The garden that will be dedicated to Dinendranath Tagore. Picture by Snehamoy Chakraborty

Santiniketan, April 12: Visva-Bharati will dedicate a garden adjoining Sangeet Bhavana to Dinendranath Tagore, the great-nephew of Rabindranath Tagore who preserved many of the bard’s tunes by writing down the notations.

The garden, which had been lying unkempt for around 30 years, is being cleaned and will be beautified. It will be named Dinendra Kunja. Open-air classes and rehearsals for various programmes of Sangeet Bhavana will be held there, Visva-Bharati sources said.

The garden will be inaugurated by vice-chancellor Sushanta Duttagupta on Poila Baisakh (the Bengali new year’s day which falls on April 15). Rabindrasangeet exponent Dwijen Mukherjee will be the chief guest.

“The garden was lying unused for the past three decades. We have cleaned the ground and will use it for open-air music classes and rehearsals for Sangeet Bhavana programmes,” Duttagupta said.

Dinendranath (1882-1935), the grandson of Tagore’s elder brother Dwijendranath, was born at Jorasanko in Calcutta. Dinendranath was an excellent singer and his rich baritone, barely accompanied by any instrument, added a unique dimension to Rabindrasangeet, the Visva-Bharati website says.

Dinendranath, popularly known as Dinu Thakur in Santiniketan, was instrumental in preserving Tagore’s tunes by writing down the notations.

Dinendranath could accurately replicate every tune in the form of notations. He was equally adept at writing western staff notations, the website says. He was the principal of Sangeet Bhavana from its inception. After a break of four years — 1923-27 — he rejoined the post.

Dinendranath had also directed many of Tagore’s plays. He travelled with the Visva-Bharati drama unit as director on its tour to the then Bombay in November 1933 for the staging of Tasher Desh.

Varsity officials said today that till 30 years ago, open-air music classes of Sangeet Bhavana were held in various grounds on the campus. But the practice was stopped as the number of students gradually increased. Now, lessons are given only in classrooms and on a concrete dais inside Sangeet Bhavana.

Indrani Mukherjee, the principal of Sangeet Bhavana, said: “I had attended open-air music classes around Sangeet Bhavana under trees.”

“Now, we will conduct open-air music classes at Dinendra Kunja. The idea is the brainchild of the vice-chancellor. We hope to start the open-air classes after the summer vacation,” Mukherjee added.

“Dinendranath Tagore wrote several books of Tagore song notations. We are happy that there will be a place in Santiniketan named after Dinu Thakur,” the Sangeet Bhavana principal said.