Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905

From theoretical treatises to songbooks, literature relating to Hindustani music proliferated in nineteenth-century Bengal. With few exceptions, these innovative Bengali works have received scant attention in studies of colonial-era music, which have focused instead on Anglophone scholarship. Bringi...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Williams, R
Format: Journal article
Published: Oxford University Press 2016
_version_ 1826256578531033088
author Williams, R
author_facet Williams, R
author_sort Williams, R
collection OXFORD
description From theoretical treatises to songbooks, literature relating to Hindustani music proliferated in nineteenth-century Bengal. With few exceptions, these innovative Bengali works have received scant attention in studies of colonial-era music, which have focused instead on Anglophone scholarship. Bringing a wider range of vernacular texts into the analysis nuances the landscape of intellectual production, and indicates that nationalist or reformist interests pertained to but one public arena, jostling against several others. This article examines treatises dealing with the theory and history of Hindustani music, demonstrating the journey of Bengali musicology from Persian antecedents to its own system. The field of print production is then diversified further through an analysis of song collections, a major genre that disrupts any notion of a uniform sphere of transmission, reading, and listening. Rather than thinking of nineteenth-century music purely in terms of the colonial relationship, this article foregrounds a wider set of competing cultural and aesthetic considerations.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T18:04:26Z
format Journal article
id oxford-uuid:00f515c0-3be9-494f-a9e8-83dc82043b07
institution University of Oxford
last_indexed 2024-03-06T18:04:26Z
publishDate 2016
publisher Oxford University Press
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:00f515c0-3be9-494f-a9e8-83dc82043b072022-03-26T08:32:14ZMusic, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:00f515c0-3be9-494f-a9e8-83dc82043b07Symplectic Elements at OxfordOxford University Press2016Williams, RFrom theoretical treatises to songbooks, literature relating to Hindustani music proliferated in nineteenth-century Bengal. With few exceptions, these innovative Bengali works have received scant attention in studies of colonial-era music, which have focused instead on Anglophone scholarship. Bringing a wider range of vernacular texts into the analysis nuances the landscape of intellectual production, and indicates that nationalist or reformist interests pertained to but one public arena, jostling against several others. This article examines treatises dealing with the theory and history of Hindustani music, demonstrating the journey of Bengali musicology from Persian antecedents to its own system. The field of print production is then diversified further through an analysis of song collections, a major genre that disrupts any notion of a uniform sphere of transmission, reading, and listening. Rather than thinking of nineteenth-century music purely in terms of the colonial relationship, this article foregrounds a wider set of competing cultural and aesthetic considerations.
spellingShingle Williams, R
Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905
title Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905
title_full Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905
title_fullStr Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905
title_full_unstemmed Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905
title_short Music, lyrics, and the Bengali book: Hindustani musicology in Calcutta, 1818-1905
title_sort music lyrics and the bengali book hindustani musicology in calcutta 1818 1905
work_keys_str_mv AT williamsr musiclyricsandthebengalibookhindustanimusicologyincalcutta18181905