Transcendence

Most Songlines’ readers will not have heard of Mashkoor Ali Khan, an Indian classical vocalist who sings khayal, an ornamented classical vocal style. He is descended from one of the oldest lineages of North Indian classical music, the Kirana gharana (family, or style), named after the small town in Uttar Pradesh where Khan was born. He trained with his father, a sarangi player, the instrument being a boxed lute played with a bow and considered closest to the human voice. Not only is it the perfect accompaniment for khayal, but sarangi players are often privy to rare melodies and vocal compositions, providing them with an extensive repertoire.

Little wonder then that Khan, accompanied here by Anindo Chatterjee, one of the world's top tabla players, evokes something of a bygone age of maestros with this unusual though pristine repertoire of bandishes (compositions), including a particularly noteworthy one in Persian by the 13th-century mystic poet and musician Amir Khusrau, also the inventor of the ‘Raga Shahana’ in which track two, ‘Janeman Janeman’ (Beloved, O Beloved), is set. The pentatonic ‘Raga Bhupali’ lends itself easily to a short, fast-tempo tarana (a vocal genre that uses syllables such as ‘O-da-ta-na-de-re-na’ instead of words). The final song is in ‘Raga Basant’, one of very few ragas based on a season rather than an emotion, and it successfully conveys all the joyful exuberance of the onset of spring.