Kishore Chatterjee at the launch. (Rashbehari Das)

Kishore Chatterjee’s book on Western classical music titled Beethoven and Friends and published by Niyogi Books is a classic example of a newspaper column turning into a book and being totally transformed in the process.

After launching the book on Friday, actor Soumitra Chatterjee told the audience at Oxford Bookstore that Western classical music had helped him face adversities.

Kishore Chatterjee said that when he first heard the “eve-teasing” song “Ke tumi nandini” from Teen Bhubaner Pare, he immediately thought of Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann. During the filming of Shakha Prashakha, Kishore Chatterjee said, Satyajit Ray asked him to hum snatches of Beethoven. It was difficult, he admitted, and his voice did not match that of the actor. Ultimately, Ray himself hummed those pieces.

Dikoo Naoroji, who discussed the book along with Indranil Poddar, praised Kishore Chatterjee’s book for its “historical sweep” while Poddar liked his “sudden insights”. Kishore Chatterjee said the sound world of Beethoven was like nobody else’s, perhaps because he was deaf. Beethoven began with a bang “like a terrorist dropping a bomb”. He compared it with Suchitra Mitra’s Rabindrasangeet.

In reply to a question, Kishore Chatterjee said Wagner was a deeply religious man and it was Hitler who found him, and not the other way round.