Nine Decades Vol IV: A Night at St John the Divine

Ravi Shankar's widow Sukanya testifies in the liner notes to the particular ‘magical, transcendent experience’ of her husband performing in places of worship. The magic is tangible in this recording of a dusk-until-dawn concert in a Manhattan cathedral in 1976, celebrating the 20th anniversary of his first American concert. The first of these long improvised ragas is in a North Indian style, the second is Karnatic (from the South), but there is much in the way of diversity that will prove attractive and stimulating, even to Western listeners unaccustomed to raga. Shankar elicits a huge variety of sounds by differently plucking his sitar: sometimes purring, sometimes growling, with or without a festoon of overtones. After the opening alap (slow introduction) and jor, where the tones of the raga are lovingly explored against the drones of bass and treble tambura, Shankar is stunningly partnered by the tabla percussion of his longtime collaborator Alla Rakha. The Karnatic selection proceeds with a chuckling pulse, in contrast to the earlier rather contemplative moods; it showcases the ability of Indian music, in the hands of a master, to touch the breadth and depth of human experience.