vishmadev chatterjee

It was sometime around 1973 or 74, yes, that long back- an all-night concert, music conference as they were called, at Rabindra Sadan in Calcutta. In the middle of the night a singer I had never heard of had started singing as I was making my way to my seat. It was spell-binding music, the most incredible taankari from the word go. He was different and very very good. After bihag he started basant and took the harmonium himself which caused quite a sensation amongst the audience. After this concert I had to find out everything I could about this artist- Vishmadev Chatterjee. From what I had understood, he was a the great young genius of vocal music in Bengal but had had mental problems and had spent many years at the Aurbindo ashram in Pondicherry never fulfilling his potential. The recently re-released 78rpm recordings of his I think are just astonishing. Vishvamadev’s son Jayant is keeping the memory of his father alive at vishmadev.org. He was very kind to send me the lyrics to this thumri that I had some trouble deciphering some of the words of.  Here is what he said about the meaning of  “Man Bahannia” – (along with the full text I might as well send too

>> Mon bhaabania tirchhi najaria
>> Salone saiyna murli bajaai
>> Daar dinh mo pe kaachu jaadu
>> soutan ke sang nit piya jaage
>> kaahu ki saath kaalu ki baat na maane
>> 'Aishpiya' piya se jaaye kaho
>>
>> The word refers to Lord Krishna- an imaginable figure. the literal
>> meaning-mon means mind,bhaabania means imaginable.               My friend Jyoti Pande had this to say about the meaning:

bhaavan[man]=one who pleases me.

By the way, the composer of this thumri is “Aish piya”. If anyone knows who that was, please let me know. Another extraordinary thing about these 78rpm recordings of Vishmadev is that he is obviously playing the harmonium himself and thus rather than the usual delay in what is played by the harmonium player on these recordings it is exactly in sync with the singer. I have never heard that before on commercial recordings!  Vishmadev was also a mentor of Pt. Jasraj in his early days in Calcutta.  I believe he composed the music for many of Ahktaribai’s (Begum Ahktar) early 78 recordings and perhaps there was also a romantic link between them.  Here is the link to the recording: http://www.mediafire.com/?dd1zyidm3zj and here is another http://www.mediafire.com/?ryojnyjtwjz
Here is a good example of the harmonium accompaniment that I had talked about earlier. It is more like a duet between his voice and the harmonium (played by him)! He was famous as a harmonium player too and made several 78rpm records of just his harmonium playing. http://www.mediafire.com/?kl5dtzkzjzz