Sunday 15 October 2017

Krishnarao Shankar Pandit (1893-1989) - A Broadcast from All India Radio (AIR) with Raga Yaman Kalyan, Raga Paraj & Bhairavi Tappa


Here our last post - at least for now - of the great Krishnarao Shankar Pandit. We received these recordings many years ago, if I remember correctly, from the collector VN in UK. Our friend KF made a CD out of them and created a cover. Many thanks to both.



Addition on October 27th 2017
Here a beautiful story about the artist:
In late January 1970, at the concert hall Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata, Panditji’s program was scheduled one early evening. Supravat Da and I went to the concert hall with our tape recorder to record Panditji’s program. Both of us were not familiar with Panditji’s singing, although we knew that he was one of the great singers of Gwalior Gharana. We had an uneasy feeling that the organizers might not allow us to record the program. It exactly happened that way. The organizers bluntly told us that recording was not allowed. Suddenly I saw Panditji on the back stage and I approached him. After initial greetings, I told him that I would like to record his program but I was not successful in receiving permission to do so from the organizers. Panditji was an older dignified person of seventy-eight, very accommodating and very easy to talk to. He immediately got me the permission to record his program.
I learnt that Panditji arrived at four in the afternoon by train from Gwalior and from the Railway station he went to visit Pandit Tarapada Chakraborty who had been hospitalized. This was a news for us. Panditji was living in Gwalior, knew that Tarapada Babu was ill, and we, the people of Kolkata, had absolutely no information about it.
It is impossible to describe Panditji’s singing. It was unique. His style of singing had no similarity with any other singers I knew of and I do not know if any singer could successfully imitate him. I was fascinated by his control and precision. I was simply overwhelmed. Even today, his Shree, Chaturang in Dabari and many other ragas are among my very favorite.
After the program I met Panditji and before I could say anything, he told me to come to his concert at Birla Academy, which was taking place the next morning. The next morning I passed some time with Panditji before the concert and requested him to sing a few morning ragas of my choice. He sang all the ragas I requested except Paraj; for that one, he said the timing was not right.
Panditji had no idea who I was, what my name was but he was kind and generous enough to invite me to his morning concert and kept my request.
Pt. Krishnarao Shankar Pandit was a great singer, a legend and above all a great human being.
In a private concert of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar in New York in 1980, during the intermission, Dagar Saheb, Sheila Dhar and I were talking. I wanted to know Dagar Saheb’s view of Pt. Krishnarao Shankar Pandit. I am always careful not to praise one musician in front of other musicians. I told Dagar Saheb that one vocalist impressed me very much. After he learnt that I was talking about Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, he was surprised at first then asked me, “Chowdhury saab tell me, who can sing like Pandji?” After superlative compliments about Panditji’s music he told me, “ In a concert if he sings whole night, I will also remain there whole night to listen to him.”

from the outstanding YouTube channel by Subrata Chowdhury (may he rest in peace):

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Tawfiq,

I did not comment on your last post because I was giving myself some time to "digest", as you said, Krishnarao's music. Now I find a new post on him... wonderful!, thought I still have not listened to it. I have just downloaded the archive and unzipped it.

I am not sure, but I fear the introduction (die Enleitung) before the first announcement is lacking... Could you confirm this point? Thank you so much...!

: )

Tawfiq said...

You are right, it is missing. I think KF left it out as it is in Hindi. It is by the son of the artist, who himself is a very known singer: L.K. Pandit.

Barbatruco Producciones said...

amazing...running out of space in my hard drive,thank you very much

Kiran said...

Tawfiq saheb - Thanks for sharing Late Subrata Babu's (RIP) wonderful experiences of meeting the legend here.

Think we have a nice primer here for those who are interested in pure Gwalior Music -
Beautiful & rare musical works by a genius of the Gharana, some stories of his life & his social encounters with his admirers.



Anonymous said...

I had not seen the addition til now. A pretty nice one. Thanks for sharing...

: )

boxwalla said...

I did not know Subrata da had passed away. RIP. Is there any biographical information on him?

Abhik Majumdar said...

Has Subrata Choudhury passed away? This is a terrible loss!!