Tagore, Sir Surindro Mohun
Tagore, Sir Surindro Mohun
Tagore, Sir Surindro Mohun ( actually, Rajah Saurindramohana Thakura), Hindu musicologist; b. Calcutta, 1840; d. there, June 5, 1914. At the age of 17 he began to study Hindu music under Luchmi Prasad Misra and Kshetra Mohun Goswami, and European music under two European mentors. He founded and endowed from his personal fortune the Bengal Music School (1871) and the Bengal Academy of Music (1882), continuing to preside over both until his death. A connoisseur of Eastern instrumentation, he was at various times commissioned by the principal museums of Europe to procure for them instruments of Asiatic nations. He wrote nearly 60 books on an amazing variety of subjects; those concerning music (publ, in Calcutta, in Bengali, and some in Eng.) include Yantra Kosha, or A Treasury of the Musical Instruments of Ancient and Modern India (1875), Hindu Music, from Various Authors (1875; 2nd ed., in 2 vols., 1882), Six Principal Ragas, with a Brief View of Hindu Music (1876; 3rd ed., 1884), Short Notices of Hindu Musical Instruments (1877), The 8 Principal Ragas of the Hindus (1880), The Five Principal Musicians of the Hindus, or A Brief Exposition of the Essential Elements of Hindu Music (1881), The Musical Scales of the Hindus with Remarks on the Applicability of Harmony to Hindu Music (1884), The 22 Musical Srutis of the Hindus (1886), and Universal History of Music, together with Various Original Notes on Hindu Music (1896).
Bibliography
Visvapati Caudhur: Songs and Addresses in Memory of the Late Raja Sir Saurindramohana Thakura (Calcutta, 1919).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire