In our plan to add profiles of composers,
musicians (vocalists & instrumentalists) to the Music & Dance Section
in Indian Heritage, we started collecting information from various sources
- books, magazines, interviews, or provided by the artiste, his/her family,
etc. When we got a chance to speak to Mr.N.Rajagopalan, who has done the
phenomenal work of compling the profiles of composers, musicians and musicologists
very painstakingly and very much in depth, we approached him to present
material from his works - The Garland, Another Garland, Yet Another Garland
and The Fragrant Garland. He kindly consented and here we are providing,
but a very miniscule portion of his phenomenal work. We will continue to
add to our list.
In the words of Mr.N.Rajagopalan
"There are books on the theory of
music. There are biographies of some individual composers and musicians..........The
'Who's Who' of musicians has but a limited coverage, scope and content.
Thus there is no compilation of biographies in English giving details of
past and present composers, musicians and musicologists for universal reference
and circulation. Hence I took up the arduous task of collecting and collating
the biographies of all from libraries, newspapers, magazines and books
and by contacting many artistes in person and by post. My work, analogous
to that of a pearl-diver who gathers the oysters and not make them, has
gone on like that of a dedicated ant prior to the onset of monsoon. Mine
has not been the role of a critic. Focus is on the man, the God's creation
and not on the creations of man though they figure conspicuously."
The photographs courtesy:
Inreco, Gitaa Cassettes |
