Ustad Asad Ali Khan
North India: Instrumental music of medieval India

"He who concentrates completely on the sounds of musical instruments like the tantrii etc. - prolonged and sequentially succeeding sounds -, at the end of such sounds identifies with the supreme ether."

( Vijñanabhairava Tantra, edited by Attilia Sironi and Raniero Gnoli, Adelphi )

It could be said that the arts in India have a precise goal: to lead those who benefit from them into a supreme cathartic state, whether it be liberation from the cycle of rebirths or reaching a new aesthetic dimension.

Music is no exception to the rule, and these two compositions by the master Asad Ali Khan, collected by UNESCO on the album in question, are a perfect expression of this.

Asad Ali Khan is considered the greatest player of the "Rudra veena" of the twentieth century. The latter is a particular type of veena, a stringed instrument very popular in India, with a very deep and hypnotic sound, significantly renewed in the '900s.

Listening to the compositions on the album, it becomes understandable how the "Rudra veena" is sacred to the god Shiva, the Hindu deity who embodies more than any other the eternal becoming of the universe, symbolized by his dance, and at the same time the infinite stillness of the supreme being, the Brahman, in the guise of the lord of yoga.

Asad's music sometimes seems to melt effortlessly into the sea of time, at other times it seems to rise like a gigantic mountain in the world of becoming.

We are certainly not talking about a revolutionary, as his compositions perfectly follow the rules of Hindustani music (the classical canon of Northern India), yet Asad possesses a rare quality, typical of many great Indian artists: the ability to transcend the rules of tradition to create something original and unique.

The "Raga Darbari Kannada" and the "Raga Gunakali" are two extremely complex pieces, the result of an aesthetic spirit very distant from the Western one, therefore appreciable only after many listens.

Ensuring that they can be enjoyed regardless is challenging, but they certainly stand as some of the most significant musical expressions of twentieth-century India, worthy of being listened to by anyone who wants to delve into this world.

The advice is to let yourself be carried away by Asad's hypnotic notes and to approach the mystical ecstasy spoken of so much by the ancient Indian theorists of aesthetics.