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A bilingual journal for music

When A.D. Madhavan found out that there were very few avenues for publishing scholarly articles on music, he decided to bring out a journal exclusively for music himself. The result is `Sangeetham,' the second issue of which came out recently.

This biannual is bilingual too; it has articles both in English and Malayalam. Though the stress is on classical music, more popular forms of music - of films, especially - also get space.

"We don't have too many publications on music so I thought there was a scope for a book like this," says Madhavan, a Kozhikode-based music lover and writer of books about music.

"When critic Dr. M.M. Basheer agreed to help me edit the book, I decided to go ahead with my plan." The inaugural issue was released in Kozhikode last October. "We had printed 750 copies of it, while the second issue has 1,000 copies," says Madhavan. "The response has been very encouraging from the readers. We hope to bring out four issues per year, a little later on."

The latest issue has articles on a variety of topics. Kalamandalam Kesavan writes on Kathakali music, Ramesh Narayan on Hindustani music, Leela Omcheri on Sopana sangeetham and Margi Sathi on music in Koodiyattom. Vidya Shah notes the similarities between the ragas Mohanam (Carnatic) and Bhoopali and Deshkar (both Hindustani), while two doctors, Suvarna Nalapatt and B. Ramamurthy, talk about music and medicine.

There are also tributes to composer Sajjad Husain (by Unnikrishnan Palakkal) and lyricist P. Bhaskaran (V.T. Murali). M.M. Basheer's review of T.J.S. George's book on M.S. Subbulakshmi, `MS: Jeevithavum Sangeethavum,' is one of the best-written pieces in this edition of `Sangeetham.' There is nothing like listening to great music; but reading about music can be fun too, as `Sangeetham' proves.

P.K. AJITH KUMAR

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