Customer Reviews

Art of the Indian Dilruba

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

For those who may be unfamiliar with this instrument, it can be understood as a cross between a sitar and a violin. With sitar-like frets and many sympathetic strings, the dilruba has a shimmering, bright sound. Baluji Shrivastav plays this instrument with depth yet without the sense of melancholy that I find in many Classical Indian recordings. On the CD the sound of the dilruba dominates, with the first track being solo, slowly moving into tracks with slow & fast tabla accompaniment. As usual with Indian Classical, the tracks are long and give you plenty of time to get inside the raga.

very nice music to listen to before bedtime. everytime I put this cd on my little female kitty comes into the room & sits right in front of the small Bose speaker that I have sitting on the floor next to an antique chinese alter table... & for anyone not familiar with the indian Dilruba instrument it is basically what one would imagine a sitar would sound like when played with a reed bow & the tabla drum compliments it all wonderfully...for purposes of reference there is a dilruba playing as a backing rhythm instrument on the beatles song from sgt. pepper ' within you , without you ' & there are passages on this cd that remind me of the beatles experiments with indian music

This is the dregs. I have listened to a lot of Indian classical music in my life, and I can tell you this is the pits. There is no
depth, no feeling, and no great amount of skill, either, only some plodding and learned exercises that this fellow learned from someone. I was waiting for the CD to end from the minute I heard the first few notes ... the only thing stopping me was the hope that things might get better. (BTW, if you think I am making this up, ask around in Indian classical music circles whether anyone has heard of this chap.) I have nothing against him; indeed, the liner notes mention that he is blind and has taken great pains to learn many Indian instruments. That is admirable, but not enough to warrant publication, let alone praise. It seems there is also a recording of sitar and surbahar by him. I wouldn't go near it with a barge pole. I got this recording because I had never heard dilruba and wanted to hear it. I should have stuck with never having heard any dilruba. At least that way I would have had a positive, albeit imagined idea of it. Now whenever I think of dilruba this trash comes to mind. Do yourself a favor: accept that there is no good dilruba recording in circulation, and listen to some good sarangi instead. Go for Ram Narayan. I know it is not the same instrument, but it is an infinitely better buy...the man is a genius. And if you are ever tempted by the sitar/surbahar album, realize that this guy is an unknown in those instruments as well, and listen to Imrat Khan's surbahar and Nikhil Banerjee or Vilayat Khan's sitar. I wanted to give this album zero stars, but the lowest allowed was one star.