Lalmani Misra

Born: 11 August 1924

Died: 17 July 1979

• He was an eminent Indian classical musician known as much for his art as for his scholarship.
• The renowned dance maestro Pt. Uday Shankar offered him the position of music director in his troupe.
• He traveled with the troupe composing scores for the innovative dance presentations and ballets on mythological and contemporary themes.
• The troupe covered several major towns and cities of India and covered Ceylon, France, England, Belgium, America and Canada between 1951 and 1955.
• Not only was he adept at playing several types of musical instruments, but he also had a knack for orchestration that served the needs of an innovative Dance troupe.
• The experience with the troupe made him try his hand on stage as well.
• He created Meera opera that was staged in 1956 at Kanpur.
• The audience was amazed by the sudden disappearance of Meera from the stage, apparently merging into the idol of Lord Krishna.
• He also first made it possible in the history of mankind, the twenty-two Shruti-s (not to be confused with śruti, the genre of Vedic literature) to be distinctly heard on a single Veena.
• The invention and key to its function have been explained in “Shruti Veena” published on 11 February 1964 by Vikram Singh, Narendra Printing Works, Varanasi.
• He had created several other Raga-s like Shyam Bihag, Jog Todi, Madhukali, Madhu-Bhairav, Baleshwari, etc., all in strict adherence with rigid classical norms for creation of new Raga-s.
• Unesco released a compact disc of his Vichitra Veena entitled The Music of Pandit Lalmani Misra in 1996.
• True inventions are seldom noticeable. Early on, Misra found a use of Teen Tal in slow and medium compositions ubiquitous.
• He realized that it was the possibility of Chhand-s that made this Tal a favorite of most instrumentalists.
• He experimented and created equally alluring Chhand-s in other Tal-s.
• Legendary percussionists were enamored by his compositions because of their complex, oblique rhythm pattern and called it ‘Koot ki Taan’.
• Later this style came to be known as Misrabani.

click here for more details