To commemorate Swami Vivekananda’s birth centenary, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has organised a three-day Dhrupad festival beginning today with the performance of nine artistes at Azad Bhawan.
The festival will feature Ustad F Wasifuddin Dagar, Pandit Nirmalya Dey, Kaberi Kar, Ira Mukherji, Pandit Abhay Narayan Mallick, Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, Pandit Sanjay Kumar Mallick, Pandit Uday Bhawalkar and Ustad H Sayeeduddin Dagar.
Dhrupad is essentially a vocal genre in Hindustani classical music, said to be the oldest still in use in that musical tradition. It’s name is derived from the words dhruva (fixed) and pada (words).
The term may denote both the verse form of the poetry and the style in which it is sung. Abdul Fazl, courtier and chronicler at the court of the Emperor Akbar, defines the dhrupad verse form in his Ain-e-Akbari as ‘four rhyming lines, each of indefinite prosodic length’.
Thematic matter ranges from the religious and spiritual (mostly in praise of Hindu deities) to royal panegyrics, musicology and romance. However, the musical background of dhrupad is commonly through to have a long history, traceable back to the Vedas. The Yugala Shataka of Shri Shribhatta in the Nimbarka Sampradaya, written in 1294 CE, contains lyrics of similar fashion, Swami Haridas (also in the Nimbarka Sampradaya), the guru of Miyan Tansen, was a well known dhrupad singer.
In 1964, French ethnomusicologist Alain Danielou invited Nasir Moinuddin and Nasir Aminuddin Dagar (the senior Dagar Brothers) to perform in Europe.
Their concerts were successful and, upon the untimely demise of Nasir Moinuddin in 1966 his younger brothers Nasir Zahiruddin and Nasir Faiyazuddin continued. The Dagars toured widely and recorded.
Coinciding with growing foreign interest in Indian music, the Dagarvani-revival helped breathe new life into a few other families of dhrupad singers.