Raga Bilaskhani Todi-Khyal/Raga Mishra Bhairavi-Tappa

Personnel: Sulochana Brahaspati (vocals); Anindo Chatterjee (tabla).
Liner Note Author: Jane Harvey.
Recording information: Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth, Wales (06/26/1991).
Translator: Sulochana Brahaspati.
Unknown Contributor Role: Sultan Khan.
This CD opens with three compositions set in "Raga Bilaskhani Todi" rendered in the khyal form, a sung classical or art music form in which, unusually for Indian vocal music, the words regularly take a secondary place to an abstract vocal sound. As befits this earnest morning raga -- she sings of the torments of separation in Brijbhasha or Braja Bhasha, a dialect of Hindi which ousted Sanskrit as the language of song around the time of the Muslim invasion of Northern India -- its exposition is slow and controlled. In the second piece, a tappa (a form closely associated with the Punjab) embedded in "Mishra Bhairavi, " she entreats her lover to discover the wonders of nature to be found in the garden. Sultan Khan accompanies particularly sensitively on sarangi and Anindo Chatterjee on tabla. ~ Ken Hunt