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 Two master musicians making a masterpieceApr 14, 2012
By TraneSpirit332
This concert is a work of a highest class. If you are unfamiliar with Indian classical music, you might be annoyed by some idiomatically acceptable flaws, like halting a piece for verbal clarifications or coughing by the performers, etc. Despite of those flaws and a couple of missed hits by Kishan Maharaj on the tabla, this is an almost perfect concert.
The best part of this DVD is the first part. Darbari KAnadA is here - as should be - full of grandeur, but also a very refined and emotionate, and smoothly resonating musical piece. In the long introduction Vilayat Khan demonstrates his own tramark technique - long, sustained bent notes, where the notes beautifully and naturally fade out into the shades of the concert hall. The performance of this most serious and majestic raaga proceeds without a "jor"-part into a middle-tempo gat [composed piece] in Tintaal, which is customarily also the Taal of the last part of the piece, played in fast ["drut"] tempo.
Kishan Maharaj, in his own right, plays unbelievably well, like he is used to - at times very difficult and beautiful polyrhythms, at other times powerful, majestic tiihais. Thus, the audience gets to applaude the tabla player frequently, but perhaps the "winner" of the show is still Vilayat Khan with the sighs and sounds of wonder from the listeners due to the finest melodies in his introduction ["alaap"] to this raaga.
Speaking of rhythm, Vilayat Khan "breaks away" from the basic beat ["theka"] of the madhyalaya [middle-tempo] Tintaal very skillfully in the first piece. That is a trick Indian soloists frequently use, both in the Northern - like this concert - and the Southern tradition. Vilayat Khan is a master of all the basic tricks, plus a few of his own, like singing between the sitar-playing parts.
The son of Vilayat Khan, Hidayat (Khan) plays little, but not bad at all. On the second raaga he doesn't play. He has virtuosity, but doesn't play at great lenght at any time.
One can't really hear the taanpuras at all behind the sitars, but the overall feeling of the basic note ["shruti"] is still good.
The second raaga, the all-time favourite Bhairavi, is performed lightly, but with less energy and virtuosity. After a fine sitar introduction (again without the jor) the tabla-drums make this part of the show simpler altogether, which is accentuated by the calm, resigned ending. A good way to end the show.
To sum, this is a DVD concert of two of the very best North Indian classical musicians. Buy it if you like the utmost mastery of the sitar and the tabla.
 Beautiful but...Feb 17, 2007
By Indian music lover
"Indian music lover"
The music and video production on this DVD are very good. Vilayat Khan is an extrordinary and soulful performer. However, the one thing that really annoys me about this DVD is that the Navras logo appears at apparently random points in the music at various places on the screen. THIS IS REALLY ANNOYING! Do they think we don't know who made the DVD, and they have to remind us? This is the only reason I give this 4 stars instead of 5. The music is wonderful.
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