Pandit Bhaskarbuwa Bakhle

Bhaskar Raghunath Bakhale was born on 17 October 1869 at Kathor in Gujarat. He first learned dhrupad and kirtan from Vishnubuwa Pingale in Vadodara and then studied at the school of the Vadodara court musician Maula Baksh. As a boy he sang in the plays of Annasaheb Kirloskar's Kirloskar Natak Mandali between 1883 and 1885, and was formally tied as a disciple to the Kirana rudra veena player Bande Ali Khan.

From 1886 to 1897 he trained in Vadodara with Faiz Mohammed Khan of the Gwalior gharana, who sent him on to Natthan Khan of the Agra gharana; that apprenticeship lasted until Natthan Khan's death in 1901. From 1901 he studied with Alladiya Khan, founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, and with his brother Haider Khan, and continued with Alladiya Khan until his own death. He was among the first singers to be trained formally in several gharanas.

He taught music at a training college in Dharwad from 1897 to 1901, then lived in Bombay and Pune and sang across India and in Nepal, earning the title Deva Gandharva. His recitals mixed khayal with dadra, tappa, thumri, bhajan and Marathi stage songs. He was music director of the Kirloskar Natak Mandali and later the Gandharva Natak Mandali, advised Govindrao Tembe on the music of Sangeet Manapman (1911), and composed the music of Sangeet Vidyaharan (1913), Sangeet Swayamwar (1916) and Sangeet Draupadi (1920), adapting classical compositions that are still sung today.

In 1911 he founded the music school that became the Bharat Gayan Samaj in Pune, with Govindrao Tembe as secretary; it is still run by his descendants. His fully trained disciples included Bal Gandharva, whom he coached in stage music from 1906, Master Krishnarao Phulambrikar, Tarabai Shirodkar, Dattoba Bagalkotkar and Bapurao Ketkar; he also taught Dilip Chandra Vedi and, for ten months in 1914, Kesarbai Kerkar. He died on 8 April 1922. The Gramophone Company's attempts to record him in 1911 failed, so no recording of his voice survives.

Remembered as an ideal, perfectly balanced vocalist; V. H. Deshpande, who heard him as a boy, wrote that no musician of any school ever spoke of his singing without reverence. His style is known today only through his stage compositions and the singing of his disciples.