Narendra Bataju • Sitar and Surbahar 1980

Les Sitar et Surbahar de Narandra Bataju
Disques Espérance - ESP 165532 - P.1980



Side A

A1 Raga Bhairagi Bhairau Alâp 18'50
A2 Composition - Chautâla 5'40


Side B

B1 Râga Madhuvanti - Alâp Suivi De 2 Gat Tintâlâ 26'43








Narendra Bataju, born in Katmandu, Nepal 1944

Narendra Bataju is a Surbahar and Sitar player from Nepal now living in Paris. Ravi Shankar was so impressed by his "natural talent, his sense of musical emotion and virtuosity as a sitar player" that he took him as a disciple.

Born in Kathmandu in 1944, and blind from birth, Narendra Bataju early interest in music strated from when he was about eight years. He began learning the sitar with a Master in Kathmandu where he was born. At ten, he sought to improve his knowledge at the Conservatory of Music Lucnow (India), where he studied with the masters Narayan Prassad Shrestra, Yussef Ali Khan and Khan Illias. Ten years later he leaves with a degree in Master and with his first Grand Prix and in 1964 the city of Delhi awarded him a second one.

He then taught his art at a college in Kathmandu, and gave regular concerts for the Nepalese royal family, as well as public concerts and radio broadcast. It was then that he also began teaching classes for many European and American students. In 1972, he decided to come to Europe to teach and moved to Paris where he has been since then, continuing to teach sitar and singing and giving performances throughout Europe. He has also made several records and CDs with his ensemble.

Edited from his website here

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Evening Ragas from Benares - The Living Tradition - rec. Deben Bhattacharya

Evening Ragas from Benares - The Living Tradition

produced and recorded by Deben Bhattacharya in Benares in 1967

Academy Sound & Vision - ALM 4002 - P.1981

Side 1

A1 Raga Puriya Kalyan

Debendra Krishna Chattopadhyay,sitar

Surendra Mohan Mishra, tabla

Side 2

B1 Raga Pilu

Amiya Bhattacharya, surbahar

Narayan Chakravorty, tambura

B2 Raga Darbari

Narayan Chakravorty, vichitra vina

Here is an album produced by Deben Bhattachariya in the eighties of classical music for the stringed instruments Sitar, Surbahar and Vichitra Vina. The recordings are made much earlier some in private gatherings "mehfils" and in the homes of the musicians and like Deben Bhattachariya says in the liner notes you here and there hear: "the sounds of passing travellers and the cries of the vegetable salesman in the street outside combining to bring the atmosphere of India to the listener. As none of the musicians on this record are well known because they never recorded commercially, I highly recommend reading the liner notes (this time in english) as they not only reveal some valuable information on the performers, like that Debendra Krishna Chattopadhyay had his first musical training from his father, a highly respected Dhrupad singer professionally known as Panubabu for instance, but also gives a little glimpse into the philosophy of Deben's way of recording and what he wanted to preserve and transmit beside the well trodden path of commercialism. Hope you enjoy "being there".

Deben Bhattacharya • 1921 - 2001

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Hindustani - A Panorama of North Indian Music

Hindustani - A Panorama of North Indian Music - Sounds of the World

CBS - CBS 63519 P. 1969 (recordings by John Levy)

A1 Surbahar - Rag Kirwani - Chandrashekar Naringrekar

A2 Mirabai Bhajan - Rag Madh - Mohanlal Rayani

A3 Jaltarang - Rag Gunakri - Chintamani Jain

B1 Naubat Shanna'i - Rag Sindhu Bhairavi

B2 Tabla solo - Fayyaz Khan

B3 Sarangi - Raag Maru Bihaag - Sabri Khan

I'll share some more instrumental Hindustani Classical before I move on to the vocal.

I passed by the editorial office of Panchamkauns the other day and as they were all out for lunch, I started to skim through the dimly lit shelfs in a storageroom behind the office when I stumbled upon this absolutely forgotten wax. It was standing there with some Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, a few Balachanders, and generally items that no one seemed to have given a thought about for ages.

As I had never seen it before and as it contained a track that I had never heard by my friend Chandu, the Sitar & Surbahar player who prematurely passed away only a few years ago. I decided to quickly save that and some of the others for posterity and as it turns out, no one at the office has missed them yet. I guess they are all busy writing critiques of newly released CD's anyhow. I will return them of course, but not until I've digitized them and shared them here...

Chandrasekhar "Chandu" Naringrekar 1936 - 2004

Sabri Khan 1927 -

Naqqara & Shahnai - The Royal Gateway Music

Here is the first of the records I lifted off their shelfs ...

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