Pandit Vinayak Narayan Patwardhan (22 July 1898 – 23 August 1975) was an Indian

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

of Gwalior gharana (style of singing) of Indian classical music. __TOC__

Early life

Vinayakrao's uncle Keshav Rao Koratkar was his first music teacher. In 1907, he went to Gandharva Mahavidyalaya at

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

, where he was taught by

Vishnu Digambar Paluskar Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (18 August 1872 – 21 August 1931) was a Hindustani musician. He sang the original version of the bhajan Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram, and founded the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya on 5 May 1901. He is also credited wit ...

Career

Vinayakrao accepted teaching assignments at the various branches of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, including those in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nagpur is projected to ...

and

. Vinayakrao's high-pitched voice was popular with the masses, and specifically caught the attention of actor/singer

Bal Gandharva Narayan Shripad Rajhans, popularly known as Bal Gandharva, (26 June 1888 – 15 July 1967) was a famous Marathi singer and a stage actor. He was known for his roles in female characters in Marathi plays, since women were not allowed to act on ...

. On one occasion, the

Gwalior Gwalior() is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; it lies in northern part of Madhya Pradesh and is one of the Counter-magnet cities. Located south of Delhi, the capital city of India, from Agra and from Bhopal, the s ...

veteran Ramkrishna Buwa Vazhe offered a challenge to singers in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

. Vinayakrao accepted this challenge and proceeded to learn complex ragas from Vazhe. In the late 1940s, when Bhimsen Joshi was searching for a teacher, he met Vinayakrao in

Jalandhar Jalandhar is the third most-populous city in the Indian state of Punjab and the largest city in Doaba region. Jalandhar lies alongside the Grand Trunk Road and is a well-connected rail and road junction. Jalandhar is northwest of the state ...

. Vinayakrao advised him to learn from Sawai Gandharva. Later, Patwardhan took up roles in Marathi musicals. Heeding his teacher's admonition about singing for films, Vinayak went to Pune and established his own branch of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. Despite his young age, he had decided to dedicate himself to teaching music and ignored the lure of drama and film. Vinayakrao trained disciples who became well known, including his guru's son, D.V. Paluskar, and Sunanda Patnaik.

Singer

Vinayakrao Patwardhan's singing reflected the simple and straightforward approach to ragas, which is the characteristic of the Gwalior Gharana style. His favorite ragas included ''Bahar'', ''Adana'', ''Multani'', ''Malhar'', ''Jaijaivanti'', ''Hameer'' and ''Bhairav-bahar''. He performed in most of the important music festivals. He was one of the few practicing musicians of the time who wrote textbooks on music. In his seven-part ''Raaga Vigyan'' series, Vinayakrao described the important aspects of various ragas as well as their grammar. In his concerts and recordings, his fellow-student Narayanrao Vyas accompanied Vinayakrao.

Recognition

He was awarded the

Padma Bhushan The Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in the Republic of India, preceded by the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan and followed by the Padma Shri. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "distinguished service ...

award in 1972 by the

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Mur ...

. He led the Indian cultural delegation to the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and other countries. The Film & TV Institute of India supported a documentary on him by Aruna Raje.

Legacy

One of his disciples, L.R. Kelkar, settled down in Madras (Chennai). Author Rohiniprasad learned sitar from him initially. Among Kelkar's better-known disciples is violinist N. Rajam, who also studied with

Omkarnath Thakur Pandit Omkarnath Thakur (24 June 1897 – 29 December 1967), was an Indian music teacher, musicologist and Hindustani classical singer. A disciple of classical singer Vishnu Digambar Paluskar of Gwalior gharana, he became the principal of Gand ...

in Benares.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patwardhan, Vinayakrao 1898 births 1975 deaths Recipients of the Padma Bhushan in arts Hindustani singers Gwalior gharana Marathi people 20th-century Indian male classical singers 20th-century Khyal singers Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship