Remarkable Concerts of Hindustani Music

Remarkable Concerts of Hindustani Music It was one of the Dassera music gatherings of the court of Mysore in the first quarter of twentieth century. All the reputed musicians of North India reached there to present their music. It was a very famous event in those days for the king awarded the participants handsomely. That year, the king had announced a prize of Rs. 50, 000/- for the best singer and placed the purse ceremoniously in front of the performers. Many vocalists rendered to the best of their capacity. Ustad Faiyaz Khan of Agra was a young man. His performance was considered better than the others. At last there came the turn of the court musician Hafiz Khan Gudyaniwale. He was known for doing the whole night music practices for several decades. He was a disciple of Ustad Inayat Hussain Khan, the founder of Sahaswan Gharana. While presenting his khayal music, he executed such a complex tan covering three octaves that the entire audience was awestruck. They were absolutely thrilled. It seemed not a mean feat to anyone. When he dragged the bag of that prize towards him, no musician dared objecting to his musical prowess. Introduction In India, a concert of music is simply designated as ‘programme’ these days. The history of formal and informal listening sessions is as old as the music is. In our purans (mythologies) we come across many instances of soirees as well as music competitions. There are many interesting stories of dance and music recitals that take place in the court of Indra, the king of gods. The performers of these gatherings are the celestials like apsaras who render dance performances with the vocal music of gandharvas and the instrumental recitals of kinnaras. Most of the stories of the heaven deal with the mistakes committed by these artistes, which provoke the erudite connoisseurs and divinities. As a reaction they curse the celestial artistes to take birth in the world of mortals. Some well-known puranic stories of the concerts are the birth of sacred river Ganga from the feet of Narayan on account of Lord Shiva’s vocal recital at Vaikuntha (abode of Lord Narayan), performance of Lav-Kush in the court of king Ram chandra in Ayodhya and the dance of Behula before the gods for reviving her husband bitten by a snake. Types of Concerts Historically, we have references of many music programmes in the courts of the kings of North and South India as these are their favourite pastimes besides hunting and drama. The kings, nawabs, zemindars, rulers and wealthy nobles always found patronizing music and dance of the Ustads and the nautch-girls. The concerts of music are normally organized at the eve of sacred thread ceremony, birthday celebration, wedding, victory, traditional festivals, auspicious days of the calendar and dangals (music competitions). In addition, over many centuries, the professional musicians of Islamic origin having been organizing the jumma concerts on Fridays, whenever they feel featuring a young but promising musician, besides the urs (death anniversary of Sufi saints), barsi (death anniversary of any respectable artiste), visit of a fellow musician (dawat) or on the occasions when a musician makes challenges about his excellence. Criteria of Successful Concerts There are many parameters of a successful programme of Indian music. Some basic requirements are: conducive ambience that is free from noise, disturbance and elements of distraction; appreciative mood of the audience (dad denewale) and cooperating temperament of accompanying artistes towards the principal artiste; sound training, self confidence, good health and calibre of the artiste; quality voice of the vocalist and appealing tonality of the instrument; acoustics of the venue and most importantly the sound system, etc. At the same time, the artiste must be enough experienced to sense the nerve of the audience, especially their craving for a certain kind of music. The artiste also requires to be a versatile person in his arts to satisfy the expectation of the audience. In addition to all these factors, the artiste must be in the mood of entertaining his fans and patrons. Anecdotes of Some Supernatural Concerts During the reign of king Lakkhon Shen (Laxman Sen) of Bengal (12th century), there came one musician called Burhan Mishra to his court to compete with the court musicians. He sang rag pata manjari. Because of his singing, all the leaves of a nearby tree dropped on the ground from its branches. The king was almost ready to bestow him the certificate of being the winner when the court musician Padmavati challenged Burhan Mishra to re-attach them or blossom the leaves and flower to the branches of the very tree. Mishra expressed his opinion about the impossibility of such happening. Then the court musician Jaidev, husband of Padmavati sang rag basant. The same tree blossomed with green leaves and flowers as a result of the divine effect of the melody of spring season. Singer-poet Jaidev who authored the famous Geeta-Govindam was honoured with the crown of victory. There is a well-known story of Miyan Tansen, the music wizard of the medieval period, who served many rulers and Mughal emperor Akbar the Great. Because of the excessive favour of Akbar towards Tansen, other court musicians were very jealous of him. They somehow persuaded the emperor to make sing Tansen the melody called rag deepak, so that the vocalist met the death from the heat generated out of a lamp. Unfortunately, the performer gets burnt in the process of rendering rag deepak and does not get healed other than drenching in rain. Not a very long after the persuasion, Akbar expressed his desire to relish the rag that lighted a lamp automatically. Tansen requested his patron to grant him some time for its preparation as he sensed the scheming courtiers behind it. Akbar agreed to his request. Tansen diligently trained his daughter Saraswati and pupil Roop kumari to sing rag megh malhar to cause rainfall. On the stipulated date, Tansen performed the rag and got seriously burnt because of the delay of commencing rag megh malhar by Saraswati and Roop kumari. It is said that Tansen took more than six months to get completely healed from the burns. Once Ustad Natthan Khan, a leading vocalist of Agra gharana was returning home from his concert tours of some princely states with his accompanists. One day, they had to pass through a dense forest during the night. All of a sudden, a group of creatures of unworldly look stopped them. According to Khan saheb and his accompanying artistes, it was a group of ghosts. They demanded the Ustad to sing until they were pleased. Ustad Natthan Khan obliged them by singing for about four hours. In the beginning, they were scared of these shadowy people by assuming them the bandits. They were afraid of their lives and the riches they were carrying. But, after the recital, the black and flimsy entities awarded the Ustad handsomely with a lot of gold coins. Anecdotes of an Unusual Concert There were three specific concerts of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan at Satara, Bombay and Pune sometimes in 1930 (1908, according to Basant Potdar). The hero of these gatherings was Tipu Miyan. The Ustad bought him for Rs. 20 from a gypsy of Iranian origin from Bagalkot. Tipu Miyan shunned nonvegetarian food like the Brahmin pupils of the Khan saheb. At the eve of the music practice and teaching session of students he also participated by making queer noises, when the master seriously felt that Tipu needs to be trained in music. Bal Krishna Buwa Kapileshwari writes in the biography of his mentor that after a few months of training Tipu Miyan was presented in Bombay before the dignitaries like Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu, Sheth Jamandas Dwarkadas, Brelvy of Bombay Chronicle, Sorabji Kapadia of Mumbai Samachar and B G Horniman (editor of Bombay Chronicle, the first evening tabloid of India). The Ustad used to take a seat between two tanpuras, and he himself used to introduce Tipu Miyan before the audience by placing the singer beside him. The unusual vocalist used to sit on the dais very much like the symbol of HMV records putting on gaudy velvet apparel and a necklace of pearls. The Ustad used to tell him before the concert, ‘Thik se gana Tipu Miyan, ham donon ki izzat ka sawal hai (sing well Tipu Miyan, it is a question of our prestige).’ Khan saheb had a very fine voice. Tipu used to imitate his master’s voice most faithfully, in a base voice to stun the audience. As a matter of fact, he used to sing the tones of sargam (the musical notes) most tunefully like any flute or bowing instrument for he was an extraordinary dog. On those days, he was found demonstrating all the twelve notes of the scale and the tans of the rags shankara, sham Kalyan, multani, puriya and puriya dhanashri. Anecdotes of Some Memorable Concerts Neela Bhagwat, an eminent khayal singer of Gwalior gharana reminisces over the recitals of her mentor Pandit Sharad chandra Arolkar. She considers her mentor’s concert as the memorable experiences. Arolkar’s concert in 1980s in Mumbai, after he received Sangeet Natak Academy Award was the most memorable one. She says, ‘An inspired singer, nothing predictable, Pandit Arolkar was like a Dostoyevsky, who put a great picture of life in front of you. His bandhanwa bandho in darbari kanada at the terrace of Vasant Nivas, pilu thumri soch samajh nadan in a private gathering of Dr. Krishna Joshi’s place are etched in my mind. His effortlessness and poetic approach to music transcended beyond our imagination. I cannot forget the impact of his bhairavi thumri, Aj main larungi saiyan in which he delineated intense sensuousness.’ She continues, ‘The first Bihag in my life, I was exposed to was the sitar recital of Ustad Vilayat Khan. It was so beautiful, so colourful with the sensitive touches in it that I can't describe the same with words. I always thought him a great sitar player and always loved his sitar. I heard him during the 150-year celebration of Times of India. In that concert, he played an outstanding melody that appeared like nand to me from which he went to perform a wonderful ragmala including Kedar, darbari, and so on. ‘The sarod recital of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan in Mahajati Sadan of Kolkata in 1990s is another great concert I have ever listened to. He played a very deep alap in rag Bageshri and then he shifted to present rag Bageshri kauns. I also remember an absolutely great concert of Pandit Mallikarjun Mansoor that most probably took place one year after his wife’s death in Birla Matushri Hall, Mumbai. On that day, he sang dhundhuware saiyan in rag nand with a lot of bol alap akin to Gwalior style of singing. It was performed with a lot of emotions.’ Amarendra Dhaneshwar, a prominent columnist and music reviewer of the music world of Mumbai has many fond memories of the remarkable concerts. He says, ‘My first exposure to classical music was in 1965 when I was just 13 years old and attended it with my father. I will never forget this private programme in which Ram Marathe, a very popular classical singer of those days performed kanganawa mora in rag Kedar. I also learnt the same bandish from my school music teacher, but I was really amazed to know that it could be elaborated and sung with so many variations of melody and rhythm. In the true sense, that very impact really attracted me to music. My father was extremely thrilled from his bhairavi number dekho mori churiyan karak gai daiya. I was also thrilled hearing it and looking at my father. This is how I was drawn into the world of concert music and hereafter I became fascinated and obsessed with the live concerts of music. ‘In the same year 1965, I attended the second Geet Varsha programme by Pandit Kumar Gandharv at Rabindra Natya Mandir, Mumbai. It comprised monsoon rags, Kumarji’s own compositions, traditional and Malwi folk songs based on the theme of monsoon. I distinctly remember every single composition due to the impact it made, e.g. Lago indra asarh, Amaraiyan ke birkhan ki, Guruji ek niranjan, etc. The kind of echo effect, he gave to the songs is still lodged in my mind. The glide and lingering of notes and other things had a unified impact on my impressionable mind. ‘In those days we mostly heard sitar maestri Ustad Abdul Halim Jaffar Khan and Pandit Ravi shankar. I have attended many of Halim Sahab’s baithak style programmes at Bhandari Hall, Shivaji Park. I remember his chakra-dhun that had lot of twists and turns. He took us through a bhul-bhulaiya of tunes on that day which will remain with me for ever. ‘Ravi Shankarji used to come to Mumbai in the winter days and give night long concerts commencing at 9 p.m. One of his recitals at Brahman Sahitya Sangh, Shivaji Park is still vivid in my memory, which was attended by about three to four hundred people including connoisseurs like P L Deshpande. It was a programme organized by Sancharini in 1965-66. He was a master of all siddha rags. It was my good fortune that the rags he selected on that night were yaman, Bageshri, darbari and Malkauns. By the time he concluded with sindhu bhairavi it was about 4 a.m. in the morning. There was a sense of completeness in his rendition of every single rag. He played very elaborate alap and left nothing unexplored, and then gats in the tals of 11 beats, 10 beats jhaptal and 14 beats dhamar, etc.’ Pandit Arvind Parikh, a veteran sitar maestro talks about his experiences of music for last 70 years. To him, his mentor Ustad Vilayat Khan was like a demigod and his music was unparallel to none. He reminisces, ‘Many many years ago there was a concert of Ustad Ameer Khan at Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi. I recollect this very well. It was early morning and he sang rag bilas khani todi. I have met Khan saheb before the concert in the green room, but he was in a very depressed kind of mood. He did not talk much. On that day, he sang so beautifully, so beautifully that I met him after the concert and said, ‘Khan saheb, today you sang absolutely superb.’ He took a deep sigh and said, ‘Well there are problems at home; one is very unhappy; and in this unhappy mood I got all my emotions expressed through music.’ That was a very memorable concert. ‘Tabla maestro Ameer Hussain Khan organized a barsi programme in memory of his mentor Ustad Munir Khan. The entire audience, more than fifty percent plus were the reputed tabla players of Bombay. There came one tabla maestro from Lahore, Pakistan. He had a handkerchief tied on his head and put on a long black shirt and paijama. He was sitting at one side and later Ustad Alla Rakha introduced him as his gurubhai (classmate). His name was Ustad Tufail Khan. The tabla he played on that day was absolutely out of this world.’