Meher Baba's Life & Travels
( Omananda Puri )
Born : 4 July, 1882 - Ireland
Died : 2 June,1967 - Isle of Man, England
Author & Spiritual musician
During Meher Baba's first visit to London on the 26th September 1931, Maud met Baba and mentioned she had been suffering from asthma.
Lord Meher ; Bhau Kalchuri - Vol. 4, Page 1433
OTHER PEOPLE had similar impressions meeting the Master. One lady named Maud McCarthy Foulds had been suffering from asthma. She once described what happened after her first meeting with Meher Baba:
I have never met a human being who gives such certainty of inner light so easily, so purely and as naturally as Baba. I was an utter stranger to him, but the first two words he gave me told of my lifelong besetting weakness. I was with him for thirty-five minutes only and I did not ask him to heal me. However, I had gotten to Baba with difficulty that evening, as I was suffering from asthma which had unexpectedly attacked me a few weeks before and threatened to ruin my work. I was a sick woman indeed.
That night when I got home and went to bed, I was awakened out of a deep sleep by a strong, indescribably beautiful eastern perfume in my room. I sat on the floor and experienced the presence of Meher Baba. I can describe it only as an almost frightening sense of power in the room. It seemed that the hands of a surgeon were operating on my lungs, spine and other parts of my body. All the time I was conscious of the terrific power in its greatness, which had got inside my bones and tissues, changing my body as I sat there.
Maud Foulds had other strange sensations and the next day went to see Baba to describe her experiences. When she began, Baba stopped her, remarking, "I know. I know I have helped you." After this experience her asthma condition greatly improved.
MAY 19, 1933
MAUD HERE IN THIS LETTER TO MEHER BABA IS CALLING HERSELF GULISTAN MAI.
IS THIS THE NAME BABA GAVE HER ?
Maud MacCarthy (4 July 1882 – 2 June 1967), was an Irish violinist, singer, Theosophist, writer, poet, esoteric teacher and authority on Indian music.
MacCarthy was born in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland, the daughter of Dr. Charles William MacCarthy and his wife Marion. Her early years were spent in Sydney, Australia, where the family emigrated in 1885. However, by 1891 she had returned to Britain to study the violin at the Royal College of Music, London as a pupil of Enrique Fernández Arbós. As a child she performed in standard concertos at the Crystal Palace and Queen's Hall. She also toured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and visited South Africa and Australia.
In 1905 she was forced to give up her ambitions as a concert soloist by the onset of neuritis and went to India as a companion of Annie Besant, where she studied Indian music, collecting manuscripts and instruments, learned Indian singing and also studied Indian mysticism. She returned to England in 1909 following the death of her younger brother. In 1911 she marrried William Mann, a fellow Theosophist and they had a daughter, Joan, in 1912. The marriage was short-lived, as Maud soon met and fell in love with the composer John Foulds in 1915. Despite strong opposition from family and friends, Maud and John Foulds left their respective spouses and lived together from 1918 onwards. They had two children, John Patrick (1916-2008) and Marybride (1922-1988). They finally married in 1932. She compiled the text for his World Requiem which was performed at the Albert Hall on four consecutive Armistice Nights between 1923 and 1926.
While living in the East End of London they met a young man at a local social event whom they commonly referred to as 'The Boy'. A quiet yet powerful figure who worked at the local gas works, his real name was William (Bill) Coote. 'The Boy' almost instantaneously began to channel a group of beings known as 'The Brothers' who gave profound spiritual teachings through him for the next 26 years. Maud returned to India with John Foulds and William Coote in 1935 where 'The Brothers' continued their teachings through 'The Boy', making a profound impact on thousands of people in search of spiritual meaning. John Foulds died suddenly in 1939, and Maud married 'The Boy' in 1942.
She founded an ashram and published poetry under the name Tandra Devi. She took the name Swami Omananda Puri after her husband's death when she took sannyas (or renunciation of worldly life). It was under this name that she published her autobiography of her experiences with 'The Boy' in the The Boy and the Brothers (London: Gollancz, 1959). A second book was posthumously published as Towards the Mysteries (London: Neville Spearman, 1968) which further expanded on The Brothers' teachings and message. Her papers are now held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York.
Death
She died in Douglas on the Isle of Man, aged 84 and was buried at Glastonbury.
John Herbert Foulds (November 2, 1880 – April 25, 1939), was a British composer of classical music from England.
In 1915 he married:
Maud MacCarthy (4 July 1882–1967), an Irish-born violinist, singer, writer, poet, esoteric teacher and authority on Indian music.
photo right of Foulds, no picture found for McCarthy
MacCarthy was born in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. She studied the violin at the Royal College of Music, London as a pupil of Arbós and as a child performed in standard concertos at Crystal Palace and Queen's Hall; she also toured with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
In 1905 she was forced to give up her ambitions as a concert soloist by the onset of neuritis and went to India as a companion of Annie Besant [President of the Theosophis and an outspoken proponent of vegetarianism], where she studied Indian music, collecting manuscripts and instruments, learned Indian singing and also studied Indian mysticism.
Foulds was a successful composer of light music and theatre scores, Perhaps the best known was the music for the first production of [the prominent vegetarian] George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (Foulds conducted a Suite from it at the Queen's Hall Proms in 1925). However his principal creative energies went into more ambitious and exploratory works, often coloured by his interest in the music of the East, especially India.
In 1934 the couple moved to India where Foulds died in 1939. Maud remained in India and took the name Swami Omananda Puri after her husband's death.
John Herbert Foulds (November 2, 1880 – April 25, 1939), was a British composer of classical music.
A successful composer of light music and theatre scores, his principal creative energies went into more ambitious and exploratory works that were particularly influenced by Indian music. Suffering a setback after the decline in popularity of his World Requiem (1919–1921), he left London for Paris in 1927, and eventually travelled to India in 1935 where, among other things, he collected folk music, composed pieces for traditional Indian instrument ensembles, and worked for a radio station.
Foulds was an adventurous figure of great innate musicality and superb technical skill. Among his best works are Three Mantras for orchestra and wordless chorus (1919–1930), Essays in the Modes for piano (1920–1927), the piano concerto Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929), and his ninth string quartet Quartetto Intimo (1931–1932).
The son of a bassoonist in the Hallé Orchestra, John Foulds was born in Hulme, Manchester, England, on 2 November 1880. Largely self-taught as a composer, he was one of the most remarkable and unjustly forgotten figures of the "British Musical Renaissance". Though prolific from childhood, Foulds himself joined the Hallé as a cellist in 1900, having already served an apprenticeship in theatre and promenade orchestras in England and abroad. Hans Richter gave him conducting experience; Henry Wood took up some of his works, starting with Epithalamium at the 1906 Queen's Hall Proms.
In some respects ahead of his time (he started using quarter-tones as early as the 1890s, while some of his later works anticipate Messiaen and Minimalism) Foulds was in others an intensely-practical musician. He became a successful composer of light music – his Keltic Lament was once a popular favourite and in the 1920s the BBC scheduled his music on a daily basis. This was a source of irritation to Foulds; in 1933 he complained to Adrian Boult at the BBC that his serious music was not being performed: "[My light works] number a dozen or so, as compared with the total of 50 of my serious works. This state of affairs is rather a galling one for a serious artist."[1] Foulds also wrote many effective theatre scores, notably for his friends Lewis Casson and Sybil Thorndike. Perhaps the best known was the music for the first production of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (Foulds conducted a Suite from it at the Queen's Hall Proms in 1925). He also wrote the score for Casson's highly successful West End production of Shakespeare's Henry VIII which ran from December 1925 to March 1926. However his principal creative energies went into more ambitious and exploratory works, often coloured by his interest in the music of the East, especially India.
Foulds moved to London before World War I, and in 1915 during the war he met the violinist Maud MacCarthy, one of the leading Western authorities on Indian music. His gigantic World Requiem (1919–1921), in memory of the dead of all nations, was performed at the Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Foulds, under the auspices of The Royal British Legion on Armistice Night, November 11, in 1923 by up to 1,250 instrumentalists and singers; the latter were called the Cenotaph choir. Performances in 1924 and 1925 took place at the Queen's Hall. In 1926 it returned to the Albert Hall, but this was to be the last performance until 2007, again at the Albert Hall. The performances in 1923-6 constituted the first Festivals of Remembrance. While some critics were not impressed by the work, it was nonetheless popular. One newspaper wrote: "The scope of the work is beyond what anyone has dared to attempt hitherto. It is no less than to find expression for the deepest and most widespread unhappiness this generation has ever known. As such it was received by a very large number of listeners, who evidently felt that music alone could do this for them."[1] However, the work ceased to be performed after 1926. Some commentators have suggested a conspiracy against Foulds – his biographer Malcolm MacDonald has, for instance, implied some sort of "intrigue". It appears Foulds was regarded as an inappropriate composer for the occasion because he had not fought in the war, or because of his suspected Left-wing views.[1]
When interest in A World Requiem lapsed Foulds suffered a grave setback and in 1927 left for Paris, working there as an accompanist for silent films. In 1934 he published an immensely-stimulating book on contemporary musical developments, Music To-day. In 1935 he travelled to India, where he collected folk music, became Director of European Music for All-India Radio in Delhi, created an orchestra from scratch, and began to work towards his dream of a musical synthesis of East and West, actually composing pieces for ensembles of traditional Indian instruments. He was so successful that he was asked to open a branch of the station in Calcutta. Tragically, within a week of arriving there, he died suddenly of cholera on 25 April 1939.
Foulds' most substantial compositions include string quartets, symphonic poems, concertos, piano pieces and a huge "concert opera" on Dante's The Divine Comedy (1905–1908), as well as a series of "Music-Pictures" exploring the affinities between music and styles of painting.[2] (Henry Wood introduced one of them at the 1913 Proms.) Few of these works were performed and fewer published in his lifetime, and several, especially from his last period in India, are lost. (The missing scores included a Symphony of East and West for Oriental instruments and Western symphony orchestra.) Foulds' daughter deposited some of the surviving manuscripts by her father in the British Library.[3]
[edit] Revival
Foulds became a footnote to English music after his death, but from 1974 Malcolm MacDonald, editor of the music journal Tempo under the alias Calum MacDonald, conducted an often lonely campaign for Foulds after he came across the Foulds scores deposited in the British Library. MacDonald tracked down Foulds' daughter, who took him to a garage and showed him two coffin-sized boxes full of sketches and manuscripts she had been left by her mother. Unfortunately, many of the manuscripts were damaged: apparently, rats and ants had got at them while they were in India, where Foulds' wife stayed after his death.[3]
An acclaimed recording of Foulds' string quartet music, including the previously-unperformed Quartetto Intimo, by the Endellion Quartet in the early 1980s began to reawaken interest in him, and this was sustained in the early 1990s by Lyrita Recorded Edition's decision to issue some of Foulds' works including Three Mantras and Dynamic Triptych on CD. A Proms performance of Three Mantras in 1998 was well received, and soon after the Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo began to champion Foulds' work in concerts with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), to huge critical acclaim.[4][5] In November 2005, the CBSO, with Peter Donohoe, gave the first live performance for more than 70 years of Foulds' piano concerto, the Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929). The orchestra has issued two well-received CDs of Foulds' music. On Armistice Night, 11 November 2007, the Royal Albert Hall staged the first performance for 81 years of the World Requiem under the auspices of the BBC, with the Trinity Boys Choir and Leon Botstein as conductor.[6] The performance was recorded live and released in Super Audio CD format by Chandos Records in January 2008.
Foulds' Keltic Lament has once again become popular due to its regular playing on Classic FM, and BBC Radio 3 plans to revive a tradition of performing A World Requiem on Armistice Day.[1]
[edit] Legacy
It is difficult to assess Foulds' achievement, or even to classify a composer who was master of a bewildering variety of styles. But he was clearly an adventurous figure of great innate musicality and superb technical skill. Such pieces as the Three Mantras for orchestra and wordless chorus (1919–1930), the Essays in the Modes for piano (1920–1927), the piano concerto Dynamic Triptych (1927–1929), and his ninth string quartet Quartetto Intimo (1931–1932) represent a powerful and individual contribution to the music of their time.
[edit] Personal life
John Foulds was only 21 when he married librarian Dora Woodcock in 1902. She was seven years his senior and the daughter of a Yorkshire-born bookseller who had settled in Llandudno. Their son Michael Raymond was born in Manchester in 1911.
Foulds met his musical soul mate Maud MacCarthy in 1915 after moving to London. She was married to William Mann with whom she had a daughter Joan, born in 1913.
According to Malcolm MacDonald’s account, both were in unhappy marriages and it was love at first sight. Rather than enter into a clandestine affair, they laid the matter before their respective spouses. The two couples met together and agreed amicably on the divorces which would allow John and Maud to marry, though they did not in fact do so until 1932. They were to have two children: John Patrick born in 1917 and a daughter Marybride in 1921.
The book by Swami Omananda Puri, a.k.a. the second Mrs John Foulds (real name Maud McCarthy) is
filled with extraordinary soundbites of eastern philosophical wisdom. She asserts that Beethoven kept a copy of the Upanishads on his desk.
http://jessicamusic.blogspot.com/2008/02/barenboim-at-last.html