Paper short abstract:

This paper will reconstruct a social history of musicians working in Bengal in the early decades of the 19th century, and will underline the role of smaller centres of patronage and forums of repertoire exchange.

Paper long abstract:

When commercial gramophone recording took root in India in 1902, Calcutta was an established centre of Hindustani classical music. The city's artists and patrons were shaping the fashions and repertoires of contemporary music for the rest of the subcontinent, and defining its canonical history. However, this was a relatively recent development: before Calcutta became the administrative capital of imperial India, the relationship between performers and the colonial city was less certain. This paper will reconstruct a social history of musicians in the early decades of the 19th century, and will underline the role of smaller centres of patronage and forums of repertoire exchange.

In particular, I will discuss the early history of the 'Bishnupur gharana', celebrated to this day as a lineage of court musicians from provincial Bengal, and custodians of distinctive dhrupad and instrumental traditions. By examining the economic context of their original patronage, this paper will explore the strategies such performers employed in elevating their social standing, separating themselves from other categories of artist or entertainer, and securing a patron in uncertain times. This will indicate how reputations were generated in early colonial society, according to the demands determined by a shifting social landscape. The example of this lineage will indicate how a class of small landholders, neither kings nor urban elites, played a significant role in the transition of music from late Mughal to colonial cultural regimes. This approach will therefore indicate how patrons and performers informed each others' appeals to region, repertoire, and elite status.