Meditative concert with the mother and queen of Indian stringed instruments
Based in Calcutta, Carsten Wicke is today one of the most outstanding international Rudra Vina masters, whose music brings the almost lost sounds of the Rudra Vina from the millennia-old tradition into the present. He has been studying North Indian classical music with various master musicians since the 1990s. India's legendary Rudra Vina master Ustad Asad Ali Khan accepted him as one of his few Vina students. Carsten's vina playing combines subtle melodic variations with complex rhythmic touch to create a unique listening experience that is appreciated by Indian music connoisseurs and international audiences alike.
According to mythological tradition, the rudra vina was created by the god Shiva. In its association with God Shiva, the vina was a favorite instrument of yogis and ascetics. For them, playing the vina combined ritual and meditation. Although the vina is still revered today as the mother of all Indian stringed instruments, it has become very rare in everyday musical life. Its extremely subtle playing technique and aesthetics, as well as the lifelong dedication and self-discipline required to learn it, make it a messenger of a bygone era. However, the rudra vina and its music are now being rediscovered by a growing international audience as an alternative to the restless sense of time of the present. Regardless of the instrument's storied past, today's listeners also enjoy the unique experience that the vina reveals: an incomparable musical journey between silence and ecstasy.
The dhrupad, which is played on the rudra vina, is North India's oldest classical music tradition still practiced. From its origins in the chanting of Vedic hymns through devotional temple chanting, it developed under the patronage of Islamic and Hindu courts into an art form with its own complex aesthetics and grammar. As is generally the case in Indian music philosophy, the human voice is regarded as the most original and therefore most important instrument in dhrupad in particular. The instrumental playing is therefore oriented as closely as possible to the vocal form. The resonance and overtone-rich sound of the rudra vina offers the ideal prerequisite for the interpretation of a raga in the dhrupad style, which is particularly oriented towards microtonal tone and melodic movements. The tanpura, a lute instrument played continuously in the background, creates a drone sound rich in overtones on which the raga improvisation of the vina can unfold.
