Raghunath Seth, a disciple of eminent scholar-musician Dr SN Ratanjankar and bansuri maestro Pannalal Ghosh, was noteworthy as a bansuri player but he was equally well-known for his compositional work. He was employed as music director at the Films Division of India and also composed music for Hindi cinema.
In the eighth episode of our series on the engagement of Hindustani musicians with Hindi cinema, we begin with a bansuri recital by Seth. He plays a composition set to the ten-matra Jhaptaal in Bhatiyar, a raag prescribed for the early hours of the morning. He is accompanied on the tabla by Balkrishna Iyer and on the bansuri by Sunilkant Gupta.
The next track is a recording of an interactive session in which Seth explains the intricacies of the bansuri, its technique and his innovations in this field.
Moving to Seth’s music direction for Hindi cinema, here are two songs from the film Ek Baar Phir (1980) for which he composed music. The playback singers for the first song are Anuradha Paudwal and Bhupinder Singh and the second is sung by Bhupinder Singh.
The next three tracks are from the film Yeh Nazdikiyaan (1982). The first is sung by Asha Bhosale and the second and third and by Anuradha Paudwal.
One of India’s leading tabla players, Aneesh Pradhan is a widely recognised performer, teacher, composer and scholar of Hindustani music. Visit his website here.