(b Calcutta, 7 May 1861; d Calcutta, 7 Aug 1941). Bengali poet, writer, teacher, painter and composer. Of his manifold artistic creations, Tagore correctly predicted that his songs would remain best loved by his countrymen. Known as Rabindrasangīt (‘Rabindra-music’), they number about 2500 and have become the national music of West Bengal and Bangladesh. Songs by Tagore have been adopted as the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.
Tagore encountered a variety of musical influences in the aristocratic household in which he grew up. Classical Indian musicians were frequent visitors or teachers there, but Tagore did not master any instrument or vocal style. This may have limited his technical range as a composer, but it fostered in him a spirit of experiment. Most of his songs have a four-part structure derived from dhrupad, but he also drew from other traditions including kheyāl, tappā, kīrtan, Bengali traditional songs and the songs of the wandering Baul singers of Bengal. He created several new tāla and was never a purist in his use of rāga; his famous song Krsnakali (1931), which celebrates the beauty of a dark-skinned, ‘deer-eyed’ maiden, changes the rāga from verse to verse.
Tagore was not greatly influenced by Western music, but an illustrated edition of Moore’s Irish Melodies enchanted him as a child, and his elder brother Jyotirindranath Tagore enjoyed playing the piano. After his first visit to England in 1878, Tagore wrote Bengali words to the melodies of songs such as Auld Lang Syne, Ye Banks and Braes, Robin Adair and Drink to Me Only. His first musical play, Vālmīki pratibhā (‘The Genius of Valmiki’, 1881), was inspired by his knowledge of Western opera and operetta, and his interest in combining song, drama and dance led him to compose nrtya-nātya (‘dance-dramas’) for performance by staff and students at the school and the university which he founded at Santiniketan in West Bengal.
His special talent as a songwriter was his ability to blend words with melody. He composed tunes in his head and relied on others, particularly his brother Jyotirindranath and later his grand-nephew Dinendranath Tagore, to notate them. The emotional range of his songs is wide; his works include songs of love and religious devotion as well as celebrations of nature and the seasons. His songs are at their most effective when performed by voice alone or with tambūrā, esrāj and sparing use of tablā. However, the popularity of the songs has inevitably led to their vulgarization, and accompaniment by harmonium and other instruments, both traditional and modern, has become common.
Tagore won the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his English versions of his poems and songs, and books such as Gitanjali (1912) and The Gardener (1913) were quickly translated into other languages. Western musical settings of Tagore’s work include Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Lyrische Symphonie, op.18 (1922–3) and three songs by Frank Bridge, Day After Day (1922), Speak to Me, my Love (1924) and Dweller in my Deathless Dreams (1925). The Australian composer Raymond Hanson was fascinated by Tagore’s poetry and set 28 of his poems from Gitanjali, The Gardener and Lover’s Gift. More recently, translations by William Radice have been set, notably by Param Vir in Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva (1988) and by Knut Nystedt in The Conch (1993), both of which works are for unaccompanied voices. Param Vir’s chamber opera Snatched by the Gods (1992), with a libretto by William Radice, is based on a narrative poem by Tagore.
See also Bengali music, §I, 2(i).
R. Tagore: My Reminiscences (New York, 1917)
A.A. Bake, ed.: Chansons de Rabindranath Tagore (Paris, 1935) [score]
S. Ghosh: Rabindrasangīt [Songs of Rabindranath] (Calcutta, 1942, 4/1962/R)
D.P. Mukerji: ‘Tagore's Music’, A Centenary Volume: Rabindranath Tagore 1861–1961 (New Delhi, 1961) [pubn of the Sahitya Akademi]
‘Tagore Centenary Number’, Bulletin of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (1961)
S.I.D. Chaudhurani, ed.: Anthology of One Hundred Songs of Rabindranath Tagore in Staff Notation, i–ii (New Delhi, 1961–7) [pubn of the Sangeeta Natak Akademi]
S. Raya: Music of Eastern India: Vocal Music in Bengali, Oriya, Assamese and Manipuri with Special Emphasis on Bengali (Calcutta, 1973, 2/1985)
R. Head: ‘The Flute and the Harp: Rabindranath Tagore and Western Composers’, Rabindranath Tagore: Perspectives in Time, ed. M. Lago and R. Warwick (London, 1989)
WILLIAM RADICE