- Ahir Bhairav, Puria
HMV EMI-India ECSD 2601 - P.1979
Side A
A1 Raga Ahir Bhairav - Alap, Jod
Side B
B1 Raga Puria - Gat - Trital
Anand Gopal Bandopadhyay, tabla
Here is another little treat from the extensive collection of His Excellency. I am looking forward to our next meeting, and maybe if he is the right mood he will pick up the surbahar or maybe even the been and strike a few notes to safely envelope us from the hardships of the dusty world. Anyhow here is one of the earliest recording I know of with Budhaditya Mukherjee. Of his total of eight LP's cut, this is his third one and the first on EMI-India, I can post three more records by him later if there is an interest. Hope you enjoy!
You can check his discography here
Budhaditya Mukherjee (1955–) is a Hindustani classical sitar and surbahar player of the Imdadkhani Gharana (school).
read more in the Wikipedia entry about him here
It was in the year 1976. A memorable event indeed. Hailing from the industrial town of Bhilai in Madhya Pradesh, a teenager was found toying with his Sitar with all the efficacies of a Maestro-in-making before a conglomeration of connoisseurs, critics and music-lovers in a major concert at Calcutta. And that was Budhaditya Mukherjee, a student of Engineering — shy, unassuming, looking more like an ascetic than a performing artiste with the glamour of the present day. His second appearance in Calcutta was more astounding, fantastic and sparkling with incredible artistry. He surprised everyone as much with his precocious talent as with his technical fitness and skill. He was immediately greeted as a Sitar-prodigy and acclaimed in no uncertain words that he was a discovery of the age in the domain of Indian Classical Music. Unanimously he was reckoned to be the torch-bearer of the rich cultural heritage of our National Art.
Budhaditya started playing Sitar at the tender age of five under the guidance of his illustrious father Mr. Bimalendu Mukherjee who is an eminent string musician having had his grooming in the style of late Ustad Enayat Khan. He imbibed ‘Gayaki’ style of Kirana School probably from his subsequent association with Pandit Jai Chand Bhatt. But it is Ustad Vilayet Khan, the sitar wizard, who has perhaps influenced him more in the later stages of this young artiste in shaping himself.
Budhaditya has been playing before a cross section of music-lovers stretching from Assam in the East to Gujrat in the West and from Punjab in the North to Karnataka in the South. He has been abroad also. Only a couple of months back he returned from a successful tour in Yugoslavia, Poland, Bulgaria and USSR as a delegate of the Government of India. Everywhere Budhaditya's virtuosity have made his full-house audience responsive. He is now twenty four and forsaking a brilliant career after obtaining first-class- first in Metallurgical Engineering, Budhaditya has opted for music which is his first love.
Budhaditya Mukherjee is now an exclusive artiste of The Gramophone Company of India Limited and for his first album from HMV, he has chosen to play ‘Alaap’ and ‘Jod’ in Raga Ahir-Bhairav on the first side. On the second side he has delineated Raga Puriya with a judicious treatment of ‘Vistar‘, ‘Taans’ and ‘Jhala’. The composition is set to Trital.
Tabla accompaniment of young Ananda Gopal Banerjee is an additional attraction for this album.
unceremoniously snipped from the sleeve notes
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