Leading instrumentalists of Bangladesh presented classical recitals on the last two days of the four-day programme featuring classical dance and instrumental music, which ended on February 1. The programme, arranged by Department of Production at the National Theatre Stage,

gave the audience a rare chance to get a glimpse of talented instrumentalists, often overlooked by mass media.

Nineteen artistes presented different ragas and dhun on sitar, sarod, violin, esraj, shehnai, harmonium and flute as well as tabla lahara (variety of rhythms) in the two-day arrangement.

The main attraction on January 31 was a duet recital of sitar and sarod performed by Firoz Khan and M Yousuf Khan. The duo presented an improvised recital based on raga desh. The other attractions of the first day were raga madhukosh presented by Shamsur Rahman; the only classical shehnai player of the country, dhun performed by AFM Ekram Hossain on esraj and raga tilong on violin by Alauddin Miah.

Directed by Syed Meher Hossain, Srijon presented a group performance on tabla. Lead player Meher's improvisation with esraj, harmonium and percussion was catchy.

Moreover, Reenat Fouzia played raga bhimpolasree on sitar, upcoming artiste Salahuddin Mahmud Shantanu presented raga emon on harmonium. Bari Siddiqui played a dhun on the flute, Mahmudul Hassan played raga jhinjhoti on violin and Manik Khondokar performed raga kirwani on sitar on January 31.

On the following evening renowned classical instrument players such as ustad Khurshid Khan, Nokul Kumar Biswas, M Moniruzzaman, Shahadat Hossain Khan, Quamruzzaman Moni, Pallab Sandal, Nusrat Mumtaz Ruposhi, Shukkur Ali and Mohammad Shamsul Haque presented recitals on sitar, sarod, harmonium, flute, clarinet, violin and tabla.

Nusrat Jahan, one of the viewers of the January 31 soiree, said, "I was immensely moved by some of the classical recitals. I had no idea that there are so many talented instru- mentalists in Bangladesh. But, after listening to five presentation, my concentration flagged. The programme would have been more interesting if the artistes were limited to four or five. In that case the artistes would get time to improvise more on the ragas, which is the beauty of the classical music recitals. Moreover, the audience would also be able to concentrate till the end."