Private archives, for your listening pleasure
Malini Nair | February 19, 2011
Want to hear that rare vintage recording of legendary vocalist Kesarbai
Kerkar at a small mehfil? Or do a comparative study of how the big
ustads treated Bhairavi? A few dedicated archivists are willing to share
their personal treasure troves with ordinary music lovers.
When MS Subbulakshmi passed away seven years ago, daughter and
accompanist Radha Vishwanathan was left 200 hours of private recordings
of the great singer. The priceless spools were decaying fast and would
have been lost to music lovers if she had not handed them over to
connoisseur and archivist RT Chari. The privately recorded music, which
few connoisseurs ever got to hear, now lies restored and digitised for
everyone's listening pleasure at the TAG archives at the Music Academy
in Chennai.
In an innocent age long gone, when copyright was an alien word, you
often saw several recording devices artlessly parked on the concert
stage by music lovers, hoping to capture the fleeting experience for
posterity. Unlike commercial albums, your recordings allowed you to
re-live hours of an elaborate raga exposition. And no one really minded,
least of all the ustad reveling in the wah-wahs.
Across the country, hundreds of music lovers have priceless, private
recordings of public and intimate concerts of great masters.
They can either battle bureaucratic impassivity and offer them to
messily managed government archives or donate them to connoisseurs for
whom archiving is a work of passion. Here are the stories of some of
these archivists who have been quietly at work, ensuring that those
voices can be heard by more than just a privileged few.
Samvaad, Mumbai
Kumar Gandharva's disciple Satyasheel Deshpande has scoured the length
and width of the country to put together his exclusive collection of
private recordings at his archive in Walkeshwar, Mumbai. The singer says
that this treasure of 2,000 audio clips is open to scholars and music
lovers.
The seeds of the idea for the archive were sown by both his father,
musicologist Vamanrao Deshpande, and his legendary guru.
"Kumarji insisted that we listen to every singer, study every gharana,
compare music. My collections date back to the mid- '50s and the venture
was funded by the Ford Foundation. I archived the music of not only
icons like Kesarbai Kerkar but also the lesser known masters who simply
did not get the limelight they deserved - Ramashray Jha, Saratchandra
Arolkar for instance," says Deshpande.
Samvaad is not just a collection of listening booths or a databank. If
you are a music lover in search of, say, compositions sung in various
dialects or want to see how different masters used rhythm differently,
the archive offers experts to help you find answers.
Parrikar.org
For lovers of classical music, this very popular and erudite site offers
easy access to not just a large body of recordings but also comparative
analysis of the raga tradition.
California-based photographer and music expert Rajan Parrikar believes
that rare and unpublished recordings are civilisational treasures that
can be no individual's fiefdom.
"A large body of mehfil recordings lies out of public earshot, locked
away in the vaults of private collectors or mothballed in the warrens of
the Indian government bureaucracy, unavailable to the common rasika.
Even in the happy instance when a collector is willing to part with his
kitty there attends the familiar logjam: copyright and related legalese
are a fact of contemporary life," Parikkar says, explaining his venture
on his site, which features many live performances.
Parrikar says that has gone beyond just collating music on the net,
digitising it, and posting it on the internet. "My major focus was on
exposition of ragas - to the extent that it is possible to expound on
them using the written word - at a level that is deep and comprehensive.
By both luck and historical accident - the coming of internet, the
availability of desktop streaming, and my being at the right time and
the right place - I was the first to marshal it all together. To my
knowledge there is nothing like it on the web," says the music curator.
This online venture is exhaustive. You could pick a favourite raga and
with Parrikar's expertise see how exponents have treated it differently.
More than a listening, parrikar.org is a learning experience.
TAG Archives, Chennai
Over the last 30 years, engineer and entrepreneur RT Chari has been
collecting private recordings of Carnatic concerts, notching up a
whopping 6,000 hours of music and 140 artistes. The oldest is a 1952 MS
Subbulakshmi recording. "I have inherited music collected by my father
and grandfather and I want to make sure the future generations get to
listen to this exclusive music too," says Chari, who, in conjunction
with the Music Academy, set up the TAG archives. In this digitised
library, you can trace any raga, composition, or artist in 10 seconds.
Apart from Radha Vishwananthan, several ordinary music lovers chipped in
with their collection. Understandably, they were anxious about the
commercial exploitation of their music. In the age of internet and easy
downloads, copyright issues have gone into a blurry zone. But Chari says
he convinced them by first pooling his own collection. "I would send
sound engineers to their homes to convert the spools using a recording
device, and give them the first copy. I wasn't doing this for money but
because future generations of these collectors may not know the value of
what they have in their homes, " says Chari.
TAG is in turn also offering 1, 000 hours of archived material featuring
the great sangeetha kalanidhis to music colleges so that students can
listen to voices like Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer and ML Vasanthakumari.
The Music Academy itself is set to digitise and another 6, 000 hours of
its own recorded concerts and further boost this collection. Add to that
a fresh offering of 6, 000 hours of ageing music from businessman and
rasika Narayanan Chettiar, and TAG could be the final destination for
all lovers of vintage Carnatic music.
http://www.timescrest.com/culture/private-archives-for-your-listening-pleasure-4840
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