December 12, 2012
A Fitting Tribute to Mr. Ravi Shankar, India's Prolific Sitarist
by Allan Kozinn@www.nytimes.com(12-12-12)
Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitarist as good as composer whose collaborations with Western exemplary musicians as good as stone stars helped encourage the worldwide appreciation of India's normal music, died Tuesday in the sanatorium near his home in Southern California. He was 92.
Mr. Shankar had suffered from tip respiratory as good as heart ailments in the final year as good as underwent heart-valve replacement operation final Thursday, his family pronounced in the statement.
Mr. Shankar, the soft-spoken, eloquent male whose opening character embodied the virtuosity which transcended low-pitched languages, was trained in both Eastern as good as Western low-pitched traditions. Although Western audiences were mostly confounded by the odd sounds as good as shapes of the instruments when he began furloughed in Europe as good as the United States in the early 1950s, Mr. Shankar as good as his garb gradually built the large following for Indian music.
His instrument, the sitar, has the tiny dull physique as good as the prolonged neck with the resonating gourd during the top. It has 6 tune strings as good as twenty-five sensitive strings (which have been not played though resonate openly as the alternative strings have been plucked). Sitar performances have been partly improvised, though the improvisations have been strictly governed by the repertory of ragas (melodic patterns representing specific moods, times of day, seasons of the year or events) as good as talas (intricate rhythmic patterns) which date behind multiform millenniums.
Mr. Shankar's quest for the Western assembly was helped in 1! 965 when George Harrison of the Beatles began to investigate the sitar with him. But Harrison was not the initial Western musician to find Mr. Shankar's guidance. In 1952 he met as good as began performing with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, with whom he made 3 recordings for EMI: "West Meets East" (1967), "West Meets East, Vol. 2" (1968) as good as "Improvisations: East Meets West" (1977).
Mr. Shankar loved to mix the song of opposite cultures. He collaborated with the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal as good as the jazz saxophonist as good as composer John Coltrane, who had turn fascinated with Indian song as good as philosophy in the early '60s. Coltrane met with Mr. Shankar multiform times from 1964 to 1966 to learn the basis of ragas, talas as good as Indian improvisation techniques. Coltrane named his son Ravi after Mr. Shankar.
Mr. Shankar additionally collaborated with multiform prominent Japanese musicians Hozan Yamamoto, the shakuhachi player, as good as Susumu Miyashita, the koto player upon "East Greets East," the 1978 recording in which Indian as good as Japanese influences intermingled.
In addition to his visit tours as the sitarist Mr. Shankar was the prolific composer of movie song (including the measure for Richard Attenborough's "Gandhi" in 1982), ballets, electronic functions as good as concertos for sitar as good as Western orchestras.
In 1988 his seven-movement "Swar Milan" was achieved during the Palace of Culture in Moscow by an garb of 140 musicians, together with the Russian Folk Ensemble, members of the Moscow Philharmonic as good as the Ministry of Culture Chorus, as good as Mr. Shankar's own group of Indian musicians. And in 1990 he collaborated with the Minimalist composer Philip Glass who had worked as his partner upon the movie measure for "Chappaqua" in the late 1960s upon "Passages," the recording of functions he as good as Mr. Glass composed for any other.
"I have always had an instinct for doing new things," Mr. Shankar pronounced in 1985. "! Call it good or bad, we love to experiment."
Ravi Shankar, whose grave name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was innate upon Apr 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to the family of musicians as good as dancers. His older hermit Uday directed the furloughed Indian dance troupe, which Ravi assimilated when he was 10. Within five years he had turn the single of the company's star soloists. He additionally detected which he had the trickery with the sitar as good as the sarod, another stringed instrument, as good as the flute as good as the tabla, an Indian drum.
The idea of assisting Western listeners appreciate the intricacies of Indian song occurred to him during his years as the dancer.
"My hermit had the residence in Paris," he removed in the single interview. "To it came many Western exemplary musicians. These musicians all made the same point: 'Indian music,' they said, 'is beautiful when we listen to it with the dancers. On the own it is repetitious as good as monotonous.' They talked as if Indian song were an ethnic phenomenon, usually another museum piece. Even when they were being decent as good as kind, we was furious. And during the same time contemptible for them. Indian song was so abounding as good as varied as good as deep. These people hadn't penetrated even the outer skin."
Mr. Shankar soon found, however, which as the young, educated musician he had not penetrated really deeply either. In 1936 an Indian justice musician, Allaudin Khan, assimilated the company for the year as good as set Mr. Shankar upon the opposite path.
"He was the initial person frank sufficient to discuss it me which we had talent though which we was wasting it which we was starting nowhere, doing nothing," Mr. Shankar said. "Everyone else was full of praise, though he killed my ego as good as made me humble."
When Mr. Shankar asked Mr. Khan to learn him, he was told which he could learn to fool around the sitar usually after he motionless to give up the secular life he was heading as! good as persevere himself fully to his studies. In 1937 Mr. Shankar gave up dancing, sold his Western garments as good as returned to India to turn the musician.
"I surrendered myself to the aged way," he said, "and let me discuss it you, it was difficult for me to go from places similar to New York as good as Chicago to the remote village full of mosquitoes, bedbugs, lizards as good as snakes, with frogs croaking all night. we was usually similar to the Western immature man. But we overcame all that."
After study with Mr. Khan for 7 years as good as marrying his daughter, Annapurna, additionally the sitarist, Mr. Shankar began his performing career in India. In the 1940s he started bringing Eastern as good as Western currents together in ballet scores as good as incidental song for films, together with Satyajit Ray's "Apu" trilogy, in the late 1950s. In 1949 he was appointed song director of All India Radio. There he formed the National Orchestra, an garb of both Indian as good as Western exemplary instruments.
Mr. Shankar became increasingly meddlesome in furloughed outward India in the early 1950s. His appetite was whetted further when he undertook the debate of the Soviet Union in 1954 as good as was invited to perform in London as good as New York. But it wasn't until 1956 which he began spending prolonged durations outward India. That year, he left his in front of during All India Radio as good as undertook tours of Europe as good as the United States.
Through his recitals, as good as recordings upon the Columbia as good as World Pacific labels, Mr. Shankar built the Western following for the sitar. Interest in the instrument exploded in 1965, when Harrison encountered the sitar upon the set of "Help!," the Beatles' second fi! lm. Intr igued by the instrument's complexity, he schooled the basis as good as used it upon the Beatles recording, "Norwegian Wood," which year.
The Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Byrds as good as alternative stone groups quickly followed suit, nonetheless couple of went as distant as Harrison, who available multiform songs which appeared upon Beatles albums with Indian musicians, rsther than than his band mates. By the summer of 1967 the sitar was in vogue in the stone world.
At initial Mr. Shankar reveled in the attention his tie with renouned enlightenment brought him, as good as he achieved for outrageous audiences during the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 as good as during Woodstock in 1969. He additionally performed, with the tabla specialist Alla Rakha as good as the sarod player Ali Akbar Khan, during an all-star concert during Madison Square Garden in 1971 which Harrison organized to help Mr. Shankar lift income for the victims of political shake in Bangladesh.
Mr. Shankar eventually came to regard his appearance in stone festivals as the mistake. Looking behind during which era, he pronounced he deplored the have use of of his music, which has the roots in an really aged devout tradition, as the backdrop for drug taking.
"On the single hand," he pronounced in the 1985 interview, "I was lucky to have been there during the time when multitude was changing. And nonetheless much of the flower child movement seemed superficial, there was additionally the lot of sincerity in it, as good as the extensive amount of energy. What uneasy me, though, was the have use of of drug as good as the mixing of drug with the music. And we was hurt by the idea which the exemplary song was treated as the breakthrough something which is really common in Western countries.
"People would come to my concerts stoned, as good as they would lay in the assembly celebration Coke as good as creation out with their girlfriends. we found it really humiliating, as good as there were! many ti mes we picked up my sitar as good as walked away.
"I tried to have the immature people lay scrupulously as good as listen. we assured them which if they longed for to be high, we could have them feel high by the music, without drugs, if they'd usually give me the chance. It was the terrible knowledge during the time.
"But we know, many of those immature people still come to the concerts. They have matured, they have been free from drugs, as good as they have the improved attitude. And this creates me happy which we went by all that. we have come full circle."
He maintained his loyalty as good as operative attribute with Harrison, who released the recording of the 1972 opening by Mr. Shankar upon the Beatles' Apple tag as good as constructed the recording in the some-more renouned character short, bright-edged songs with vocals, rsther than than expanded instrumental improvisations by Shankar Family as good as Friends (who enclosed Harrison, listed in the credits as Hari Georgeson, as good as the bassist Klaus Voorman, the pianist Nicky Hopkins, the organist Billy Preston as good as the flutist Tom Scott) upon his own Dark Horse tag in 1974. That year, Mr. Shankar toured the United States with Harrison. They final worked together in 1997, when Harrison constructed Mr. Shankar's "Chants of India" CD for EMI.
Mr. Shankar one after another to be regarded in the West as the many eloquent orator for his country's music. But his popularity abroad as good as his experiments with Western low-pitched sounds as good as styles drew criticism among traditionalists in India.
"In India we have been called the destroyer," he pronounced in 1981. "But which is usually since they churned my identity as the performer as good as as the composer. As the composer we have tried everything, even electronic song as good as avant-garde. But as the performer we am, believe me, getting some-more exemplary as good as some-more orthodox, jealously safeguarding the birthright which we have lear! ned."
Mr. Shankar was the part of of the Rajya Sabha, the tip residence of the Indian Parliament, from 1986 to 1992.He taught during length in the United States. In the late 1960s he founded the propagandize of Indian music, the Kinnara School, in Los Angeles. He was the visiting professor during City College in New York in 1967. Recordings of his City College lectures were the basis for "Learning Indian Music," the set of cassettes which insist the basis of the style. Mr. Shankar was the theme of the documentary film, "Raga: A Journey Into the Soul of India," in 1971, as good as published dual autobiographies: "My Life, My Music" in 1969 as good as "Raga Mala" in 1997.
In 2010 the Ravi Shankar Foundation started the jot down tag using the variation of the name of his collaboration with Menuhin, East Meets West Music, which began by reissuing the little of his ancestral recordings as good as films, together with "Raga." Mr. Shankar's initial marriage, to Annapurna Devi, ended in the late 1960s. They had the son, Shubhendra Shankar, who died in 1992. He additionally had prolonged relationships with Kamala Shastri, the dancer; as good as Sue Jones, the concert producer, with whom he had the daughter, the thespian Norah Jones, in 1979; as good as Sukanya Rajan, whom he married in 1989. Mr. Shankar as good as Ms. Rajan had the daughter, the sitar specialist Anoushka Shankar, in 1981. He is survived by his mother as good as dual daughters as good as 3 grandchildren as good as 4 great-grandchildren.
"If I've achieved anything in these past 30 years," Mr. Shankar pronounced in the 1985 interview, "it's which we have been able to open the door to the song in the West. we enjoy saying alternative Indian musicians aged as good as immature entrance to Europe as good as America as good as carrying the little success. I'm happy to have contributed to that.
"Of march right away there is the whole new generation out there, so we have to start all over again. To the grade ! their se ductiveness in India has been kindled by 'Gandhi,' 'Passage to India' as good as 'The Jewel in the Crown.' What we have to do right away is communicate to them an recognition of the richness as good as diversity of the culture."
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