Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 7, 1861.  In 2011, India and the world are celebrating his 150th birth anniversary. The 6th LearnQuest music festival is paying tribute to Tagore on this special occasion.  The festival will present a unique session on confluence of Tagore’s music with Indian Classical Music on April 2, 2011 at Regis College near Boston. Pandit Sandip Ghosh (vocalist and disciple of renowned maestro, Pt. A.Kanan),  Anirban Dasgupta (on sarod, disciple of Pandit Buddhadeb Dasgupta) and  Rabindrasangeet vocalists Sujata Bhattacharya and Sumit Nag will perform in this session. This article briefly explores Rabindranath Tagore’s musical journey in the context of Indian raga music.

Towards the end of his life, Rabindranath had commented that he hoped, even if forgotten by posterity, at least his music would live on. This was a pronouncement of rare clairvoyance from the Poet. Tagore was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913; his collected works run into 18,000 printed pages in Bengali and have been extensively translated into numerous languages. Today, after 150 years of his birth, while his creative work is critically acclaimed by experts, connoisseurs and by the readers of Bengali literature, his music finds a much broader appeal. It has influenced many other art forms like movies, theaters, dance-dramas, other genres of music. ‘Gitabitan’ (Garden of Songs), the collection of his nearly 2500 songs, continues to inspire millions of people in the sub-continent and the world. Rather symbolically, the national anthems of India and Bangladesh epitomize his rich musical legacy.

Rabindranath’s early training in music was deeply influenced by the Bishnupur gharana. He grew up  listening, learning and absorbing the dhrupad and khayal traditions from stalwarts like Bishnu Chakraborty, Jadu Bhatta, Radhika Goswami, Srikantha Singha. His elder brother, Jyotirindranath used to experiment with the traditional dhrupad and khayal compositions and encouraged young Rabi to compose verses to match such raga-based melodies. This was how ‘Rabindrasangeet’ took its early form. Tagore’s early compositions thus were ‘shuddh’, true to the raga and tala systems of dhrupad, dhamar, tappa and sadra. Much like dhrupad, the verses and mood of his songs during this phase were solemn and often dealt with prayer and devotion.

It inevitably evolved into a more complex phase where Rabindranath introduced novelty and improvisations, still within the structure of traditional Hindustani music. The variety and diversity in his poetry compelled him to break away from the norms. This was a phase of intense creativity and experimentation where vast combinations of ragas and talas evolved to create a suitable medium for the varied moods and emotions. His creation transcended beyond mere imitation. In Togore’s own words, “From early childhood, Hindustani music has filled my ears and mind … but, (while composing) mere imitation will result in a shipwreck …”

Let us take the example of Raga Malhar. In his songs devoted to monsoon and rainy season, he extensively used various types of Malhars, namely, Desh-Malhar, Nat-Malhar, Surath-Malhar, Mian-Malhar, Megh-Malhar, Gaud-Malhar, Surdasi Malhar etc. But that was not sufficient, he created over fifty different variations of Malhar alone. Each one of these is unique and distinct in its mood and expression. And he did not stop there, he employed other ragas like Yaman, Kedar, Piloo, Baroyan to express the varied moods of rainy season. Critics have characterized this phase as, “opposition within the constitution” in his process of creativity.

Rabindranath also experimented with tunes from Carnatic music, though to a lesser extent. In all his compositions, his intent was not to create new ragas but to create melodies that did justice to the expressiveness of his poetry.  Though, on some occasions, his music did influence the Ustads of his time. It is said that after listening to a Tagore song, Ustad Alauddin Khan was inspired to compose his favorite ‘Hemant’.

Side-by-side his creative journey, Rabindranath remained a life-long connoisseur, patron and spokesman of music in general and Indian classical music in particular. In 1934, Rabindranath inaugurated the first All-Bengal Music Conference in Calcutta. Ustad Faiyaz Khan and Ustad Alauddin Khan had performed on this occasion. Tagore used to listen to legendary Ustads of his time whenever opportunity arose. A few anecdotes are worthy of mention here.  

It was 1924. Ustad Abdul Karim Khan was singing in Dilip Kumar Ray’s house in Lucknow. In the audience were Rabindranath, Gandhi-ji, Saratchandra Chatterjee and Atulprasad Sen. Hirabai accompanied her father on this occasion. Abdul Karim Khan sang Anand-Bhairavi and a few other compositions. Rabindranath was listening sitting upright, as was his habit, with closed eyes as if in a trance. Let us fast forward to another famous mehfil in the same city of Lucknow in 1935.  This time, Rabindranath listened to Pandit Srikrishna Ratanjankar. Ratanjankar had presented khayal in Chayanat, Jaijawanti and Paraj.  That evening, Rabindranath was running a fever of 102 degrees; that did not deter him from listening till the very end. He truly admired Ratanjankar’s music; however it raised a number of questions on music and aesthetics in his mind and he discussed these till mid-night with leading musicians and critics present there.

It is probably not very well known that Rabindranath had once invited Ustad Faiyaz Khan to perform at his ancestral mansion in Jorasanko, Calcutta. Khansaheb sang dhrupad and khayal in Ramkali, followed by thumri in Bhairavi for the greatest ‘shayer’ (poet) of Hindustan. This meeting seems comparable to the legendary meeting between Goethe and Beethoven. At the end of the performance, Tagore had presented Khansaheb a nazrana of 21 gold ‘mohurs’, a considerable sum in those days.

The third phase of Rabindrasangeet was yet a more complex experiment. Rabindranath loved to spend considerable time in the countryside in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), on his favorite boat on River Padma. Here he found a new source and inspiration for his music. The Bhatiyali songs, the songs by boatmen, the Baul compositions, the Kirtans, the folk tunes  - their simplicity and depth moved him. He assimilated these folk songs in his music and gave these a new meaning. This is where he stands out as a musical genius and can claim to be the first and greatest composer of modern India. In this phase, Hindustani music had dissolved with ease into Bhatiyali and Baul songs; but in effect,  it was neither, it had become his very own music, Rabindrasangeet.

Traditional Hindustani khayal music gives supreme importance to melody, lyrics play a secondary role. It is rather evident in case of instrumental music where melody is the sole medium of expression. Rabindranath’s music bridged this gap. His music reached perfection in combining ‘sur’(melody) and ‘katha’ (poetry) into an inseparable new entity, which became ‘sangeet’ (music).  There is no better way to conclude than quote, Prof. Dhurjatiprasad Mukhopadhyay, “… Rabindranath has made the abstract nature of Hindustani music system concrete, has humanized the melodic content, but took extreme care not to lower it from art to mere artifice. … In this respect, he is comparable to Beethoven; in our country, a composer of his caliber is yet to be born”.

This year’s LearnQuest music festival will provide us a unique opportunity to experience this confluence of Rabindrasangeet and Indian classical music.

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References
1.    Dhurjatiprasad Rachanavali, Volume 3. “Sur O Sangati”. Dey’s Publishing, 1987.
2.    â€˜Rag-raginir Elakay Rabindrasangeet’ by Prafulla Kumar Chakraborty, West Bengal Rajya Sangeet Academy, 2001.
3.    The Lost World of Hindustani Music by Kumar Prasad Mukherji, Penguin Books, 2006.
(For this year's music conference, LearnQuest gratefully acknowledges the support of its corporate sponsors - Infosys Technologies and Sunshine Infrawell Pvt. Ltd. Sunshine is a real estate company based near Delhi, which has introduced in India an innovative and unique concept in housing - Re-configurable Apartments. Please visit www.sunshinehelios.com for more information.)

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