From Satyajit Ray's note to the music release of Jalsaghar, The Music Room, 1958:
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After the box office failure of my second film Aparajito (The Unvanquished), I was a little unsure as to what kind of film I should make next. After some deliberation, I decided on a film featuring singing and dancing - a formula which usually worked with the Indian audience. I chose a popular short story – Jalsaghar – about the last days of a music-loving feudal baron. The screenplay, however, developed into a serious study of decaying feudalism. The songs and dances were retained but became classical instead of popular. I was fortunate to be able to use some of the leading singers and instrumentalists for the film. As composer, I chose the great sitar virtuoso Vilayat [Khan] who was most ably assisted by his younger brother Imrat Khan, aslo a sitar virtuoso. The two of them provided superb solos and duets for the background music for which – with the exception of violins – only Indian instruments were used. All the background score is raga-based. There is a great deal of music in the foreground too, but there is an attempt to weave it into the fabric of the plot.
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From his interview to Andrew Robinson:
I had decided that there would be three important musical sessions in the film. One would be a thumri singer, which was very common; one would be a kathak dancer, which was also a very common thing; and one be khyal singing by a male singer. This I decided for the sake of variety.
And these came at three different points.
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So it was Akhtari Bai for the thumri, Salamat for the khyal, Roshan Kumari for the dance. She was definitely the best dancer of that time. The raga was chosen for the dancing also; it starts with the singing, then goes into the dance with the beating of the percussion. That was a lovely raga. | must say that Vilayat’s choice of ragas was very satisfying. There was one long wordless sequence, for instance, where preparations are being made for the dance sequence; the wine is brought out and the carpet is unrolled. The old times are returning and the servant is very happy. The chandeliers are being brought down and cleaned.
For that the brothers played a duet, a south Indian raga now used in north Indian music also: a very bright-sounding raga, wonderfully bright-sounding: [ Ссылка ]
That was the high point of the film, where music comes into the foreground almost.
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Roshan Kumari dances to a trivat, a composition that uses pakhawaj syllables in place of conventional song-text.
Roshan Kumari highlights the salient features of a Kathak performance by incorporating amazing footwork, pirouettes, abhinaya or expression, rhythmic dexterity in the tabla compositions that she dances to, and the gat-bhaav that depicts Krishna’s playfulness, as Aneesh Pradhan put it.
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It seems especially good to share this because when I first uploaded this, along with the Salamat Ali Khan Mian Ki Malhaar, YouTube blocked it completely, claiming copyright.
The Begum Akhtar thumri too had been blocked, but only partially. I appealed the block – pointing out that the film was released in 1958 and the copyright, therefore, had ended in 2018.
A small part of me did worry a little. Since I had also appealed the Salamat Ali Khan and Begum Akhtar performance as well, there was a risk of three copyright strikes, which could potentially result in all the uploads so far being deleted. What if the appeal was denied and Angel Digital went for a copyright strike instead? These warnings were repeatedly highlighted during the YT's appeal process as well. But I went ahead and did it anyway. It took a week and I found out today that the block had been lifted.
[Copyright claim] Claim released
Here's to small victories!
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