Next month Thailand will mark the centenary of the birth of its most celebrated composer, Prasidh Silapabanleng (1912-1999), best remembered for forging the crucial link between Thai and Western classical music, with a concert at Chulalongkorn University.
A promotion poster for ‘Siamese Classics’ features the late national artist Prasidh Silapabanleng as a ranad maestro and conductor.
The son of Thai classical maestro Luang Pradit Phairoh (Sorn Silapabanleng, 1881-1954), Prasidh initially trained as a pianist before studying Western music composition at a university in Japan, the first Thai to do so.
Prasidh grew up at a time when Thai classical music was at its peak, before hitting a low during the 1940s as a result of the Pibulsongkram government's pro-West policy.
Fans of the film Homrong (The Overture) will still remember the scene in which Sorn, the lead character playing the ranad, is locked in a duel with his son who is on piano, during a rendition of the evergreen song Lao Duangduen.
Even though the audience at the time got the impression that the father didn't approve of his son's interest in Western music, the opposite is true.
According to Prasidh's son Kulthorn Silapabanleng, it was his grandfather Sorn who sent Prasidh and his two elder sisters to study Western notation with Phra Chen Duriyanga, an authority on Thai and Western music at the time.
The turning point came when Prasidh accompanied a troupe of Thai musicians and dancers from the Fine Arts Department to a cultural show in Japan. What was planned as a short trip became the artist's life-long commitment to Western music after he met Klaus Pringsheim, a student of Gustav Mahler, the composer who was then teaching at the Imperial Academy of Music, Geidai University.
Prof Pringsheim had no hesitation in accepting the young Thai as his student.
Prasidh studied for four years in Japan and returned in 1938 with a BA.
He worked as conductor for the Fine Arts Department's symphony orchestra and as composer, and he had a big hand in the formation of the department's Western music division, with his former teacher Phra Chen Duriyanga at the helm, said Kulthorn.
Prasidh's symphonic masterpieces include Siang Tian, Damnoen Sigh, Siamese Suite, and Cherd Nai, all adaptations of Luang Pradit Phairoh's original works.
He made a great number of smaller compositions for theatrical productions after setting up the Phakavali Dance and Music Troupe with his wife Ladda Saratayon Silapabanleng. The couple also opened the Phakavali Institute of Dance and Music, the country's first private endeavour in this field.
Kulthorn said it was Siamese Suite, a song he penned for a competition arranged by the Belgian embassy that put Prasidh at the forefront of composers of his time.
Kulthorn Silapabanleng is on a mission to preserve his father’s songs.
"Initially, my father had no intention of entering the competition since he learned about it only 15 days before application deadline, but it was his friend who convinced him otherwise," he said.
Prasidh's Siamese Suite comprises four movements _ Moon Over The Temple, In The Grand Palace, Siamese Lament, and In Bangkok's Chinatown.
Much to his delight the work, which was sent in notation form, won 5th prize. The song made its debut in 1954 _ and what is more remarkable, it was in a foreign land. It was played for the first time not by a Thai band but by the National Symphony Orchestra of the Philippines and recorded for Thai audiences back home.
"The song made its debut at the same time my father was invited to a Unesco music conference in Manila," Kulthorn said, adding that Prasidh received a standing ovation for the song.
Kulthorn recalled how he listened to the song with his grandparents on a radio at home in Bangkok.
Despite being a favourite of the music critics, the Prasidh's talents and success remained unheralded largely, perhaps, because of the Thai public's ignorance of Western music in his time.
Prasidh played an instrumental role in transforming a series of Thai classical songs into modern versions, working closely with Auae Suntornsanan of Suntaraporn fame, and dedicating his time to his Phakavali theatre which was forced to shut down in the 1940s following the popularity of Western films beginning to make inroads into Thailand.
Prasidh did not encourage Kulthorn to follow in his footsteps.
Needless to say, it must have been a painful decision for an artist with an enormous love of music and a family background of celebrated musicians.
Prasidh let his son know of his decision on the day the family lost Luang Pradit Phairoh, who passed away in 1954 at the age of 73.
"I was alone in the room when he walked to me and said grandpa was dead. He then added in English, 'Don't be a musician. Or you won't be able to keep your body and soul together'."
Kulthorn heeded his father's advice. He studied engineering at Chulalongkorn University and then went to England to pursue a master's degree.
But the engineer, better known as a businessman, is not a music illiterate. Showing us musical instruments belonging to Luang Pradit Phairoh on display in his living room, he adeptly struck the ranad to the tune of Mulong, a song familiar to every student of Thai music.
And it was Kulthorn, with the help of Apsorn Kurmarohita, one of Prasidh's students, who collected his father's works and recorded them in CD form to preserve his musical gems. He has also played support role in forming the Luang Pradit Phairoh Foundation.
Kulthorn noted that Prasidh's decision to work on Siang Tian _ enlarging the piece he previously wrote for a string quartet to a grand symphonic poem with female chorus _ came almost by chance. The artist was 77 when he started working the masterpiece, recalled Kulthorn.
"My father suffered from depression so we took him to see a doctor at Siriraj Hospital," he said.
Instead of providing treatment, Dr Soonthorn Tanthanand, the head of Siriraj Alumni Association and a family friend, encouraged the maestro to produce a new symphony in honour of His Majesty becoming the kingdom's longest reigning monarch.
According to Kulthorn, the idea simply breathed a new lease of life into his ailing father. Back home from hospital, he worked tirelessly on the piece and for a while the depression seemed to have disappeared.
Siang Tian was presented to His Majesty and performed in public only twice, the first time by the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra.
Prasidh, who was present at the concert, was said to have been so spellbound by his own work that he forgot to thank the BSO conductor, who asked him at the end of the song: "Are you happy?", said Kulthorn.
In recognition of his musical genius, Prasidh was declared a national artist in 1998.
A year later he began working on a new composition, Cherd Nai, which was renamed The Prelude Of Siam, a gift for His Majesty the King's 72nd birthday anniversary in 1999.
By then 86, the artist was laid low by bouts of illness. He realised it was beyond his physical condition to do the orchestration. All he managed to complete was the piano-conductor's score.
He instructed Kulthorn to ask the noted conductor/musician John Georgiadis, then living in the UK, to carry on the work and complete the unfinished symphony.
His wish was fulfilled a month after his passing on Sept 4, 1999.
Georgiadis returned with a finished orchestration piece but the great artist had left without the chance to listen to his final masterpiece.
Prasidh during his days at Geidai University in Japan.
