Irshad Khan | Royal Raag Darbari | Jor & Jhalla
Free to Watch
•
9m 23s
Recorded for Darbar on 4 Apr 2008, at the Phoenix, Leicester.
Musician
- Irshad Khan (surbahar)
Raag Darbari; Thaat: Asavari; Samay: Midnight
Irshad Khan plays the surbahar (bass sitar), using its thick, deep-toned timbres to explore Raag Darbari, harking back to when musicians played for kings at the royal court.
Learn more about the music:
The surbahar’s deep-toned strings can bend upwards over an octave, allowing artists to explore the contours of a raga using only a single fret. Suited to the slow elaborations of dhrupad, it is large, heavy, and notoriously difficult to master. Here it is played by Irshad Khan, who hails from the illustrious Etawah (‘Imdadkhani’) gharana alongside greats such as Shahid Parvez, Vilayat Khan, and Imrat Khan (Irshad’s father). His ancestors gave shape to the modern sitar, customising the design and mastering gayaki ang (singing style). Irshad lives in Canada today, playing and teaching sitar and surbahar around the world.
Here he plays a heavily ornamented jhalla from Raag Darbari, described by musicologist Deepak Raja as being “the emperor of ragas, and the raga of emperors”. The word ‘darbar’ refers to to the royal courts of past ages, and it is easy to imagine Darbari’s majestic tones echoing across marble floors, bringing solemn relief to kings, diplomats, and warlords. The mood is grave, reverential, and often slow, blending lyrical passages with a precise microtonal geometry. Its optional ‘Kanada’ suffix denotes the raga’s likely origins in Carnatic music - some consider it to have been imported North by Mian Tansen in the 16th century.
It uses Asavari thaat [SRgmPdnS], with Re and Pa as the vadi and samvadi [king and queen notes]. Characteristic phrase resolutions include gmR and dnP, and the raga is often elaborated in mandra saptak [low octave]. Musicians often pause on Ga and Dha, ornamenting them with andolit [heavy oscillations]. It resembles the modern Carnatic Raga Natabhairavi, and the Western natural minor scale.
Subscribe to the Darbar Player to access the full, uncut performance.
Up Next in Free to Watch
-
Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee | Monsoon...
Recorded by Darbar in 2017, on location at The Rajbari Bawali, India
Musicians:
- Budhaditya Mukherjee (sitar)
- Soumen Nandy (tabla)Raag Miyan ki Malhar; Thaat: Kafi; Samay: Night or Monsoon
Sitar maestro Budhaditya Mukherjee’s spectacular rendition of the rain-bringing Raag Miyan Ki Malhar,...
-
Begum Parveen Sultana | Raag Puriya D...
Recorded at Darbar Festival on Sun 28 Oct 2018, at London’s Barbican Centre
Musicians:
- Parveen Sultana (khayal vocal)
- Mukundraj Deo (tabla)
- Tanmay Deochake (harmonium)
- Srutti Suresan (tanpura)
- Priya Sharma (tanpura)Raag Puriya Dhanashree; Thaat: Poorvi; Samay: 15:00 - 18:00 Late Afte...
-
Shubha Mudgal | Raag Bhimpalasi | Kha...
Recorded at Darbar on 17 Sep 2016, at London’s Southbank Centre
Musicians:
- Shubha Mudgal (khayal)
- Aneesh Pradhan (tabla)
- Sudhir Nayak (harmonium)
- Priya Sharma (tanpura)
- Seetal Dhadyalla (tanpura)Raag Bhimpalasi; Thaat: Kafi; Samay: Afternoon
“My gurus...were all liberal thinkers and...