Mercifully Janie didn’t go off on one of her, “isn’t that basically an Indian theorbo thing” at the sight of a sarod…
…which is a bit odd, really, because I suspect that the sarod is a much closer relative to the theorbo than Janie’s mystery punter outburst about the “basically Chinese theorbo thing” aka the pipa:
William Carter, Theorbist Extraordinaire’s Mystery Punter Outed, 24 September 2010
So how early an instrument is the sarod?
Well, if you accept that it is basically a rubab, very old indeed. And very lute-like.
Amjad Ali Khan believes that the modern form of the instrument was developed by his family in the late 18th or 19th century, seven generations ago. Amjad Ali Khan was our man of the evening (along with his kin) so who are we to argue with that.
Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this concert.
Below is a vid of a similar concert recorded a few months later, including Amjad Ali Khan with both sons who played that night in July, but I think a different tabla player. This is a truly lovely vid/recording:
We find this type of music incredibly relaxing…
…and assume it is meant to be relaxing…
…so it was not a bad thing to both nod off at times in a late night (22:00 start) gig at The Wig.
We loved this concert. revived, we also stuck around for a while to see the jazz in the bar: Dave O’Higgins Quartet – click here for listing – post bop, apparently, which was cool.