Indian classical music

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Indian classical music

• Technology case study the tawaif and the
  gramophone

Lecturer Katherine Brown Email
k.r.brown_at_leeds.ac.uk Room 2.21
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Todays Lecture

• How technological change enabled the tawaif to
  make the switch from a feudal patronage system to
  modern middle class patronage
• Move to British colonial cities
• Theatre
• Gramophone
• Nur Jehan, Begum Akhtar, Gauhar Jan

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From Lucknow to Calcutta
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British Calcutta
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Wajid Ali Shah

• Tawaif of Lucknow (e.g. Umrao Jaan)
• Wajid Ali Shah, last Nawab (prince) of Lucknow
• Famous poet, musician, dancer, patron
• British annexed Lucknow in 1856, WAS exiled to
  Calcutta suburbs
• Continued lavish patronage of courtesans
• Considered first Hindustani playwright

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Wajid Ali Shah
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Modern Theatre in Calcutta and Bombay

• Traditional Indian theatre goes back 2000 years
  always includes music and dance
• Premodern theatre either in courts or in open
  rural or urban spaces no special spaces
• Arrival of British gt building of proscenium arch
  theatres set aside for drama
• Victorian stage technologies (special effects,
  lighting, fly-in sets, etc.)

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Proscenium-arch theatre

• Large arch at front of stage, creating window
  through which audience views play
• Audience faces stage
• Anything not meant to be seen hidden by the arch

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Modern Theatre in Calcutta and Bombay

• Proscenium theatre modernity
• Suited Prince Alberts idea of rational
  amusement for moral improvement
• All theatres owned by Indian (Parsi) businessmen
• Stage-folk and audience heterogeneous, British
  and Indian, all classes, English and Indian plays
  and actors
• Maintained strong link between music, dance,
  drama Indian and Western music, sometimes mixed.

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Star Theatre, Calcutta (built 1888)
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Women performers in theatre

• Originally female impersonators
• By 1870s, women only acting female parts in
  Calcutta all drawn from courtesan classes
• Strong link between classical music and theatre
  actors singing teachers all gurus
• Courtesans moving into theatre already a move
  towards respectability

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Gramophone Company (HMV)

• British multinational, formed 1898, first Indian
  recording expedition 1902 by Fred Gaisberg
• 1877 Edison invents phonograph
• 1888 Berliner patents gramophone better sound
  recording, more permanent
• Impetus of 1902 Indian recording expedition to
  sell gramophone equipment, not records!

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Gramophone Company (HMV)

• Gramophone itself primarily a symbol of
  modernity, affluence status symbol
• Gramophone Company monopoly in India for 5
  decades, only selling expensive machines this
  made the gramophone an aspirational product for
  the urban elite
• first manifestation of musical mass media

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Gaisbergs 1902 expedition

• Recognition that if you want to sell gramophones
  to different cultures, you also have to sell them
  records of music they like.
• Local Gramophone Company agent Hawd urged
  necessity of recording Indian music.
• Hence 1902 Indian recording expedition. Fred
  Gaisberg lands in Calcutta and records for two
  months.

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Saraswati HMV catalogue
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Recruiting musicians

• Traditional Indian aristocratic patrons who
  already had gramophones - access to traditional
  markets for classical music
• Venues accessible to the local British agent the
  theatres.
• First 1902 recordings of female theatre actresses
  from Classic and Corinthian Theatres

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The Corinthian Theatre

• Built by Richard Roskell Bayne sometime between
  1866 and 1876
• 1870s English plays and British actors
• c.1886 bought by wealthy Parsi entrepreneur
  Jamshedji Framji Madan
• Madan Theatres were commercially successful in
  both stage and later cinema
• Continued showing both English and Indian dramas

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Nur Jehan (1926-2000)

• Pakistans most revered female vocalist also a
  film actress
• Elder sisters started careers in Lahore
• Brought to Calcutta c.1930 by the manager of the
  Corinthian Theatre
• Nur Jehan began her cinema career aged 4
• First husband film editor who first met her at
  the Corinthian had many lovers

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Nur Jehan (1926-2000)
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Begum Akhtar (1914?-1974)

• heroine of the Corinthian theatre
• biographers nightmare
• Born in Faizabad near Lucknow (Akhtari Bai
  Faizabadi), mother a courtesan
• Moved to Calcutta to get the best training
• Was a courtesan at least in her early years
• Acted and sang in films as well as recording
  career
• 1945 married a barrister and briefly stopped
  singing

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Begum Akhtar (1914?-1974)
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Gauhar Jan (c.1875-1930)

• Begum Akhtar inspired by her recordings
• Calcutta tawaif, acknowledged expert in thumri
  and khayal, and Asias first major recording
  artist
• Photography and recording plucked her out of
  obscurity and made her a celebrity

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Gauhar Jan (c.1875-1930)

• Discovered in a mehfil in the home of a
  merchant
• Bridged India and West (she was Eurasian and
  multilingual)
• Comfortable in commercial milieu of the
  Gramophone Company
• But considered not respectable

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Disembodiment of the voice

• Sound recording technology made it possible for
  the voice of a disreputable woman to enter the
  homes of respectable, affluent people as a
  status symbol.
• Severing body from voice enabled GJ to become a
  star despite her background
• Able to hide her background by advertising
  herself as amateur
• Once she had attained star status, she could
  appear in her own right on the public concert
  stage.

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Gauhar Jan (c.1875-1930)
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