New Delhi (India), June 25: Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra, undoubtedly one of many biggest classical musician India has ever produced, must be acknowledged for creating an instrument that’s being performed just like the sarod and has the tonal richness of a veena. This veena was named as “Mohanveena” in All India Radio throughout mid-1948. Since then, this parampara of Mohanveena is being continued even as we speak, although not on an in depth giant scale however very diligently and frequently throughout the globe.
When you google ‘mohan veena’, majority of the pages will lead you, in by hook or by crook, to one of many best-known slide guitar gamers on this planet, who made substantial modifications to the variant of the slide guitar that was prevalent in Hindustani music (its most well-known exponent being Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra) and known as it ‘mohan veena’, derived from his center title. He received the Grammy in 1994; since then, this modified slide guitar has come below international focus, posing a direct risk to one of many best musical lineages of India. This shameful act of naming a self-created instrument with an current conventional one is repeatedly damaging the 76-year-old custom which is dealing with a grave risk from its slide guitar namesake.
Nonetheless, for those who ignore some high outcomes of the Google search one can find point out of Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra, who’s considered one of many biggest sarod gamers of all time. However he had one other, lesser identified, id. He was an inventor, who conceptualized three new devices: Dilbahar (in 1956), Nabadeepa (in 1967) and, his most extensively recorded, Mohanveena. This Mohanveena preceded its slide guitar namesake by a minimum of 4 many years. There was common All India Radio broadcasts of Maitra’s recitals on this instrument and a rendition of Darbari was additionally launched by HMV, and but, one should wade by means of a number of hyperlinks of the modified slide guitar to discover a hyperlink between the Mohanveena and its authentic inventor.
Maitra (1917 – 1981) lived at a time when Hindustani musicians didn’t concern themselves with patents and PR outfits. And definitely not Maitra, who was a zamindar from Rajshahi (now in Bangladesh) and cared little about publicity. He was one of many best Sarod, Sitar, Surbahar, Rabab and Sursingar participant, appreciated and beloved by Baba Allauddin Khan, a legendary music maestro of the twentieth century. It was in 1943, when the younger sarod participant Maitra performed a Jugalbandi in Sursingar with Ustad Sadiq Ali Khan on Veena at a personal live performance in Lucknow which was attended by many nice musicians of that point. Publish the live performance Maitra felt the need of a 3-in-1 instrument which might have the resonance of the Sursingar, tonal high quality of a Veena whereas it can ship the sweetness in addition to quicker ‘bol-bani’ taking part in functionality to that of a Sarod. Briefly, it could be like a bridge instrument between Sarod & Sursingar in order that the sarod gamers don’t face problem in taking part in a Sursingar like instrument. It was required to imbibe the ‘Dhrupad-aang’ ‘Veen-baaj’ for the sarod gamers – which was virtually unattainable in Sarod. After some years of experimentation, in 1948, he got here up with a design of an instrument which seems to be like an amalgamation of the Sursingar & Sarod.
Within the new instrument the essence of Veena, Sursingar & Sarod was integrated. Amazed by its design & sound high quality, Thakur Jaidev Singh, the-then Chief Producer of All India Radio named the instrument as “Mohanveena” after the title of Pt. Radhika Mohan Maitra in 1948. He additionally recorded an interview of Pt. Maitra together with a recital in AIR on 18th June, 1948. Pt. Maitra performed 22 Nationwide Packages, executed quite a few Akashvani recordings and carried out in numerous live shows on this instrument. On this instrument the goat pores and skin of the sarod was changed by wooden and the massive soundbox of Sursingar is minimised by some extent. The bridge was flattened and one smaller bridge was added just like the Surbahar for sympathetic strings. Doordarshan made a documentary on this heritage instrument throughout Nineties, which was broadcasted a number of instances in Nationwide community named – “Mohanveena – a Genesis” until early 2000s.
Pt. Maitra educated a number of of his college students in Mohanveena, like Nrisingha Mukhopadhyay, Hariballav Das, Pranab Naha, Somjit Dasgupta, John Barlow and so on. Out of them Somjit Dasgupta preserves all of the devices of Pt. Maitra together with his Mohanveenas. He has showcased the Mohanveena a number of instances internationally and executed a number of symposiums in collaborations with Govt of India, Germany, Britain & Spain over the past 40 years together with lecture-demonstrations at Sangeet Natak Academi, Dhrupad Mahotsav, and so on. German Authorities has made a documentary in 2012 named “Sarodiyo Bin” on the making of this Mohanveena. At present a number of of Pt. Maitra’s grand disciples and nice disciples are taking part in the instrument internationally like Kirat Singh Bains, Bhabani Shankar Dasgupta, Usnish Basu, Dipayan Bairagi, Shruti De, Joydeep Mukherjee and so on and so on, together with efficiency on the prestigious G20 summit.
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