The Holy Mother – Madhuvanti Pal Plays the Rudra Veena

This album is a treat. It isn’t often you get the chance to hear new recordings of the rudra veena, especially from an artist so deeply steeped in the dhrupad tradition. What is all the more remarkable is that the player is a woman, something that was common around 400 years ago but less so recently, with some attributing the decline to a supposed ‘curse’ brought on when women play the instrument. Madhuvanti Pal has an impressive background, studying with sitarist Vidushi Mita Nag, and dhrupad with S Balachander and, more problematically, the Gundecha brothers – who are currently petitioning a report that found them ‘at fault’ of multiple sexual abuses. Her determination to learn dhrupad can be seen in the way she sought instruction from Pandit Rajshekar Vyas to build her own veena. Here she presents two classic ragas, ‘Todi’ and ‘Bhairavi’, both admirably suited to the genre. Both follow the pattern of an unaccompanied alap-jor-jhala and demonstrate a slow and serious unfolding of the modes. There is much to enjoy here, but I have a particular soft spot for ‘Bhairavi’; her playing of the alap of this raga is exemplary.