Rare and Glorious

Ravi Shankar is undoubtedly the world’s best-known Indian musician. His name has not only become synonymous with his instrument, the sitar, but he has probably done more than any other Indian musician to make India’s classical music accessible to audiences worldwide. Now aged 89 and with his live recitals getting rarer, there seems to be – thankfully – an unending supply of archive recordings from his past, many of which have not been previously released, or at least not available on disc.

This double-CD set, part of Saregama’s Introducing the Masters series, features a selection of highlights from the maestro’s brilliant career – some going back to as early as 1962 – and including regulars like ‘Raga Devgiri-Bilawal’ and ‘Raga Alahiya Bilawal’ and an exquisite ‘Raga Lalit, not to mention the Karnatic (or South Indian) ‘Raga Hamsadhwani. On the whole, these tracks come across as short excerpts, ranging from as little as seven minutes to a mere 25 minutes for the longest piece. But that too was a special hallmark of Shankar’s performances and something about which he had made an astute judgement: that attention spans were fairly limited for what was then unfamiliar music to Western ears. His genius also lies in the fact that he managed to abbreviate his recitals rather neatly and without diluting the essence of any of the ragas.

Shankar’s fans will be familiar with most of these tracks, and many will excite nostalgia for the maestro’s heyday. Compilations like this are not just a prompt to connoisseurs to update their collections – they will go on appealing to newer generations of fans.