Track Listing

1. Fire
2. Dawn
3. Eternity

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42427 in Music
• Released on: 2003-08-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Amazon.com
As on their previous releases, this much-admired Persian/Indian crossover duo have created a separate yet spacious universe that is tranquility incarnate. The musicans, who have named themselves after an ancient form of romantic poetry, perform on sitar (a multi-stringed Indian plucked instrument with a tall fretboard attached to a resonating gourd) and kamancheh (a sonorous but gutty-sounding spike fiddle) and voice, accompanied by a tabla virtuoso (a tuned skin drum commonly played in India and Pakistan). They wander hither and yon, seemingly traveling between dimensions of time, thought, and feeling. People who find Indian classical music too demanding for a beginner and/or have no idea what Persian music sounds like need have no fear. These three extended pieces, called "Fire," "Dawn," and "Eternity," may be somewhat rarified but they are also utterly accessible. Performing live before a respectfully rapt audience, Ghazal is at once sensuous, austere, fiery, and spiritual. --Christina Roden

Customer Reviews

Driving Stories
Many times in music we are easily disappointed when a child follows a parent into the arts. This seems especially true with attempts at song craft or mastering instruments.
The offspring of great artists typically borrow too much and fail to create their own niche.

I am pleasantly surprised to hear this isn't the state of affairs with Shujaat Hussain Khan, son of sitar master Ustad Vilayat Khan. He not only steps beyond strict Indian classical music, chooses a spike fiddler for a collaborator, but I also find his deft touch and pluck deliciously sharp and watery. Perhaps this is influenced by his belonging to the Imdad Khan School of the sitar where the style of playing is imitative of the subtleties of the human voice. Along as a passenger, an ideal sonic friend, the mercurial Iranian Kamancheh player Kayhan Kaldor.
Sweet, timeless, music. Driving stories, full of images and emotions.

Tranquil and Passionate
I don't know much about the Indian and Persian music but my mind feels both tranquil and passionate listening to this beautiful CD. The dialogue between the sitar and the kamancheh is most interesting. Ghazal's singing voice is even better than that on the other CD "As Night Falls on the Silk Road" (although I must confess that I don't understand what he sings). Recording quality is top-notch. Highly recommended.

Hindu-Persian Beauty
Few CDs from my 4000 collection of CDs get into my car for a long ride as frequently as The Rain. I just cannot have enough of Kalhor's kamancheh sound and the peaceful Hindu-Persian feeling that it evokes. The sound brings back for me the memories of my younger days at my aunt's Safavid era house in the Northern Iran city of Rasht and the peaceful Zoroastrian temples of Iran and India where I spent a lifetime of happy hours. This is a keeper.