INDIA – INDE Omkarnath Thakur – Amar Woh Desh & Re Din Kaise Kate Re (Kabir Bhajans) – SEDE 3302 COLUMBIA

INDIA – INDE
Omkarnath Thakur – Amar Woh Desh & Re Din Kaise Kate Re (Kabir Bhajans) – SEDE 3302 COLUMBIA –  (Vinyl 7 inch, 45 RPM)

Omkarnath Thakur (1897-1967) was a major 20th century Hindustani vocalist, teacher and musicologist. Though born into a military family in the village of Jahaj, Gujarat State, his father, Gauri Shankar Thakur, had withdrawn from the world after meeting a holy man and dedicating his life to meditation and spirituality until his death in 1910. Because of his father's asceticism, Omkarnath's childhood was one of privation and poverty. But at the age of 12, a philanthropist from Bharuch recognized Thakur’s rare musical gifts and paid for him to enroll in the Vishnu Digambar Paluskar Music School in Mumbai in 1909. While studying here, Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872-1931), a great master of the Gwalior Gharana and renaissance man who pioneered the popularization of classical and devotional music among the masses, took Thakur under his wing and appointed him principal of a newly opened branch of his music school in Lahore, Pakistan, at the age of 20. Thakur later became the first dean at the music faculty at Bānaras (or Vārānasi) Hindu University when it opened in 1950.  

 

Thakur often accompanied Paluskar onstage during Paluskar's many concert tours and began performing solo. By the late 1920s he had achieved national fame and became a major fixture on the Indian classical music scene. When Thakur toured Europe in 1933, he also became one of the first Indian musicians to both perform and lecture there.  

 

That same year, Thakur's wife, Indira Devi, died in childbirth. This loss grieved him so deeply that he never remarried. “My favorite deity is Lord Rama. Like Him, I believe that each man should marry only once in his lifetime and cherish her throughout life,” he once said.* He devoted himself entirely to his music and students.

According to Deepak S. Raja, "There are clearly three facets to Omkarnath’s personality as a musician. The first is his preoccupation with the mystical aspects of musical pursuits, inherited from his father, who renounced the world to unravel the mysteries of the primal sound, ‘Om.’ The second is the scholarly facet, steeped in ancient musicological texts, whose wisdom he attempted to translate into performance. The third is the dramatic, even theatrical, facet that explicitly sought to create an impact among his audiences … The combination, however, made him a colorful and even controversial musician.”** Although Thakur crafted his own idiosyncratic style, he achieved great popular appeal and brilliantly championed Paluskar’s lofty goal of popularizing Indian classical music.  

On this 7-inch record, Thakur performs two bajhans by the 15th-century mystic, poet and musician Kabir Das, showcasing his masterful mellifluous singing interspersed with creative and dynamic vocal ornamentation. 

Omkarnath Thakur (1897-1967) fut un chanteur, professeur et musicologue hindoustani majeur du XXe siècle. Bien que né dans une famille militaire du village de Jahaj, dans l'État du Gujarat, son père, Gauri Shankar Thakur, s'était retiré du monde après avoir rencontré un saint homme et consacré sa vie à la méditation et à la spiritualité jusqu'à sa mort en 1910. l'ascèse, l'enfance d'Omkarnath fut marquée par les privations et la pauvreté. Mais à l'âge de 12 ans, un philanthrope de Bharuch reconnu les dons musicaux prodigieux d’Omkarnath Thakur et l’aida a s'inscrire à l'école de musique Vishnu Digambar Paluskar à Mumbai en 1909. Le grand maître du Gwalior Gharana Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872-1931), qui fut un visionnaire qui s’évertua à diffuser la musique classique et dévotionnelle auprès du plus grand nombre, pris Thakur sous son aile et le nomme directeur de sa nouvelle son école de musique à Lahore, au Pakistan, alors que celui-ci n’a que 20 ans ! Thakur deviendra également le premier doyen de la faculté de musique de l'Université hindoue de Bānaras (ou Vārānasi) lors de son ouverture en 1950.

 

Thakur accompagna fréquemment Paluskar sur scène lors de ses nombreuses tournées et commença à se produire en solo. À la fin des années 1920, Paluskar avait acquis une renommée nationale et était devenu un artiste incontournable de la scène musicale classique indienne. Lorsque Thakur fit une tournée en Europe en 1933, il devint également un des premiers musiciens indiens à y jouer et à y donner des conférences.

 

Cette même année, la femme de Thakur, Indira Devi, meurt lors d’un accouchement. Cette perte le marqua profondément et il ne se remarie pas. "Ma divinité préférée est le Seigneur Rama. Comme lui, je crois que chaque homme ne devrait se marier qu'une seule fois dans sa vie et chérir sa femme toute sa vie », a-t-il dit un jour.* Il se consacra entièrement à sa musique et à ses élèves.

 

Selon Deepak S. Raja, « En tant que musicien, om distingue clairement trois facettes dans la personnalité d'Omkarnath. La première est l’importance accordée aux aspects mystiques de la musique, héritée de son père, qui renonça au monde, afin de percer les mystères du son primordial, ‘Om’. La seconde est la facette universitaire, imprégnée d’anciens textes musicologiques, dont il tenta de traduire la sagesse lors de ses récitals. La troisième facette est l’introduction d’éléments dramatiques, voire théâtraux, qui visaient explicitement à créer un impact auprès de son public… Cette combinaison originale a fait de lui un musicien haut en couleur et même controversé. »** Bien que Thakur développa son propre style idiosyncratique, il fut extrêmement populaire et respecté de son vivant et poursuivi brillamment le noble objectif de son maître V.D. Paluskar de populariser la musique classique indienne.

 

Sur ce disque 45 tours, Thakur interprète deux bajhans du mystique, poète et musicien du XVe siècle Kabir Das, avec son chant magistral mélodieux agrémenté d'ornementations vocales créatives et dynamiques.

*Susheela Misra’s Great Masters of Hindustani Music (1981).

**http://swaratala.blogspot.com/2011/06/pandit-omkarnath-thakur-1897-1967.html

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Swami Haridasa with Tansen and Akbar at Vrindavana, Kishangarh, Rajasthan, c. 1760, National Museum, New Delhi:

 

Swami Haridasa, a singer and poet of high order, is seated in his hermitage at Vrindavana.The place is a quiet one and suited best to one’s absorption in a musical performance. Swami Haridasa is holding a tambura in his hands and is engrossed in his divine music. Tansen, a disciple of Haridasa, is seated at a little distance, facing him. Mughal emperor Akbar is hiding himself behind a grove of banana trees.

 

It is said that Akbar, the Mughal Emperor, once asked Tansen if his guru would come to his court. Tansen replied that his guru would not oblige the great king. Akbar then decided to visit Swami Haridasa at Vrindavana and enjoyed the music of this great saint-musician.

 

After his return to Agra he asked Tansen why in his music the melodious touch was missing which was there in his guru’s melody. To this, Tansen replied, 'I sing for the king of the country while Swami Haridasa does it for the king of kings, the Almighty, hence the difference.'”

Stories from National Museum - New Delhi:

 

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/swami-haridasa-with-tansen-and-akbar-at-vrindavana-national-museum-delhi/DQWxgRQXAigBMQ?hl=en

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JAPAN – JAPON Gagaku – Kunaichō Gakubu /Music Department of the Imperial Household Agency – Toshiba Records – TH-9020

JAPAN – JAPON
Gagaku – The Kunaichō Gakubu Ensemble / Music Department of the Imperial Household Agency – Toshiba Records – TH-9020, first released in 1964 (LP)

This mesmerizing LP of Gagaku imperial court music – performed by the Kunaichō Gakubu, the Imperial Household Agency’s Court Ensemble, made up of 25 musicians – exemplifies a remarkable orchestral tradition dating back more than 1000 years ago.

Initially influenced by Chinese Togaku and Korean Komagaku musics, which have now completely disappeared, Gagaku music was first performed in Japan during the 8th century and has been passed down to this day by musicians who belong to hereditary guilds in order to ensure an unbroken lineage. Gagaku was more recently revitalized and reorganized in the 1870s during the Meiji Era’s nationalist modernization of Japan, when it was recognized as being an essential element in Japanese heritage and identity that must be safeguarded.

The Kunaichō Gakubu ensemble consists of three groups of instruments: wind instruments, including piercing hichiriki and ryuteki flutes, and sho mouth organs; string instruments, including biwa lutes and gakuso zithers; and percussive instruments, including kakko and dadaiko drums, and shoko bronze gongs.

This stately, celestial music, orchestrated with shimmering minimalist layers of sound, unfolds in an offbeat slow-moving tension with simple melodic lines, drones, clusters and eerie sonorities.

“It is not only an important cultural tool in confirming Japanese identity and a crystallization of the history of Japanese society, but also a demonstration of how multiple cultural traditions can be fused into a unique heritage through constant recreation over time.”*

*https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/gagaku-00265

Cet album envoûtant de musique de cour impériale gagaku – jouée par le Kunaichō Gakubu, l'orchestre de l'Agence de la Maison Impériale de Kyoto, composé de quelque 25 musiciens – présente une remarquable tradition orchestrale remontant à plus de 1000 ans.

Initialement influencée par la musique chinoise Togaku et la musique coréenne Komagaku, aujourd'hui complètement disparues, le gagaku fut joué pour la première fois au Japon au VIIIe siècle et sa transmission ininterrompue jusqu’à nos jours fut assurée par des musiciens appartenant à des guildes héréditaires. Le gagaku fut plus récemment revitalisé et réorganisé dans les années 1870 lors de la modernisation nationaliste du Japon pendant l'ère Meiji, lorsque cet art fut reconnu comme un élément essentiel du patrimoine et de l'identité japonaise devant être sauvegardé.

L'ensemble Kunaichō Gakubu comprend trois groupes d'instruments : des instruments à vent, dont des flûtes hichiriki et ryuteki, et des orgues à bouche sho ; des instruments à cordes, dont des luths biwa et des cithares gakuso ; ainsi que des percussions, notamment des tambours kakko et dadaiko et des gongs shoko.

Cette musique majestueuse et céleste, orchestrée avec des nappes sonores minimalistes chatoyantes, se déploie dans une tension lente et décalée avec des lignes mélodiques simples, des bourdons, des ‘grappes de sons’ (clusters) et des sonorités déroutantes.

« Vecteur culturel important de l’identité japonaise et cristallisation de l’histoire de la société japonaise, il est aussi la démonstration du mariage possible entre de multiples traditions culturelles pour donner naissance à un patrimoine unique, grâce à un processus constant de recréation au fil du temps. »*

*https://ich.unesco.org/fr/RL/le-gagaku-00265?RL=00265

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Our other Japanese music posts:

Il Canto Buddhista / Buddhist Chant – Albatros ALB/12 here
Musique Traditionnelle du Japon – Disques Vogue CLVLX 326 here

Musiques Traditionnelles du Japon – Des Origines au XVIe Siècle here

Photographs below are from Les Instruments de Musique Populaires by Alexandre Buchner, Gründ, 1969, and 2000 Years of Japanese Art by Yukio Yashiro and Peter Swann, Thames & Hudson, 1958:

Imperial Gagaku orchestra:

Kannon, Bodhisattva of Compassion, Early Nara Period, late 7th century:

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INDONESIA – INDONÉSIE Java – Concert au Puro Mangkunagaran – Collection Musique du Monde 21 – Galloway Records GB 600 540

INDONESIA – INDONÉSIE
Java – Concert au Puro Mangkunagaran – Collection Musique du Monde 21 – Galloway Records GB 600 540, recorded by Jacques Brunet in 1970 (LP)

Originally posted by Tawfiq, who passed away in April 2019, on his great blog oriental-traditional-music.blogspot.com on January 1, 2014.

 *********

Here’s another wonderful gamelan LP taken from the fantastic series of Southeast Asian music recorded and published on the label Galloway by French musicologist Jacques Brunet between 1963 and 1982. Only a few were later republished on CD, most of which have no longer been available for many years. Especially noteworthy was the release of 19 LPs of music from Bali and Java, unfortunately merely available for a couple of years. See text below.

 

A1 – Ketawang Puspowarno (Slendro Manyuro)

A2 – Gending Tunkung (Pelog Barang)

A3 – Gending Ayak-Ayakan Kaloran (Slendro Manyuro)

B1 – Langen Driyan (Slendro Sango)

Recorded by Jacques Brunet at Pura Mangkunegaran (Mangkunegaran Palace), Sukarta, Central Java, on August 29, 1970.

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"From 1963 to 1982, Jacques Brunet, a former concert pianist now musicologist, made a series of recordings of Southeast Asia's traditional music. Starting in Cambodia, the sessions rapidly spread to the neighbouring countries: Laos, Thailand, Burma, Malaysia and Indonesia. Helped by meetings made during previous campaigns, consecutive harvests gradually mapped out the first significant musical cartography of these countries at a time of cultural renewal, which took place between the suspension of artistic activities due to the hardships of the Second World War (or the troubles leading to independence) and the arrival of mass tourism during the mid-seventies. This latter phenomenon contributed to accelerate the evolution of local traditions leading to a notorious change in the musical life of these countries.

Strictly speaking, Jacques Brunet's work was not the first attempt to create a musical encyclopedia of this part of the world (this was done by the German firm BEKA und ODEON in its 1928 recordings), but it was the first to be duly appropriate to its subject, in several ways. First, it drew from the systematic ethnomusicological research conducted by Dutch and Canadian specialists (mainly Jaap Kunst and Colin McPhee); second, it was encouraged by musical institutions devoting themselves to the collection and study of the World musical cultures (such as the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation in Berlin) that were hosting and financing field works; and last but not least, it used recording tools now allowing the local musical activities to be fully documented in their own time frame. The newly acquired independence of Southeast Asian countries provided a favorable addition with the creation of local recording companies starting to publish many disks that were to become precious landmarks for conscientious field researchers.

When the author started making his recordings, only a few easily available records devoted to this part of the world existed (not counting those made by "sound hunters" and other collectors of "ambient sound" - whether these sounds came from a touristic context or another context). There were probably not more than ten genuine "music" records available and most of them were the results of a single attempt with no follow-up. Some of these are shown in a special page.

Some ten years later, the Western public had access to a qualitatively different ensemble encompassing large sections of lengthy works spanning several sides of a 33-RPM LP, a rather extensive collection of the musical treasures of a Javanese palace and a significant musical account of a Balinese local ceremonial tradition.

Furthermore, Jacques Brunet's productions, like some of his fellow ethnomusicologists, distinguished themselves by extended cover notes (where knowledge coming from the best musicological sources of the time merged with information gathered with an acute ear from local musicians), and by a plentiful iconography that took full advantage of the possibilities offered by the unmatched quality of the LP album format."

Additional information here. Also view the discographies according to region, LP collection and recording session.

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TURKEY – TURQUIE Gazeller I – Ottoman-Turkish Vocal Improvisations in 78 RPM Records – Kalan Müsik 19030 (Cassette)

TURKEY – TURQUIE
Gazeller I – Ottoman-Turkish Vocal Improvisations in 78 RPM Records – Kalan Müsik 19030 (Cassette)

This cassette on the Turkish Kalan label presents a choice selection of traditional Gazel vocal improvisations recorded on shellac 78 RPMs between the early 1910s and the 1930s. The Turkish/Ottoman version of Ghazal poetry, which originated in Arabia in the 7th century, was a spiritual and metaphorical art form connected to Sufism that expressed “Divine Love.”

The early 20th century also marked the end of the Ottoman Empire and the advent of Mustapha Kemal Atatürk’s Turkish Republic in 1923 which sought to modernize the country and reform the old order and aesthetics. The burgeoning recording industry initially revived this dying art, but driven by changing tastes and commercialism, Gazel music became increasingly sentimental and about “earthly love.”

Following our post of the Gazeller II cassette, the music on Gazeller I here features great Gezal masters, accompanied by ud lute, violin or ney flute, including Hafiz Kemal (A1, A3, B2), Hafiz Burhan (A2) Hafiz Sadettin Kaynak (A4, A7), A Celal Tokses (A5, A8), Hüseyin Hüsnü Bey (A6), Bursali Hamid Dikses Bey (B1), Hafız Sami Efendi (B3), Hafız Ahmet Bey (B4), Bahriyeli Sehab (B5), Hafız Aşir Efendi (B6), Hafız Yaşar (B7), Mesut Cemil (B8) and Hafız Osman & Mesut Cemil (B9).

Cette cassette sur le label turc Kalan présente une sélection pertinente d'improvisations vocales traditionnelles de Gazel enregistrées sur disques 78 tours entre le début des années 1910 et les années 1930. La version turque/ottomane de la poésie Ghazal, née en Arabie au 7ème siècle, était une forme d'art spirituelle et métaphorique liée au soufisme qui exprimait « l'amour divin ».

Le début du XXe siècle fut également marqué par la fin de l'Empire ottoman et l'avènement de la République turque de Mustapha Kemal Atatürk en 1923 qui s’efforça de moderniser le pays et de réformer l'ancien monde et son esthétique. L'industrie du disque en plein essor relança dans un premier temps cet art mourant, mais poussé par l'évolution des goûts et le mercantilisme, le gazel devint plus sentimental et s’éloigna peu à peu de ses racines religieuses.

Suite à notre post de la cassette Gazeller II, la musique sur Gazeller I présente des grands maîtres du Gezal, accompagnés par un luth ud, un violon ou une flûte ney, notamment Hafiz Kemal A1, A3, B2), Hafiz Burhan (A2) Hafiz Sadettin Kaynak (A4, A7), A Celal Tokses (A5, A8), Hüseyin Hüsnü Bey (A6), Bursali Hamid Dikses Bey (B1), Hafız Sami Efendi (B3), Hafız Ahmet Bey (B4), Bahriyeli Sehab (B5), Hafız Aşir Efendi (B6), Hafız Yaşar (B7), Mesut Cemil (B8) et Hafız Osman & Mesut Cemil (B9).

Further reading:

*The Life and Death of the Turkish Gazel by ethnomusicologist John Morgan O'Connell here

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Our post of the Gazeller Vol. II cassette:

Gazeller II – Ottoman-Turkish Vocal Improvisations in 78 RPM Records here

Photographs below are from Falnama: The Book of Omens by Massumeh Farhad & Serpil Bagci, Thames & Hudson, 2009, and the Istanbul University Library:

Khaybar: The Conquering Palm of Ali, Iran, Safavid period or Turkey, Ottoman period, c. 1580s, Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul:

“At first glance, this composition recalls images of the ‘Hand of Fatima,’ the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter and Imam Ali’s wife. A popular and ubiquitous symbol throughout the Islamic world, it has long been associated with talismanic and healing properties. In the related Falnama text, however, the illustration is identified as ‘Ali’s Khaybar-conquering palm,’ which refers to the Imam’s celebrated conquest of the fortress in 629.”

Ottoman astronomers at work around Taqī al-Dīn (1526-1585) – an Ottoman polymath presumably on the right of the astrolabe here – at the short-lived Istanbul Observatory built in 1577 and destroyed in 1580 under suspicion of impious astrological investigations.

The painting is from Shahinshah-nama (History of the King of Kings), an epic poem by 'Ala ad-Din Mansur-Shirazi, written in honor of Sultan Murad III (reigned 1574-1595), c. 1574-1595:

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