Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: A Historical Exploration

Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: A Historical Exploration

Katherine Butler Schofield's "Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: Histories of the Ephemeral, 1748–1858" (2023) offers the first comprehensive history of music and musicians during the late Mughal period, spanning from 1748 to 1858. This groundbreaking work relies on an extensive, virtually untouched archive of Indian writings and visual sources, presenting an in-depth examination of how musicians adapted to British colonial rule.

Schofield delves into the lives of nine musicians, using them as focal points to explore six major types of musical writings in Persian, Brajbhasha, Urdu, and English. The narrative traverses various cities such as Delhi, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and areas influenced by the British, showcasing how these musicians navigated the complex political, economic, and social changes of their time.

A central theme of the book is the exploration of whether the fleeting experience of music can be recaptured after a performance ends. Schofield's rich and diverse sources illuminate the broader historical processes of this critical transitional period. They provide a fresh perspective on the evolution of North Indian classical music, tracing its modern form back to this era of transformation.

#MughalIndia #MusicHistory #ColonialTransition #NorthIndianClassicalMusic #CulturalHistory #EphemeralExperience #KatherineButlerSchofield #HistoricalArchives