Dhrupad recital
Break from knitting. Already! Found out at the last minute about a Dhrupad concert yesterday near Columbia University by Ustad Wasifuddin Dagar. I don’t understand Dhrupad very well, and am usually much more comfortable with Khyal. The style of taans (the way the chords are exercised as well as the use of the bol-taans) takes a long time to get used to.
All the Dagars with their similar-sounding names have blended long ago in my imagination and I was expecting a venerable old man, and was quite surprised to hear the announcer introduce the musician as "born in 1969". (She also told a very cheesy story about how she saw him rush into the house as a little kid with cricket bat in hand, but never mind that).
This is only the second live
Dhrupad recital I have been to, and Wasifuddin Dagar was great. He performed raga Jaijaiwanti, then Kedar, a small piece that I couldn’t identify, and ended with a beautiful Bhaityar poem. I had vaguely known that Dhrupad alaaps are longer than Khyal ones, but got to experience the full joy of it yesterday. The Jaijaiwanti was superb; about 20 minutes of the alaap and he brought out all its playful, cajoling style. I kept thinking of how different it was from Bhimsen Joshi’s "jhana nana nana payal baje" which I also like, but the alaap without any percussion accompaniment sounds so much better. And Dagar has this gravelly, raspy voice that I really liked.
The Kedar was less imaginative, I thought, but the Bhatiyar at the end was superb. First time I’ve heard a concert end with a morning raga (that is, an evening concert, of course the Sawai Gandharva ones in Pune are different!) , but it didn’t sound so odd. All the pieces were celebrations of Shiva, and the last Bhatiyar piece was a bhajan, I think. Dagar described Shiva as central to Dhrupad singing since "he was the beginning and the end". The unidentified one was a Tandav, so the noisiest of the lot and the one that I understood least, and it was mostly invocations of different names of Shiva. I also haven’t heard the pakhawaj sound in a long time; much less sharp than the tabla. the player was very good.
What I found great about Wasifuddin Dagar was how relaxed he appeared. It was like a small mehfil, except that we sat on chairs, which was most uncomfortable, but what can you do. Still, the audience was very well behaved and didn’t burst into claps everytime a rhythm cycle ended. That is the bane of most Khyal performances nowadays. All in all, a good evening. The Jaijaiwanti alaap will play in my head for a long time, and I’m scouting around for some Dhrupad CDs. Need to listen to some Gundecha brothers, too. (And I did knit several rounds of the sock too, but more on that later.)