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Music is a passion with the Bengalis who
express their
feelings, emotions and spiritual experience in songs. The open spaces, the
winding rivers and the beautiful villages have from the long past have inspired rural bards to compose and sing songs of their joys and sorrows to the tune of the bamboo flute and
the ektara (one-stringed lyre) or the dotara (two stringed lyre) and the
dhal and khol (percussion instruments). Some raga forms native to Bengal were admitted into the corpus
of North
Indian or Hindustani music. Elements of the Karnatic school of music are also
found in these songs. There are different styles in classical ragas.
KIRTAN STYLE
Kirtan is a sophisticated style of vocal music
deriving from Dhrupad. The
lyrics of the Vaishnava poets are classified into episodes in the early life of
Sri Krishna. Couplets of the lyrics are sung in a chaste raga in slow dhrupadic
measure by the leader of a group of singers and their significance is
elaborated in recitation or song. The refrain is taken up by the group in
quicker and quicker tempo until the chorus finishes in a crescendo and then the
next couplet is taken up by the leader. The process goes on until a particular
episode is completed. Tampura and khol, are used for
accompaniment. In recent times the box, harmonium and the violin are
also used. The Kirtan style is distinguished by its elements of group singing
and its use of complicated time-measures (talas) belonging to the pre-Mughal
school of Dhrupad. Four sub styles of Kirtan style have developed in course of
time. These are Manoharshahi, Garanhati, Mandarini and Reneti schools,
each with its distinctive manner of presentation and incorporating some
features of the different classical styles. There is in Kirtan a harmonious
combination of the mode and the lyrical message.
VISHNUPUR SCHOOL
or GHARANA STYLE
The
Charyapadas, the collection of Bengali devotional songs, were sung to the classical ragas, whose tonal formulation is different from the standardized
formulation developed in the time of the great Mughals by musical masters of northern
India. The court at Delhi patronised classical music. The tradition was set by Mian
Tansen, court musician of Emperor Akbar, an exponent of
dhrupad style, who ruled the musical world of northern India. As the Mughal
authority declined, the disciples and descendants of Tansen started leaving
Delhi. A number of them found warm reception with Bengali feudatory chiefs. A
descendant of Tansen, a 'dhrupadiya' named Bahadur Khan, settled himself in the
court of the feudatory chief of Vishnupur and started a school of music which
came to be known as the Vishnupur school or Gharana which produced a line of
eminent musicians, many of whom were retained by wealthy landlords interested in
Indian classical music. Prominent among such patrons in the mid-nineteenth
century were the members of the Tagore family, Saurindramohan Tagore
and his brother Jatindhramohan Tagore whose efforts made Calcutta a main centre
of Hindustani classical music in Bengal. Some other masters of this school were
retained by Devendrnath Tagore for coaching the members of his family and also
for setting the music of Brahmo devotional songs in the solemn and dignified
style of Dhrupad.
A lighter style of song which had great vogue in nineteenth century Bengal is
Tappa, originally introduced during the first half of the century by Ramnidhi
Gupta or Nidhu Babu who composed a number of memorable songs of secular love in
Bengali which became quite a fashion among the gentry in a short time. By and by
its features were assimilated in popular music of diverse kinds-in songs of
devotion, in Jatra songs and other compositions by later composers.
Thumri was a later arrival, having been introduced by Nawab Wazid Ali Shah of
Oudh. Thumri was the lightest of all classical styles. It took a
considerable time to earn popular appreciation which came only after Kazi
Nazural Islam and Atulprasad Sen composed scintillating love lyrics in this
style during the early years of the present century.
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