(b Jahaj, near Baroda, 1887; d Bombay, 1968). North Indian (Hindustani) vocalist, educator and musicologist. He was born to an impoverished military family. In about 1909 a wealthy Parsi patron sent him for musical training in the Gwalior style of singing to Vishnu Digambar Paluskar's Gandharva Mahāvidyālaya in Bombay. In 1916 Paluskar assigned Thakur the position of principal of the school's Lahore branch; there he became acquainted with the Patiala Gharānā style. In 1919 he started his own musical institution, the Gandharva Niketan, in Broach. In the 1920s he was involved with Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement and served as president of the Broach District Congress Committee.
Swept up in the 1930s ‘India for Indians’ movement, Thakur undertook research into the ‘glorious’ ancient tradition of Indian music, decrying foreign influence and the contributions of generations of Indian Muslim musicians on whom he and other Hindu musicians placed the blame for a ‘corrupted present’ in contrast to a ‘pure past’.
Thakur was among the first Indian musicians to perform widely in Europe, and between 1933 and 1954 he gave concerts in many cities. His Khayāl style differed in important ways from the Gwalior gharānā. Emphasizing emotive content, he exploited dynamics and vocal timbres and cultivated tān more than bol-tān. Rhythmic tihāī cadences were the extent of his bol-bat and he occasionally improvised to sargam.
His legacy is substantial. He founded the college of music at Banaras Hindu University to incorporate both musicology and performance. In 1963 he was given the President's award for Hindustani Vocal Music from the Sangeet Natak Akademi and an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from Banaras Hindu University. In 1964 he received an honorary doctorate from Rabindra Bharati University in Bengal and the first Padma Shri title from India's President.
See also India, §III, 2(iii)(a)).
and other resources
G.S. Desai: ‘Panditji: an Appreciation’, Sangīt mārttand: Pandit Omkārnāth Thākur pratham punyatithi smārikā (Varanasi, 1968), 47–79
H.C. Hurie: A Comparative Study of Khyāl Style: Pandit Omkarnath Thakur and his Student Pandit B.R. Bhatt (thesis, Wesleyan U., 1980)
B.C. Wade: Khyāl: Creativity within North India's Classical Vocal Tradition (Cambridge, 1984)
Sangeet martand, perf. O. Thakur, Columbia 33ECX3301 (1971); reissued as Pandit Omkarnath Thakur, EMI 4TC O4B3837 (1982)
Pandit Omkarnath Thakur, EMI 6TC O4B 7102 (1983)
BONNIE C. WADE