Anindo Chatterjee and Anubrata Chatterjee
Darbar Festival, Barbican Centre, London

DARBAR festival was founded in 2005 by Sandeep Virdee as a tribute to his late father, the tabla master and teacher Gurmit Singh Virdee.

It is today probably the largest Indian classical music festival outside the subcontinent itself, and it turns out that Anindo Chatterjee had a hand in its foundation; his suggestion to Singh Virdee that he do a tabla performance in honour of the elder Virdee following his death seeded the idea of the festival in the young Sandeep’s mind. 

So Chatterjee’s performance today is particularly fitting, especially as he appears with his own son, following rapidly in his footsteps as a master tabla player in his own right. Today they are joined by Dilshad Khan on the sarangi, the bowed string instrument that produces the distinctive and evocative sliding notes which underpin so much of this music. 

The concept of “Darbar” refers not only to the scale on which much Indian classical music is based, but to the whole culture and tradition surrounding that music.

The particular tradition of which the Chatterjees are a part is the North Indian Farrukhabad gharana school, from which emanated the distinctive “bols” within tabla playing — the vocal “scats” which define the rhythms (like “ti-ra-ki-ta”), the oral equivalent of musical notation, used to teach and transmit compositions as well as often being part of the music in their own right.

The drone-like and slow-moving melodic lines of the sarangi contrast with the fast staccato rhythms of the tablas, adding a depth and colour to them, and producing an overall transcendental quality in the sound. 

Before the performance, my philistine layman’s mind, believing the tabla essentially has only two basic sounds, did wonder whether a solely tabla-based performance would be able to hold our attention for a full two hours.

I needn’t have worried, of course. Variations in speed and especially timbre are executed with great subtlety and the range of sounds produced is incredible. Bending the side of the drum can even produce melodies, and at one point Anubrata manages to create a very pleasing dead-ringer for a deliciously grimy jungle-style sub-bassline. 

Closing my eyes and meditating while the music flows through me, the healing power of this music becomes clearly evident; it is easy to see how its early composers devised their pieces as something akin to prescriptions to various mental, emotional and even physical maladies: some to induce calm, others vigour, others love and so on. 

As we learn more today about the complex relationships between physiology, emotion, and emotional triggers, this understanding does not seem at all far-fetched. Today’s two-hour dose was certainly a great tonic for me. 

Further events will take place on February 11 and April 6 2025. For more information see: barbican.org.uk.