimala by
a happy coincidence. The
Observer has much pleasure in wishing many happy returns of the day to a man who has
brought delight to so many and his lifelong companion, herself an exponent of folk music.
It was Lester James Peries, the maestro in another field, who described Amaradeva's voice
as the `finest musical instrument we possess.' But, of course, Amaradeva is no common or
garden vocalist. He has been the formative influence on the modern phase of Sinhala music,
the man whose shadow looms more than anybody else's over the contemporary musical
consciousness of the country.
For Amaradeva's greatest achievement has been that he straddles both the classical and
popular streams of Sinhala music. In that sense he is akin to Sunil Shantha who can be
said to have laid the foundation for popularising Sinhala music in a country only recently
emerged from serfdom to a colonial power. That lineage also included such illustri ous
figures as Devar Suryasena, Suryashankar Molligoda and Ananda Samarakoon. Amaradeva who
emerged in the late fifties and consolidated himself in the following decade was their
rightful spiritual heir. 
What these early masters sought to do was to embody essentially Sri Lankan themes and
situations in a musical language which stood between the classical and the folk. On the
opposite pole a singer like C. T. Fernando sought to do the same according to his own
lights. Amaradeva, however, took this musical project to a new high and explored wider
vistas.
It was the late Mahagama Sekera whose untimely death deprived Sri Lanka of one of her
greatest poets who wrote some of Amaradeva's finest songs. The two of them have been
sometimes accused by radical critics of romanticing the village and peddling a false
consciousness but much of Amaradeva's songs have been reflective of a more leisurely time
written and composed as they were in the more spacious sixties. Anyway, Amaradeva is not a
crusading singer as sometimes his female counterpart Nanda Malini is. His best songs are
mellow and speak to the heart rather than the head. Music anyway is essentially a vehicle
for feelings and very refined feelings at that. It addresses the unconscious, the
collective identity and ethos of a nation and evokes figures and contexts hitherto
undreamt of by the social being.
Amaradeva's greatest achievement, of course, has been not merely as a singer but also as
the creator of a distinctive tradition of Sinhala music which later generations have been
free to draw on. For, it is an undisputable fact that whether classical, semi-classical or
popular, all musicians and vocalists after him are standing on Amaradeva's shoulders. His
voice is not only the finest musical instrument Sri Lanka possesses but it is also a voice
which penetrates the soul of a nation. It speaks of great truths and celestial verities
and creates a world of wonderful enchantment.
Amaradeva can be charged with not being adventurous enough or not being experimental
enough as, say, Premasiri Khemadasa. In recent times he has also suffered from the paucity
of good lyrics. However, each man must chart his own course and Amaradeva's has been the
refinement of Sinhala music in a society where classical music in its purest form is very
little appreciated let alone understood. Through his popular light songs and his scores
for films and a ballet such as Chitrasena's Karadiya he has undoubtedly achieved this. He
has brought pleasure to many and articulated in mellifluous song the soul of a nation.
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