Review by Simon Jenner, January 22nd 2025
It’s not often we hear two British players consummate in North Indian Classical Music. James Pusey and Marc Clayton have inhabited that world for more than 20 years.
Pusey’s a UK-based sitar player of Etawah/Vilayat Khani Gharana studying first under Ustad Dharambir Singh (MBE) he moved to further these studies under the Mumbai master Pandit Arvind Parikh, one of his very few non-Indian students, from the early 90s. Clayton has studied tabla under several masters including Shri Kailash Nishad and Pendit Shankar Ray. The table is the North Indian popular instrument and Clayton states that he “engages the use of their spoken language to create rhythmic syllables and phrases”.
Their programme is as you’d expect one of flowing composition in gathering volume, timbre and intensity. Except that the hypnotic qualities inducing meditation as well as delight, shift rhythmically: so the climactic moment arrives from several angles at once. Even this frames it with a deceptively Western notation and musical expectation.
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
The first 30 minutes seem to erupt in such an arrival. The second last piece a Dherva, follows in a six-beat and far more contemplative mode. There’s often a hallucinatory slowness, led by more recognisable sitar melody from the first sounds like a winding improvisation: till you hear how intricate the interplay attending it.
A recessional piece, it takes us back to the hush of the start, ensuring whatever stimulation the main work brought us is firmly bracketed. Then too there’s a surprise and tempo shift. A miniature by comparison it’s also distinct. And immensely satisfying as it rises and suggestive after the climax of a tiny flourish, an insouciance I’d not expected.
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
The brevity of this review, which can’t translate the subtle shifts of Indian classical music in the way classical music is transmitted (to this reviewer), certainly doesn’t reflect its quality. Highly recommended.
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
James Pusey and Marc Clayton Sitar/Tabla Recital St Nicholas Church, Brighton
Photo Credit Simon Jenner
Photo Credit Simon Jenner