Presents a new history of how Hindustani court music responded to the
political transitions of the nineteenth century.
How far did colonialism transform north Indian music? In the period
between the Mughal empire and the British Raj, how did the political
landscape bleed into aesthetics, music, dance, and poetry? Examining
musical culture through a diverse and multilingual archive, primarily
using sources in Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi that have not been translated
or critically examined before, The Scattered Court challenges our
assumptions about the period. Richard David Williams presents a long
history of interactions between northern India and Bengal, with a core
focus on the two courts of Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887), the last ruler of
the kingdom of Awadh. He charts the movement of musicians and dancers
between the two courts in Lucknow and Matiyaburj, as well as the
transregional circulation of intellectual traditions and musical genres,
and demonstrates the importance of the exile period for the rise of
Calcutta as a celebrated center of Hindustani classical music. Since
Lucknow is associated with late Mughal or Nawabi society and Calcutta
with colonial modernity, examining the relationship between the two
cities sheds light on forms of continuity and transition over the
nineteenth century, as artists and their patrons navigated political
ruptures and social transformations. The Scattered Court challenges
the existing historiography of Hindustani music and Indian culture under
colonialism by arguing that our focus on Anglophone sources and
modernizing impulses has directed us away from the aesthetic subtleties,
historical continuities, and emotional dimensions of nineteenth-century
music.
