music hindi

Project MUSE - Asian Music - Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Thumri Lyrics (review) Project MUSE Journals Asian Music Volume 39, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2008 Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Thumri Lyrics (review) Asian Music Volume 39, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2008 E-ISSN: 1553-5630 Print ISSN: 0044-9202 DOI: 10.1353/amu.0.0006 Reviewed by Amanda WeidmanBryn Mawr College Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Thumri Lyrics. Lalita du Perron. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. 234 pp. (127 pp. of text; 77 pp. of lyrics with transliteration and translation) with photographic plates, glossary. The classical music traditions of India, as we know them today, are the result of a process of selection from and redefinition of a variety of musical traditions from the subcontinent, often practiced by and identified with different communities. Prior to the 20th century, much musical tradition and knowledge was located in communities of hereditary women artists -- the tawaifs [courtesans] associated with the courts of Lucknow and other North Indian courts, or the devadasis, associated with Hindu temples in South India. Despite the rather different milieus they occupied, tawaifs and devadasis had in common the fact that they were highly educated musicians and dancers who did not marry, but had relationships...