DV Paluskar

To preserve and promote Indian classical music, All India Radio (AIR) has taken up an initiative to market recordings by musical legends. Old recordings by artistes of the stature of Pandit DV Paluskar, Ustad Amir Khan, Pandit Omkarnath Thakur and Pannalal Ghosh are being retrieved from the Akashvani archives, digitally re-mastered and released on CDs and cassettes.

The move follows ?a great response? to Akashvani?s first batch of albums, titled Akashvani Sangeet. Recordings kept in the central archive of AIR were used to compile the albums, which were released in 2003.

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

AIR also has 18 regional archives in different parts of the country, including Calcutta. Future Akashvani releases will span recordings of Hindustani and Carnatic performances, sourced from both regional and central archives.

At a recent function at Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre in Salt Lake, Pandit Birju Maharaj released a set of two CDs and cassettes by Begum Akhtar. The set comprises excerpts of an interview and renditions of thumri and dadra. The recording was of Akhtar?s final performance at an Akashvani Sangeet Sammelan before her death in 1974.

MS Subbulakshmi

Brijeshwar Singh, director-general of AIR, said: ?We hope to stage a function every year to release such valuable recordings of great artistes in order to preserve our great musical heritage. We will also start to broadcast programmes on classical music every Saturday evening and Sunday morning on FM Gold.?

Forthcoming releases from the central archive in the Hindustani classical music category will feature the likes of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Bade Moti Bai, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Zohra Bai, Pandit Kanthe Maharaj, Ustad Faiyaz Khan and others. Carnatic releases will include recordings by MS Subbulakshmi, GN Balasubramaniam, CV Bhagavatar, TR Mahalingam, MM Iyer and others.

Pandit Bhimsen Joshi

Akashvani Sangeet is also planning to release two albums of recordings by Hemanta Mukherjee and Dilip Kumar Roy, retrieved from the regional AIR archive in Calcutta.

The CDs and cassettes will be available at the marketing division of Akashvani Bhavan and Doordarshan Bhavan. Each audio CD is priced at Rs 195, while the cassettes will cost Rs 95 each.