Get all 9 nādaprem releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Sītāyajña, "Kän-Gu-Ruh", Mahā Ganapatim, Sarva Jala, Virsmai ir Versmės, Do Balonde, Soundtrack for Śrī Aurobindo play "Viziers Of Bassora", Soundtrack for Śrī Aurobindo play "Rodogune", and 1 more.
1. |
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2. |
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King of my heart, wilt thou adore me,
Call me goddess, call me thine?
I too will bow myself before thee
As in a shrine.
Till we with mutual adoration
And holy earth-defeating passion
Do really grow divine.
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3. |
Slave Market
03:18
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MUAZZIM
Well, gentlemen, the biddings, the biddings!
………………….
Look at her! Allah be good to me! You shall not find her equal from China to Frangistan.
IBN SAWY
Now pick me out your sweetest thing in girls, Perfect in beauty, wise as Sheban Balkis,
Yet more in charm than Helen of the Greeks, Then name your price.
MUAZZIM
I have the very marvel. You shall not see her equal in a century.
She has the Koran and the law by heart;
Song, motion, music and calligraphy
Are natural to her, and she contains
All science in one corner of her mind;
She is a nonpareil.
………
Khalid, bring the girl.
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4. |
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When I was a young man,
I’d a very good plan;
Every maid that I met,
In my lap I would set,
What mattered her age or her color?
But now I am old
And the girls, they grow cold
And my heartstrings, they ache
At the faces they make,
And my dancing is turned into dolour.
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5. |
Be Lusty, Son!
02:42
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I do not value at a brazen coin
The man who has no vices in his blood,
Never took toll of women’s lips in youth
Nor warmed his nights with wine. Your moralists
Teach one thing, Nature quite another; which of these
Is likely to be right? Yes, cultivate,
But on the plan that she has mapped. Give way,
Give way to the inspired blood of youth
And you shall have a man, no scrupulous fool,
No ethical malingerer in the fray;
A man to lord it over other men,
Soldier or Vizier or adventurous merchant,
The breed of Samson. Man with such youth your armies. Of such is an imperial people made
Who send their colonists and conquerors
Across the world, till the wide earth contains
One language only and a single rule.
Yes, Nature is your grand imperialist,
No moral sermonizer. Rude, hardy stocks
Transplant themselves, expand, outlast the storms
And heat and cold, not slips too gently nurtured
Or lapped in hothouse warmth. Who conquered earth For Islam? Arabs trained in robbery,
Heroes, robust in body and desire.
I’ll get this slavegirl for Fareed to help
His education on. Be lusty, son,
And breed me grandsons like you for my stock.
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6. |
The Hero
02:57
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NUREDDENE
Father!
IBN SAWY
O rascal, traitor, villain, imp!
(IBN SAWY throws him down on a couch and holds him under his dagger)
I’ll father you.
Prepare, prepare your soul,
Your black and crime-encrusted soul for hell.
I’m death and not your father.
NUREDDENE
Is there no help then?
IBN SAWY
None; prepare!
ANICE
Oh, kill me rather!
NUREDDENE
Waste not your terrors, sweetheart.
We are rehearsing an old comedy,
“The tyrant father and his graceless son”.
Foolish old man!
IBN SAWY
What! what!
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7. |
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White as winter is my beard,
All my face with wrinkles weird,
Yet I drink.
Hell-fire? judgment? who’ s afraid?
Ibrahim would kiss a maid
As soon as think.
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8. |
Him
02:07
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NUREDDENE
It is the star of Anice, The star of Anice-Aljalice who came
From Persia guided by its silver beams
Into these arms of vagrant Nureddene
Which keep her till the end. Sweet, I possess you!
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9. |
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Heart of mine, O heart impatient,
Thou must learn to wait and weep.
Wherefore wouldst thou go on beating
When I bade thee hush and sleep?
Thou who wert of life so fain,
Didst thou know not, life was pain?
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10. |
Her
01:38
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ANICE
Come, sit down there and I will stand before you
And tell a story.
It was about a man who had a gem earth could not buy.
NUREDDENE
As I have you.
ANICE
Be silent, sir.
He kept it
With ordinary jewels which he took
Each day and threw into the street, and said,
“I’ll show this earth that all the gems it has,
Together match not this I’ll solely keep.”
NUREDDENE
As I’ll keep you.
ANICE
Ah, but he did not know
What slender thread bound to a common pearl
That wonder.
When he threw that out, alas!
His jewel followed, and though he sought earth through,
He never could again get back his gem.
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11. |
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Chink-a-chunk-a-chink!
We will kiss and drink,
And be merry, Oh very very merry.
For your eyes are bright
Even by candle light
And your lips as red as the red round cherry.
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12. |
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FAREED
Oh father, father, father, father, father!
FAREED
Girl, father! such a girl! a girl of girls!
Buy me my girl!
ALMUENE
What girl, you leaping madcap?
FAREED
In the slave-market for ten thousand pieces. Such hands! such eyes! such hips! such legs! I am Impatient till my elbows meet around her.
ALMUENE
My amorous wagtail! What, my pretty hunchback, You have your trophies too among the girls
No less than the straight dainty Nureddene,
Our Vizier’s pride? Ay, you have broken seals?
You have picked locks, my burglar?
FAREED
You have given me, You and my mother, such a wicked hump
To walk about with, the girls jeer at me.
I have only a chance with blind ones. ’Tis a shame.
ALMUENE
How will you make your slavegirl love you, hunch?
FAREED
She’ll be my slavegirl and she’ll have to love me.
ALMUENE
Whom would you marry, hunchback, for a wager? Will the King’s daughter tempt you?
FAREED
Pooh! I’ve got My eye upon my uncle’s pretty niece.
I like her.
ALMUENE
The Vizier, my peculiar hatred!
Wagtail, you must not marry there.
FAREED
I hate him too And partly for that cause will marry her,
To beat her twice a day and let him know it. He will be grieved to the heart.
ALMUENE
You’re my own lad.
FAREED
And then she’s such a nice tame pretty thing,
Will sob and tremble, kiss me when she’s told,
Not like my mother, frown, scold, nag all day.
But, dad, my girl! buy me my girl!
ALMUENE
Come, wagtail. Ten thousand pieces! ’tis exorbitant.
Two thousand, not a dirham more.
FAREED
Hooray! hoop! what a time I’ll have! Cafoor!
…………………..
FAREED
You’ll give me money, dad?
ALMUENE
We’ll talk of it another time. Now leave me.
FAREED
You’ll give me money?
ALMUENE
You spend too much.
Go; I’m out of temper.
FAREED
Give money, money, money, give me money.
ALMUENE
You boil, do you too grow upon me? There. (strikes him)
FAREED
You have struck me!
ALMUENE
Why, you would have it. Go.
You shall have money.
FAREED
How much?
ALMUENE
Quite half your asking.
Send me a cup of water.
FAREED
Oh yes, I’ll send it.
You’ll strike me then?
……………….
KHATOON
O imp of Hell! Touch not the water, Vizier.
There’s poison in that cup.
ALMUENE
Unnatural mother, What is this hatred that thou hast, to slander
The issue of thy womb?
FAREED
She hates me, dad. Drink off the cup to show her how you love me.
KHATOON
What, art thou weary of thy life? Give rather The water to a dog, and see.
………………………..
SLAVE
The dog has drunk the water. He is dead.
ALMUENE
Fareed!
FAREED
You’ll strike me, will you? You’ll give half
My askings, no? I wish you’d drunk it off; I’ld have rare spendings!
………………………
ALMUENE
What is this horrible surprise, Beneath whose shock I stagger? Is my term
Exhausted? But I would have done as much,
Had I been struck. It is his gallant spirit,
His lusty blood that will not bear a blow.
I must appease him. If my own blood should end me! He shall have money, all that he can ask.
………………………
KHATOON
Vizier,
Thou slewst Fareed. My gracious, laughing babe
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13. |
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Love keep terms with tears and sorrow?
He’ s too bright.
Born today, he may tomorrow
Say goodnight.
Love is gone ere grief can find him;
But his way
Tears that, falling, lag behind him
Still betray.
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14. |
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IBN SAWY
All will end well, I hope,
And I returning, glad, to Bassora
Embrace a son reformed, a happy niece
Nursing her babe, and you, the gentle mother
Like the sweet kindly earth whose patient love
Embraces even our faults and sins.
Grant it, O Allah, if it be at all Thy will.
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15. |
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The Emperor of Roum is great;
The Caliph has a mighty State;
But One is greater, to Whom all prayers take wing;
And I, a poor and weeping slave,
When the world rises from its grave,
Shall stand up the accuser of my King.
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16. |
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Saw you Shaikh Ibrahim, the grave old man?
Allah! Allah! I saw him drunk and drinking.
What was he doing when the dance began?
He was winking; verily, verily, he was winking.
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17. |
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nādaprem Vilnius, Lithuania
Nādaprem, was born in 1975, Vilnius, Lithuania. Studied viola and Ethnomusicology in Lithuanian Music Academy, Hindustani
(North Indian classical) music being the main subject. Started learning bansuri in 2001 with Vinod
Prasanna, continued with Harsh Wardhan. Composer and multi-instrumentalist: viola, bansuri, duduk, keyboard, etc ...
... more
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