GODDESS: DEVOTIONAL SONGS FROM NORTH INDIA
Premkumar Mallik, Prashant, Priyanka & Nishant Mallik
Price: £13.98 inc. VAT (£11.90 ex. VAT)
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Release Date: 18-07-2007
Label: Celestial Harmonies
Catalog Number: 13267-2
Barcode: 13711326727
Musical Style: World
Track Listing:
| Disc 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full Moon performed by G.S. Sachdev from Full Moon (17037-2) [05:25] | 5 | Jaya jaya jaya Durge performed by Pt. Premkumar Mallik, Ravishanka Upadhyaya and Rashmi Mallik previously unissued [11:53] |
| 2 | Hamari araja suno performed by Priyanka, Pt. Premkumar, Prashant and Nishant Mallik previously unissued [14:59] | 6 | Arti Bells of the Durga Temple in Varanasi previously unissued [10:03] |
| 3 | Dhun performed by Krishna Chakravarty from Ananda (17046-2) [09:48] | 7 | Awakening Devi Durga performed by Aparna Chakravarty previously unissued [04:14] |
| 4 | Chautal performed by Pt. Ramji Upadhyaya and Ravishanka Upadhyaya previously unissued [10:07] | 8 | Maitreya by David Parsons from Maitreya: The Future Buddha (13214-2) [11:59] |
Description:
In no other living religious tradition of the world is the veneration of goddesses - or rather, different aspects of the mother goddess - as important as in India. Since its earliest beginning, a major part of the Indian pantheon consists of females who play a special role in transmitting values which cannot be reciprocated by their male counterparts, reaching from graceful and nourishing aspects to the darker and more dangerous realms of the human psyche. The Mallik family - founded by the saintly singers Rashakrishna and Kartaram in the second half of the 18th century - has an unbroken history of venerating the mother goddess in all her different aspects. The songs featured on this CD - examples of a vast body of compositions transmitted in the family - provide ample proof of this long-lasting tradition.
The collection of songs on this CD is centered on Durga, the most venerated goddess in the Hindu Pantheon. She is regarded as the Shakti, the essence and counterpart of all the male divinities. When the buffalo demon Mahisasura threatened to destroy the world, Durga was born from the fire emanating from the mouths of the gods. Due to her slaying of the demon which earned her the title of Mahisasuramardani, she is regarded as the saviour of the universe. All other aspects of the primeval mother goddess are born from her. Usually she is represented surrounded by Karttikeya, the god of war, Ganesha, the lord over all obstacles, Saraswati, the goddess of music and learning, and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. Her festival, the Durga Puja, is celebrated all over India for nine days during autumn in the month of Ashvin.
This recording, and Goddess: Divine Energy (13266-2) were inspired by and produced for GODDESS: divine energy - A major exhibition exploring the myriad imaginative expressions of divine female power in the art of India and the Himalayas at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney (13 October 2006 - January 2007) in cooperation with Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), Berlin Germany.
Biography:
The Mallik family’s musical history starts with the two brothers Radhakrishna and Kartaram who arrived at the court of Darbhanga in what is nowadays Northern Bihar, close to the Nepalese border, around 1775. The Mallik’s, one of only two families who have managed to keep alive dhrupad, the most ancient and austere style of North Indian music, are famous for their unique, very rhythmically accentuated style of dhrupad singing and their rich repertory of compositions, including rags which are sung exclusively by their own family.
They have toured Europe and the United States and thanks to a new generation of curious listeners and the growing interest of contemporary composers who were fascinated by the subtleties of intonation, dhrupad came back into the concert halls. Their particular skills have made the family famous among Western scholars and lovers of North Indian vocal music. Not wanting to distinguish between 'higher' and 'lower' styles, as they did not want to differentiate between richer and poorer patrons of their art, they performed with equal willingness and grace in the biggest concert halls and in the most modest temple or private house when they felt their music was received with love, singing dhrupad and all the other styles of North Indian music - khyal, tarana, thumri and bhajan, the musical forms you can hear on this CD - with equal competence and ease.
Premkumar, the youngest son, teaches vocal music at the University of Allahabad. Prem, the first part of his name, means 'love'; Kumar is a title given to a person of noble descent.
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