Page 98 - The Apu Trilogy_ Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic

Working with Ravi Shankar 85

the recording was impossible, given Ray’s Museum of Modern
Art festival deadline, nor could he contemplate the possibility
of replacing the composer. In the event, Shankar managed to
combine a very short recording session in Calcutta with a con-
cert. As soon as he arrived in the city, Ray rushed him to the
projection room, where he watched half of the film in a roughly
edited version; that same afternoon, he composed and recorded
the music in a single session ending in the early hours of the fol-
lowing morning.
At the outset, Shankar, with Ray’s concurrence, decided not
to use any western instruments in Pather Panchali. In addition to
the sitar, he used three other string instruments: the dilruba (tar-
shehnai), the bhimraj (elder brother of the esraj) and the sarod –
plus the pakhwaj for percussion.
When the music for the entire trilogy was released on an LP
in the late 1970s, Ray described its composition in valuable detail
in a sleeve-note, as follows:

One of the first things that Ravi Shankar did when I met

him shortly after his arrival in Calcutta was to hum a line of
melody which he said had occurred to him as a possible theme
for the film. It was a simple tune with a wistful, pastoral qual-

ity which seemed to suit exactly the mood of the fi lm. It went
on to become the main theme of Pather Panchali.
Since I felt that in the short time that I had it would be too
constricting for Ravi Shankar to have to compose to precise,
predetermined footages, the method we used was to decide on
the mood and instrumental combination for a particular scene,
and then provide music well beyond the required length. In
addition, we recorded about half-a-dozen three-minute pieces
on the sitar in various ragas and tempos. This took care of

the risk of running short at the time of fitting the music to

the scenes in the cutting room. This is by no means an ideal
method, but it has its advantages. For instance, the music that
accompanies the ballet of the waterbugs in the fi lm [before

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