Saptak: The when and how of those magical notes

With the eagerly-awaited Saptak festival having commenced, danseuse and activist Mallika Sarabhai gives the music a historical perspective.

As Saptak launches its new season, the first without Nandan Mehta, I felt this column should be dedicated to him and the Saptak team for what they have done through their festivals.

I remember when Manju Mehta, then not yet Mehta, came for sitar classes at Darpana and Rupande Shah was still dancing. And as I grew up, I saw the development of Saptak and the way they enhanced music appreciation in this city.

While we appreciate music, we know relatively little about its history in our country. The tabla, the instrument Nandan Mehta played, is a relatively recent instrument.

The earliest references to it are as recent as in the 18th century, to a concert by one Sudhhar Khan of Delhi. Legend, however, places its invention to the 13th century, to Amir Khusrau. Khusrau is believed to have taken the mridangam and split it into two!

Over the years, the tabla rose from being an accompanying instrument to having its own place and form, largely due to the innovations in its sound made by Pandit Kishan Maharaj.

Early Sanskrit references abound in describing the Indian orchestra, the Vadya vrinda. Bharata's natya shastra too mentions the kutapa or orchestra as an integral part of dance and theatre.

Stone friezes in temples dating back 2,000 years also show elaborate orchestras with wind instruments, percussion, cymbals and the veena.

Excavations at Sitabhanga in Madhya Pradesh showed an entire music hall with specific paces for musicians.

During the medieval period, the kutapa was rearranged as the sangita mela and given a place on its own to play classical music, rather than to accompany dance, theatre or ritual.

Suddenly the demands on the musicians became arduous, as they had to interpret classical kritis and ragas. Lesser musicans joined the folk orchestras called nayandi melam or urmi melam where the instruments were hardier, like the nagaswaram and tavil.

In performances where the drum, urmi, predominated, they took the name urmi melam. Soon, the orchestras started playing at temples and became known as karadimelam. In Shiva temples, the nagara dominated.

During Akbar's reign, the nine-member naubat band sat atop gateways and performed orchestral compositions at fixed times during the day and night.

The first music began before sunrise, and the last late at night. It is this tradition that still prevails in Ahmedabad, with the naubatis descendents of players from Ahmed Shah's times. The naubat orchestra became the time keepers of each town.

With the British came influences of Persian, Arabic, English and Scottish music, and of course, the harmonium. As rulers started to travel, Indian versions of foreign tunes started being invented - a practice that our Bollywood composers have fine-tuned to an art.

The Nawabs played a big role in fostering indigenous orchestras and a great role was also played by Ustad Allaudin Khan, guru of Ravi Shanker, Nikhil Bannerjee, Akbar Ali Khan and Sharan Rani.

When he came to Maihar state, he was asked to preside over 150 musicians gathered from across the state. Accompanied by his brother, he started creating new instruments to enhance the quality of the sound.

When Uday Shanker produced his first ballet in the West, he combined, for the first time, classical, folk and tribal instruments, creating an altogether new sound. With the launch of All India Radio (AIR), Ravi Shanker took over the orchestra and new compositions and changed the concept of the Indian orchestra forever.

He retained the Indian character and the quality of Indian sounds in all his compositions, and these remain the hallmark for orchestras in the country even today.

To those of you going to Saptak concerts, I hope this article will help put the performances in their historical contexts.