Unlike in the south, the month of Margazhi is not overtly associated with music, yet three of the oldest and most respected classical music festivals in north India are held in December. The oldest, in its 146th year is Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan in Jalandhar, Punjab; followed by the Tansen Samaroh in its 97th year in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh; and finally the Sawai Gandharva festival in Pune, Maharashtra, in its 67th year which was not held in 2021.

Harivallabh Sammelan and Tansen Samaroh have a few things in common – both are held outdoors despite the freezing cold, both are very prestigious platforms with musicians from all over vying to participate, and both have a link with Mian Tansen, regarded as the father of north Indian music, from whom most musicians claim musical lineage.

Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan

Though Harivallabh is named after Baba Harivallabh, the musician priest caretaker of the Devi Talab mandir, the link with Mian Tansen is there. Traditionally, Punjab has not been regarded as a centre of classical music, yet it hosts the oldest extant consecutively held festival. The interest in music arose primarily due to the residence in Kapurthala, then Jalandhar, of Mir Nasir Ahmed, direct descendant in Mian Tansen’s line through his daughter, who was the erstwhile senior musician in the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar. (Incidentally, he was the senior cousin of the more famous Wazir Khan of Rampur). He had fled after 1857 to Punjab, being given succour by the Kapurthala Prince, Bikrama Singh, younger brother of the Maharaja of Kapurthala. His presence obviously drew around him several musicians from all over and a great interest and love of dhrupad spread in the area. Bikrama Singh, himself a fine beenkar, disciple of Mir Nasir Ahmed, donated land and funds for the establishment of an annual musical ‘haazri’ in the Devi Talab region, and thus grew the now famous Baba Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan. It was a belief that if you were blessed by performing at Harivallabh, your fame as a musician grew.

This time, nostalgic after the passing away of so many musicians associated with Harivallabh, the organisers commemorated the contribution of the Kapurthala Prince, remembering the passing away in November of his great grand-daughter Lalita – the last fully trained musician in this unique fourgeneration musical tradition.

The four-day festival was held indoors for the first time, and none of the music sessions extended till dawn, as used to be the tradition. As always, talented young musicians were given a platform; there were also solid performers and of course the “stars”.

Tejaswini Vernekar, currently studying music at the Banaras Hindu University, is originally from Bengaluru; she acquitted herself very creditably, her singing displaying she is well taught. Sanika Kulkarni, trained in the Gwalior gayaki, who is relatively less heard in circles other than Maharashtra, showed enormous promise; harmonium accompaniment was by her maestro brother Milind Kulkarni. The more senior Saniya Patankar, also from Pune, representing the Jaipur Atrauli gharana, daringly sang raga Lalita, a speciality raga of her gharana. 

Amongst the “solid” performers was Sudhir Pandey’s solo tabla performance. Representative of the Banaras, Delhi and Ajjrara gharanas of tabla, Sudhir has an old connection with Harivallabh and has performed several times. His erudite rendition of several old forgotten ‘parans’ and ‘qaidas’ in Teen taal (16 beats) had the audience enthralled. Jalandhar listeners have always had a special link with tabla, and one or more tabla solos are a must. Ronu Mazumdar was accompanied on the flute by his disciple from Shimla, Hari Datt Bharadwaj; it is heartening to see the passing on of the great Maihar gharana music.

The “star” performers were both from Kolkata. On the second day was featured sitarist Purbayan Chatterji, now based in Mumbai. Interestingly, his concert was termed a “jugalbandi” with Vijay Ghate on the tabla, and truly, the performance played out more as a musical interaction between two equal players, rather than one accompanying the other. This change of focus is happening quite frequently with a younger audience expecting and indeed demanding more time being given to maestro accompanists like Zakir Hussain, Vijay Ghate, Kumar Bose or the late Subhankar Bannerji.

Purbayan started his recital with raga Jaijaiwanti in which he essayed a brief alap and jod, eschewing the customary jhala, and moving straight onto a composition in Teen taal. Each embellishment of his was matched with a similar piece on the tabla; then Vijay Ghate took over and played improvisations which Purbayan followed. The whole effect was exciting, fast paced and one never realised how time flew by. The grand finale was by Kaushiki Chakravorty of the Patiala gharana; this connection with Punjab has always additionally added to her appeal amongst her Punjabi listeners. As always, her rendition was smooth, polished, her honeyed voice soaring with ease; her main raga was the newly created raga Jogkauns. She was accompanied on the tabla by the young dynamic Ishan Ghosh and the truly superb Milind Kulkarni on the harmonium. The very next day, on 27 December night curfew was imposed from 10 pm in many cities of north India, which would have affected the concert duration.

Tansen Samaroh

At the Tansen Samaroh in Gwalior, the imposition of the curfew only kicked in on the last two days, 29 and 30 December. Held outside the tomb of Mian Tansen, this festival saw a much larger audience, and many more artists. There were sessions in the morning as well, in addition to two very interesting lecture demonstrations held for students of music in the Raja Man Singh Tomar Music and Arts University which has an incredible 15 music colleges affiliated to it.

Organised by the Bhopal based Kala Academy of the Madhya Pradesh government, this year’s edition of the festival also saw the honouring of eight artists with the Kalidas Samman, pending since 2013. Awards were given to veteran Maihar gharana sitarist Kartik Kumar for 2013, Vikku Vinayakram for 2014, Aruna Sairam for 2015, Ashwini Bhide Deshpande for 2016, Venkatesh Kumar for 2017, tabla maestro Suresh Talwalkar for 2018, veteran dhrupad vocalist of the Darbhanga gharana Abhay Narayan Malik for 2019, and santoor maestro Bhajan Sopori for 2020. There were also performances by Vikku Vinayakram, Suresh Talwalkar, Abhay Narayan Malik’s disciples, Kartik Kumar’s talented son Niladri Kumar, and Bhajan Sopori.  

One of the more enjoyable performances was by santoor maestro Bhajan Sopori accompanied by son Abhay Rustom (santoor), Akram Khan (tabla), Rishi Shankar Upadhyay (pakhawaj), and Varun Rajshekar (ghatam). The maestro has amended his santoor to include the ability to pull meends on a bass string, giving the recital an additional dimension in the alap. Sometimes touching the strings with a violinist’s bow-like movement was another novelty; having pakhawaj accompaniment during the jod and jhala section too was most enjoyable. Playing raga Jog, the father and son created magic, maintaining an enjoyable sense of proportion in all sections, their layakari as always expert, the contours of the raga essayed with a knowledgeable mastery. The three percussionists playing in unison during the grand finale brought the house down!

Gwalior’s own performer Shashwati Mandal, who is now Delhi based, gave a polished performance of raga Jhinjhoti, her impeccable training as well as extensive riyaz was further demonstrated in her expertly rendered tappa and drut tarana in raga Sohni with which she concluded her concert. She captured the restless, virile, passionate feel which a good tappa necessitates, with wonderful abandon; giving credit for the appropriate tabla accompaniment to Gwalior based Anant Masrurkar. She was accompanied most ably by her two disciples, Swati Tiwari and Madhulika Pande.

Pune based Shounaq Abhisheki’s vocal recital was as always a delight; singing with his usual confidence and elan, he started with raga Adana. The composition, set to Roopak taal, Ram Raghubir was not so common; composed by the erudite Ram Ashrey Jha. Shounaq, like his illustrious father Jitendra Abhisheki, has a treasure trove of rare bandishes. His next composition, lauding Lord Siva was set to Ek taal, drut laya. Showing his felicity as a musician, his next raga was also a Kanhra (there are said to be 12 Kanhras), Suha Kanhra. The tarana in drut Teen taal was exhilarating in its racy speed. The third raga was equally a challenge; being a combination of the ragas Sohni and Pancham, in which he sang a composition of maestro Vilayat Hussain Khan of the Agra gharana. The audience clamoured for more; he sang the popular Laage kalejawa kataar, demonstrating his expertise in thumri embellishments too. He finally concluded with an abhang for which he is equally popular, a combination of the works of four saint poets. This was without doubt one of the highlights of the festival.

Verbalising the importance of these three December festivals, which he termed “pavitra manch”, Shounaq shared that he had been singing at the Tansen Samaroh for over thirty years, initially accompanying his father, and then solo.

Lecture demonstrations

Of equal interest were two lectures in the “Vadi Samvadi” series, started in 2014. These were held in the Raja Man Singh Tomar University of Arts, which was established in 2008. Satyasheel Deshpande is a polished, scholarly thinking musician, and he moved away from his published paper on bandishes to conduct an extempore talk on the subject. Demonstrating the different singing styles of the Gwalior and Agra gharana, he established how each bandish needs to be sung with different embellishments. He also stated that the mood of a raga can be conveyed without lyrics too; going on to assert, with perfect accuracy that “music is like gold, which only needs the insertion of lyrics just like one needs to insert copper into gold only to make gold ornaments.”

The second talk was by scholar Narmada Prasad Upadhyay from Indore who spoke on the Ragamala paintings. Bringing in the context of Madhya Pradesh, the professor noted that the first mention of raga in a visual form was in the Sangeet Darpan written by the scholar Damodar Pandit. The first Ragamala painting was a mural in Datia palace, dating to the 15th century.

Of special note at the festival was the inclusion of several able artists from the region, solo as well as accompanying artists; these included Vivek Bansod (harmonium), Ramendra Singh Solanki, Anant Masrurkar and Hitendra Dixit (tabla).

SHAILAJA KHANNA

(Writes on music, musicians and matters of music)