lakShaN gIt in HM

Classical Music of North India
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vainika
Posts: 433
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 11:32

Post by vainika »

I've just been listening to a set of lakShaN gIts rendered by Nazar Hussain on the excellent sarangi.info website (http://sarangi.info/nazar), and am curious about the history of these compositions, and their role in comparison to the lakShaNa gItas in Carnatic learning. Your responses would be appreciated!

thanks!

vidya
Posts: 234
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 23:26

Post by vidya »

This lakshan gIta/Lakshana geetam chicken and egg question plagued me for a while after listening to the 'Sapta suran Teen Gram' (Tansen). My current understanding is as follows:

- May be there were lakshana geetas in Hindustani earlier , either as shloka / dhruvapada type ones which also had raga lakshanas. But the ones currently sung, in vogue and in practice are certainly the Bhatkhandian (and post) ones.

- Pt.Bhatkhande during his visit to the South seemed to have discovered the idea of Southern Lakshna geetas(perhaps it was on that eventful day on Dec 17th 1905 in Ettayapuram when two of the finest musical minds ie Subbarama Dikshitar and Bhatkande of the last century met - one of those wannabe fly-in-the wall moments! ) and then went back,collated, collected, sorted raga versions from ustads and fashioned and culled these lakshan gIts out of these. Infact he even records some versions of ragas in his geetas saying such and such a raga existed but is obscure now etc. Most of them have been published in his Kramik Pustak Malika and Lakshan geet sangraha. He also made it part of the institutionalized musiccurriculum.

- I also heard this Nazar Hussein recording and wondered about this compositional form's presence in Pakistan. Turns out that many of these lakshan geets were quite popular with ustads even in Bhatkande's times and no less a person than Bundu Khan of sarangi fame popularized the Bhageshri and Bhupali geets and is said to have liked them a lot. So I think this is how it must have spread to other areas as well and inspired others to come up with lakshan geets of their own.

- Later others like Pt.Ratanjankar also followed suit with lakshana geets. Interestingly the geets on the Sarangi.info site do not seem to be that of Bhatkhande and IIRC the lyrics are credited to a certain Ayub Rooman(?). I compared only the Lalit and Shri raga version with the Lakshan geets of Pt.Bhatkhande and they don't seem to be the same. So people adopted the basic framework of his Lakshana geets and then improvised.
Last edited by vidya on 27 Dec 2008, 11:45, edited 1 time in total.

vainika
Posts: 433
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 11:32

Post by vainika »

Thanks Vidya! So are Pt. Bhatkande's LG-s somewhere on the wwweb?

vidya
Posts: 234
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 23:26

Post by vidya »

Not on the wwweb, but can be bought via the wwweb. (amazon, underscorerecords etc)

Here is some supplemental info on the authorship of the LG's on sarangi.info (via Aftab Datta)
<Begin Quote>
The primary composers of all the tracks are Nazar Hussain and Ghulam Haider Khan.
both musicologist/musicians from Pakistan. Ghulam Haider's father was a famous clarionet player (Sadiq Ali Khan Mando).The lalit track doesnt have an composer attributed to it so I suspect it is a traditional lakshan geet.
<End of Quote>

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