Felicitation: A Bouquet of Melodies

The Indian santoor is more or less the same instrument as the Western hammered dulcimer: a trapezoidal box on which multi-coursed strings are stretched across individual bridges, and are struck with light wooden hammers to create a bright and percussive but highly lyrical sound. Ulhas Bapat is one of the foremost exponents of this instrument in Indian classical music, and on this album he is accompanied by tabla player Vishwanath Shirodkar on a selection of lovely melodies that show off the santoor‘s unique tonalities. Since the instrument is relatively inflexible — there is no way to play any pitches between the notes of the scale to which it’s tuned — the santoor poses particular interpretive challenges, which Bapat overcomes masterfully.