DEATH OF MOTETS IN GOAN CHURCHES.
After many years I happened to be in Goa during the recent Easter. In fact 10 days before Easter, I reached Goa and remembering my old days of attending the Holy week where I used to sing Motets in the Church as a Choir Boy and also listening to others singing, I attended the entire Holy Week services. But to my regret, there was not a single Motet on a single day in the Church. According to my information, this is the trend in many of the Churches in Goa now. Currently there is no traditional “Mestiri” in many of our Churches to play Violin or traditional Church acoustic “Orgao”. Candolim Church had one of the best available Orgaos played by the then Candolim Church Mestiri Agostinho D’Souza who served Candolim Church for 40 long years and the same Orgao was destroyed and turned into pieces on 18th August in 1948 when one of the Towers of our Church was collapsed. In one of his beautiful songs the legendary tiatrist Alexinho de Candolim making mention of this sad incident said “Torre moddon ekan ek Organvancho churo zaun ghelo”. Now everything on Electric Organ and in most of the cases the organists do not understand Solfa system, they play on Chords system. What a sad state of affairs of our great tradition!! It is mutilated and orchestrated by people who are totally ignorant of our old great tradition of Motets. In very few places in the World Motets culture exists and maintained and Goa is one but sadly it is dying now and in some villages like in my village it is already dead. R.I.P. Motets. The great Motet singers from our village as I saw them singing and sometimes I also sang with them as a small kid were Maestro Isidorio (father of tiatrist Young Menezes), Alexinho de Candolim, Simao Seco, Gonsalo Bostiaum Fernandes and my own musician uncle Dioginho Vaz.
Regretfully, not even All India Radio Panjim in its late night programme on Maundy Thursday played any Motets earlier recorded in Latin and later on in Konkani. Before, All India Radio Panjim used to have this programme regularly every year and people like me used to listen to this programme with full attention. Many of the Village Choirs under their Mistiris used to record their Motets at Panjim All India Radio and later on Panjim Radio used to air them in its programmes. I remember in 1959 our village Church Choir recorded 3 Motets at Emisora de Goa, Panjim, one of them was “Filius Et Jerusalem” which was the most beautiful and sorrowful Motet to listen and to enjoy its music though words were in Latin. The second Motet was “Simon Dormis”. The beauty and greatness of Motets lie not in knowing the meaning of the words but in minutely listening to its sad tune and serene music where Clarinet, Violin and Double base are the main essential instruments. Who plays these instruments now in our villages? I doubt any because Parochial Schools of the Church are dead and gone. R.I.P. Parochial Schools.
When we recorded our Motets then at Panjim, I was the youngest member of our Choir led by our Church Mestiri Santan D’Souza while the other members of the Choir as musicians were Andre Cursino and Gonsalo Bostiao Fernandes and singers were myself, Antulo Machado, his sister Filomena Machado, our Church Pe. Cur Pe. Marcus who is in USA now and one more Filomena from Candolim Ximer i.e. Filomena Pereira who is still playing a good role in our Church in lending her beautiful voice for daily Church services. That was the glorious Choir Candolim Church had and as its member I was playing my role appropriately otherwise our Mesiri would throw me out because he was very strict and second in ranking as Mestiri in Goa during that time. Though there are different versions of the origin of Motets yet it is still not certain to prove who actually originated Motets. Solfas originator is still unknown, that is certain. From the beginning till mid sixties, Motets were rendered only in Latin but in Sixties when the Liturgical system was converted into Konkani, that means in one’s mother tongue, Motets were also translated into Konkani. Though Konkani version sounded well yet due to the loss of its originality, the beauty of original Latin Motets was lost. In some cases the original beauty of Latin Motets remained intact or enhanced as in the case of one excellent Motet “Raianchi Bhettkantti, Diun Tachea Hathan, Ken’neo Tacheo Korun, Jinsanvar, Hai Mojea Jesu”.
During those days, Church Parochial Schools were the nurseries for the creation of gigantic singers and Solfists. Because of these schools Goa produced great musicians who dazzled the world with great pride. In India Goans are rated as best in music and any great Bharati Musician is afraid of Goan Musician. Sadly the Parochial Schools which were the nurseries of Musicians are gone into extinction now.
In 1958 one International Musical troupe- Orchestra – from Karachi visited Goa to hold Concerts in Panjim. Incidentally and surprisingly one of its members playing Trumpet was my neighbour Alexinho Fernandes while the rest were all non Goans and non Indians from different parts of the World. Before migrating to Karachi this Goan great musician was a student of Candolim Parochial school but later on after learning Music “Arte” and Violin his father took him to Karachi where he turned out to be a genius. Legendary maestro Johnson – the leader of the band “Johnson and His Jolly Boys” just went mad after seeing our Goan musician playing his Clarinet so beautifully for the Karachi Orchestra.
As a matter of interest our yesteryears great musician and a genius in this field Antoninho (Anthony) D’Souza from Siolim was the product of Church School. He was the music director of Emisora de Goa even during the Portuguese time when competition was so stiff. And because of his exceptional talent he was taken to Portugal somewhere in 1958 where he excelled extremely well thereby flying the colours of Goa and Goan Parochial schools high in Portugal. Once I saw him writing Solfas like Shorthand writing. Where are these great Goan musicians gone now? Why Goa is not producing such great stalwarts in musical field now? Is not there any way to revive this great Goan culture and tradition? Definitely there is and Church can do this. Church must introduce Music as one subject in Church Schools and parents must impress upon their children to take up this subject. Music should not only be made as passion but also as profession which is very lucrative now. Will somebody listen to my advice and plea? Church is having enormous financial resources to handle this subject. Our Panjim Altinho Church gurus must instruct every Church down the line to initiate this programme and now is the right time to implement this programme. If nothing is done now then this great tradition of Goan Catholic Church will be lost forever and nobody will ever remember our past which was really great.
Like Esperanto, Music is also an international language which if one learns as per the Solfas written in 5 horizontal lines, any person from any part of the world can read it and play. The knowledge of music eradicates all the barriers and a real musician knowing music thru Solfas is an international person. Goa in the past produced such internationals and Goan Catholic Church was instrumental in producing such internationals. In view of this, I feel our Catholic Church must revive its past forgotten tradition. It was said “Catholic Goan was an international figure”. Truly Catholic Church made him such and the same Church can make him international again. Let Goa Church leadership take up this issue on top priority and maintain our local tradition of producing innumerable musicians.
A. Veronica Fernandes.
