THE 1\LDEBtJRGH FtSIIVAL
OF MUSIC AND ----- THE ARTS
13-22 JUNE 1958 The Eleventh ALDEBURGH
FESTIVAL of Music and the Arts 13-22 June 1958
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
THE ARTS COUNCIL OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND THE ENGLISH OPERA GROUP 25 SATURDAY 14 JUNE: INDIAN MUSIC
In the Jubilee Hall at 8.15 pm
presents INDIAN MUSIC AND DANCE
USTAD VILAYAT KHAN sitar NIKHIL GHOSH tabla AYANA DEVA ANGADI tamboura
Dances by SRIMATI RITA
Tonight's programme will be introduced by A YANA DEVA ANGADI, founder of the Asian Music Group, and will include a Raga, a Thumri, a tabla solo and two classical dances.
When we say Indian Music, we are using the word 'Indian' in the pre-Partition sense of the word, meaning the whole sub-Continent. In the dQmain .of the cQmmQnly inherited music and dance of the peQple of India and Pakistan, there is nQ PartitiQn. We can classify Indian music intQ art music and folk music, and even refer to 'occasional' music (harvest, nursery, martial, etc.) as we refer to sacred music and religious music. Only here the relevant word Dharma is mQre extensive than the word 'religion', and includes the metaphysical, ethical, social and economic relations of man as well. Thus this music is both sacred and secular at the same time. All Indian music is based on the same tWQ thousand year .oldRaga system. It has been cQntinually evolving, the determining factor being the sQcial and aesthetic needs .of a dynamic peQple living in a vast, self-sufficient and sheltered country bounded by mountains and oceans, but living often under the impacts of foreign influences. Some of the music is composed, and there have been well known men and women cQmposers. However, imprQvised music forms a larger part and has greater importance. The soloist, vocal .or instrumental, has therefore the combined role of a virtuQso and a cQmposer. In Asia as elsewhere, there are many CQnventiQns observed during the concerts by the SQloists and the audience alike. In India special importance is attached to what is called Sahridayata (literally meaning 'being of one heart'), the active participatiQn of the audience establishing a cQmmunion with the SQloists. The Sitar. Though 'sitar' literally means three wires, the present form of the instrument cQnsists of seven (sometimes six) strings made .of metal, and is played with a wire plectrum. Some sitars have additional sympathetic strings. The bowl of the sitar is either a gourd .or made of SQme resonant wood like jackwood. On the finger bQard, about twenty movable frets .of brass are held tQgether and are easily adjusted tQ suit the different Ragas that are being played. Incidentally, it was the favourite instrument .of the Persian PQet, Hafiz.
35 SATURDAY r4 JUNE: INDIAN MUSIC
USTAD VILAYAT KHAN, who plays the sitar tonight, inherits rich musical traditions from a family of great masters. His father, Ustad Inayat Khan (1894-1938), was by far the greatest sitarist of his time, and left a definite style of sitar playing. It was from him that the young Vilayat received a most rigorous training and acquired his purity of style and intensity of expression. SRI MATI RI TA. A great-grand-niece of the poet Tagore, Srimati Rita is a well-known exponent of all the four principal Dance-Forms of India, having studied them respectively under well known Gurus-(r) Manipuri, under Guru Howbom Atomba Singh and Guru Arambam Singh; (2) Bharatanatyam, under Pandanallur Chokkalingam Pillai; (3) Kathakali, under Guru Karunakar Panikkar; and (4) Kathak, tmder Pandit Stmder Prasad. A YAN A DEV A ANGADI