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Tagore Tradition
Song compositions of Rabindranatha Tagore has the most extensive
adaptation of all the styles, Hindustani classical as well as indigenous
and European and a personal style assimilating and synthesising all extant
styles. Subject-wise his songs, nearly 2,500 in number fall into five
broad categories namely 1)songs of devotion. 2) songs of love 3) songs
of nature 4) patriotic songs and 5) miscellaneous songs. Most of his songs
are dhrupadic in structure, being composed in four stanzas and are to
be sung according to the notation set.
Dhrupad and Baul styles predominate in Tagore's devotional
songs while his other songs make liberal use of the Tappa style in a modified
form omitting the feature of improvisations. Many of his patriotic songs
are composed in Baul style. For example, the song 'Amar Sonar Bangla'
which has been adopted by Bangladesh as its national song and others,
like 'Janaganamana-adhinayaka', India's national anthem are Dhrupad based
and combine the feature of choral singing. It is in his songs of nature
that Tagore comes out in the fullness of his genius as a composer. He
employs classical ragas, combines them felicitously to fully unfold the
nuances of the lyric and introduces a happy synthesis of folk tunes and
ragas in a variety of appropriate time measures. In his songs of spring,
Tagore has created a naturalistic myth of recurrence of life, most of
such lyrics are for song and dance.
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