Monday, 28 November 2016

Satya Kinkar Bandyopadhyay (1899-1980) - Sangeetacharya - LP published in India in 1979


Satya Kinkar Bandyopadhyay was the last complete master of the Vishnupur Gharana, being a master of Dhrupad, Khyal, Tappa, Surbahar, Sitar and Esraj. After him no other musician covered all these traditions of the Vishnupur Gharana: there were singers of Khyal like his son Amiya Ranjan Bandyopadhyay, Surbahar & Sitar players like Manilal Nag or Esraj players like the great Ashesh Bandyopadhyay and his outstanding disciple Ranadhir Roy.
In recent years Bihaan Music in Kolkata released three CDs by Satya Kinkar Bandyopadhyay, which cover the whole spectrum of his art. See below for details.





About the Vishnupur (Bishnupur) Gharana:


Satya Kinkar Bandopadhyay (Vocal) - The Maestro of Bishnupur Gharana: Raga Imaan (28:23) & Raga Bageshree (20:08 & 10:21), BIHAAN, BMC-75
„Satya Kinkar Bandopadhyay (1899 - 1980), maestro of the Bishnupur Gharana, was born in Bishnupur of Bankura District. Disciple of the legendary musician Gopeshwar Bandyopadhyay, he was a talent both in vocal and instrumental music. He came to reside in Kolkata permanently from the year 1921. He was an A Grade artist of Akashbani from the beginning and was attached to it till 1962. In the year 1978 he was garlanded by the Rajya Sangeet Academy award. He worked as an examiner of both Rabindra Bharati and Biswabharati Universites. His performance in Dhrupad, Kheyal and Thumri in Kolkata and also throughout the country was well marked by the listeners. He was also awarded the ITC SRA award. He is the author of a number of books related to hindusthani classical music."


Satyakinkar Bandopadhyay (1899-1980) (Vocal) & Gopeswar Bandopadhyay (1880-1963)  (Vocal) – Durbari Vishnupur, Set of 2 CDs, CD 1: Gopeswar Bandopadhyay: Raga Behag: Kheyal – Hindi (2:33), Raga Behag: Kheyal – Bangla (3:04), Satyakinkar Bandopadhyay: Raga Bihag: Kheyal – Hindi (17:43), Raga Darbari: Kheyal – Bangla (13:53) & Raga Darbari: Drut Kheyal – Bangla (13:32), Raga Manjh Khamaj: Bhajan – Bangla (14:38), CD 2: Satyakinkar Bandopadhyay: Raga Darbari Kanara (Live from Vrindavan, 1980. Pakhawaj: Rajib Lochan De): Alap, Chautal, Dhamar, Surfaktal (55:08), Sindhu Tappa (4:01), Raga Jhinjhit Khamaj: Tappa Bhajan (9:37), Raga Bhairavi: Bhajan (7:08), BIHAAN MUSIC – Heritage Series, BMC-213
Satyakinkar Bandopadhyay and his uncle Gopeswar Bandopadhyay were very respected masters of the Vishnupur Gharana, experts in Dhrupad, Dhamar, Khyal, Tappa, Sitar & Esraj. They were true Durbari musicians, that means court musicians that were not required to sing to please the masses. Their singing style was only for the cognoscente. Especially interesting is the long Dhrupad in Gauharbani style on the 2nd CD, but also the Khyals in Behag and Darbari on the 1st CD. Excellent.


Satyakinkar Bandopadhyay (1899-1980) (Vocal, Esraj & Sitar) - The Royal Archive: Tappa (10:02), Tappa (4:08), Esraj (6:55), Sitar (37:57), BIHAAN - HERITAGE SERIES, BMC-127
Like most of the older representatives of Vishnupur Gharana, the legendary singer was at the same time an excellent instrumentalist. Especially the piece on Sitar is very interesting and illustrates an old sitar style, especially in the long alap. Excellent. 

As always these CDs can be obtained from: info@raga-maqam-dastgah.com

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Pandit Pran Nath (1918-1996) - At WDR in Cologne on 8.12.1984


Pandit Pran Nath, accompanied by Krishna Bhatt on Tabla and Terry Riley & Rolf Sennemann on Tambura, at WDR Funkhaus (West German Broadcasting Cologne) on 8th of december 1984 in the series "Musik der Zeit".

1. Raga Jaijaivanti - Khyal Vilambit Ektal - Madhyalay (27:59)
2. Darbari Kanada (21:12)


Many thanks to KF for the recordings.

On the artist see:

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

More Sursringar - Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury (1901-1972) - Raga Gandhari



In 2014 we posted already two recordings by Ustad Allauddin Khan and Radhika Mohan Maitra, in which they play the rare Dhrupad instrument Sursringar. See here. There exist only very few recordings of this instrument. In 2013 we posted a LP which had on the second side a track played on the Surshringar. See here. Now we present another recording by the amateur musician Birendra Kishore Roy Choudhury. I received this recording many many years ago on a cassette from VN, a collector of Dhrupad recordings in UK. My friend KF digitalised the recording and made a nice cover for it. 

"Pt. Birendra Kishore Roy Choadhury (~1901-1972?) was from a family of wealthy zamindars (landowners) in East Bengal, what is now Bangladesh. The estate was called Gouripur, in the Mymensingh district. His father, Brajendra Kishore Roy Choudhury, was renowned as a patron of musicians. His son not only continued this tradition of patronage, but became the disciple of many of the great musicians of his time, including Mohammed Wazir Khan, the great Binkar of Rampur and the last descendant of Tansen's daughter Saraswati; Mohammed Ali Khan who was the second son of Basat Khan; Imdad Khan, founder of the lineage of sitar represented today by his grandson Vilayat Khan; Allauddin Khan, father of Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi and guru to Ravi Shankar, and Hafiz Ali Khan, the great sarod maestro. Birendra Kishore Roy Choudhury was a master of the Dhrupad style, especially in instrumental music, and played the Bin, the Sursringar and the Seni Rabab." 
From: http://davidphilipson.com/pages/TansenBook.html


David Philipson shares on this link a very interesting small book "Indian Music and Tansen" by Birendra Kishore Roy Chowdhury, which I made into a pdf file. See download link below. 

See here a Raga Barwa by him on Rudra Veena: https://www.mediafire.com/?stpc5rgt65o4i#09nezectr2f4o