La vina de Balachander

 LA VINA DE S. BALACHANDER

 Prestige  de la musique extra-européenne l'Inde vol. 6

 Disques Espérance, 1978, ESP 165 510

This album was recorded with the help of the Association Française des Amis de l'Orient. This association used to organize lots of concerts during the seventies and the eighties in Paris at the Musée Guimet. Indian artists were the most numerous and some of them started their European career there.
That was not the case for Balachander who was born in 1927 and gave his first concert in 1943. He's a master of the South Indian vina or veena but he started music on the  kanjeera and tabla, then the sitar before discovering the vina.
He plays the raga mayamalavagaula (15th melakarta in the Carnatic system) corresponding to the Hindustani raag bhairavi.
Side B is dedicated to the kriti ''meru samaana'' composed by Tyagaraja in the same raga.
 R. Krishnamurthy joins Balachander on this kriti set to the tala adi.

Text in French only.

 

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Tereza Tarouca

 

 OS MELHORES FADOS DE TEREZA TAROUCA

 RCA, 1978, 098

 Tereza Tarouca (1942-2019) was born Tereza de Jesus Pinto Coelho Telles da Silva but she decided to take her great grand-father's name, Tarouca. She was a cousin of Maria Tereza de Noronha. Born to a musical family in Lisbon she started singing at the age of eleven then began singing fado when she was thirteen. She signed with RCA in 1962.
She always worked with prestigious composers like D. António de Bragança, João de Noronha, Alfredo Marceneiro, Pedro Homem de Mello, Maria Manuel Cid among others. Side A starts with one of her hits Saudade, siléncio e sombra. She was one the great voices of fado.
As the title says this cassette is a compilation and the accompanists are not mentionned.
There is also a LP by the same name with two extra songs.

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António Severino

 

ANTÓNIO SEVERINO

Discosete, 1986, C-379 

A. Severino was a famous fadista from Setubal near Lisbon. He died at the age of 84 this year. Maybe not the most famous here among other great fadistas like A. Rodrigues or Marceneiro he had a long career recording more than 300 songs, not all fados,  most of them dedicated to the sea and sailors. He had no family roots in fado though.
He's accompanied by Jorge Fontes a big name for the portuguese guitar and a small orchestra.

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INDIA II

 

A MUSICAL ANTHOLOGY OF THE ORIENT 

INDIA II

Edited fot the International Music Council by the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation

Bärenreiter Musicaphon, ?,  BM 30 L 2007

This is the second album on India and the seventh one in this anthology with Alain Daniélou as General Editor.
This album is dedicated to the ''music of the dance and theatre of South India'' specifically the Bharata Natyam and only one track on Kathakali.
The Bharata Natyam is danced by women only to the singing and drumming of  several performers. Here the mridangam,the kartals, the flute, the violin and jew's harp are part of the orchestra. Although it's not mentionned I can hear a clarinet on track B2. Bharata Natyam is typical of Tamil country while Kathakali hails from Kerala.
What is quite surprising is that after a succession of different dances with plenty of drumming it is customary to conclude the Bharata Natyam performance with a shlokam where the dancer must follow and mime what's sung in the poem called tevaram on Krishna's love. No drumming but just one singer with his disciple and a shruti box.
Text in English (German and French)
All the albums of this series are mono-recordings.

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Enchanting all the way

 

USTAD VILAYAT KHAN / ENCHANTING ALL THE WAY 

TABLA ZAKIR HUSSAIN

EMI, 1980, ECSD 2857

Ustad Vilayat Khan (1928-2004) was with Ravi Shankar the sitar player the best-known and best-loved sitarist; both had an incredible career although quite different. Here is a site dedicated to his music : https://vilayatkhan.com/vk/
Two  raag are played on this album : mand-bhairav that he created himself and mishra mand which is first a Rajasthan folk melody which he elevates to the rank of classical raga.
He created other new raag like kalavanti or sanjh saravali.
This album is one of the many to his credit.

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DAGAR BROTHERS

DAGAR BROTHERS

KHANSAHIB NASIR MOINUDDIN DAGAR and
KHANSAHIB NASIR AMINUDDIN DAGAR

RAGA - DARBARI KANADA . ADANA
MRIDANG ACCOMPANIMENT . S.V. PATWARDHAN 

Club du Disque Arabe, 1965, EALP . 1291   

This is an album originally made in India for HMV/EMI in 1965; le Club du Disque Arabe (or Artistes Arabes Associés) was a French label based in Paris (125 bd Ménilmontant in the 11th arrondissement) founded in 1972 by Mohamed el Habib Hachlef which was part of the label Pathé Marconi. Of course 95% of the catalogue was made of records from North Africa and the Near and Middle East. But they also had some records from India such as this album which has the same cover and reference number as the original HMV. They just replaced the original stamp by theirs on the back cover.  This label disapearred in 1997.

Now, these two brothers were considered as the kings of dhrupad style. They sing the raag darbari kanada a night raag ''full of majesty and grandeur'' as the text says. Side A is for the alap and side B starts with a dhamar in the same raag followed by the raag adana; adana is also a night raag close enough to darbari kanada but  lighter in spirit and  the note ''ga'' is missing in the ascending scale. Those interested in Hindustani music theory should be happy with this site : https://tanarang.com/raag-index/

The mridang played by master V. Patwardhan is also called pakhawaj. 

The text is in English.

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