212: The Raga Guide, by Various Artists

Various Artists (India)
The Raga Guide (1999)
74 tracks, 314 minutes (4 CDs)
Spotify ∙ iTunes

The Raga Guide is a rare thing: a wonderful resource for every level of listeners, from complete newbies, to fans wanting to know more, to serious academic scholars. The standard is such that I’m sure even hardcore disciples of Hindustani classical music would rate this collection.

Because this isn’t just an album. The Raga Guide is, quite naturally, a guide of 74 of the most common ragas – melodic systems that are somewhere between scales and compositions – used in the northern Indian Hindustani classical tradition. The guide is split between a book and four CDs. The book, edited by ethnomusicologist Joep Bor, gives the history of each raga, a musical description and transcription (illustrated with Western staff notation), an example set of lyrics in English and Hindi and a reproduction of a ragamala painting from the 17th century – paintings that describe the mood and personality of each raga.

And then alongside the book, the four CDs contain examples of every one of those ragas. While in a true performance setting, performances of a raga can stretch to hours long, based as they are around fantastical improvisation and meditation on the tones and colours of the notes and their relationships to each other…but The Raga Guide gives you the down-low of each by presenting it in the form of a very short, unmetered and improvised introductory alap section, before the rhythm of the table kicks in for a composed section or song and then another short improvised section before it comes to a close. Most of them are only around four minutes long; the longest barely touches six minutes.

It’s tempting to think that, because these performances are conducted in such an unorthodox manner, that they must be doing this ancient and noble tradition a real disservice. But while the performances here are no doubt a little shallow compared to the full exploration of the true meanings of the raga in full, these are undoubtedly wonderful little self-contained performances in and of themselves. No wonder: four renowned musicians perform the 74 pieces between them – there’s Hariprasad Chaurasia on bansuri (bamboo flute), Buddhadev Das Gupta on sarod (fretless lute), and Shruti Sadolikar Katkar and Vidyadhar Vyas on vocals (female and male respectively).

The Raga Guide really is a stunning work, of both scholarship and musicianship. Anyone with the slightest interest in Hindustani classical music should consult a copy of the book and delve deep into the accompanying albums. If nothing else you will find one of the most comprehensive repertoires of ragas anywhere, all in bitesize chunks ideal for dipping into…or delving into, deep and headfirst if you feel that way inclined.