Cineplot Music

Ghazal

This is a form of light Hindustani vocal music the song texts of which are entirely in Urdu. Ghazals are extremely popular and their poetical content is important. There is, however, a tradition that the ghazals should be usually based on ragas. One remarkable exponent of the traditional style of ghazal in India has been Akhtari Bai Faizabadi later known as Begum Akhtar who had a characteristic style. Mallika Pukhraj of Jammu of pre-partition days was another well-known ghazal singer. Mehdi Hassan of Pakistan has been a great ghazal singer who has also influenced the younger generations of ghazal singers in India like Chitra and Jagjit Singh, Salma Agha, etc., and Runa Laila of Bangladesh who became very popuiar in India in the 1970s, when her performances were telecast also^/on Indian television, viz., Doordarshan. She had a fine voice and an attractive style of singing ghazals. The text of the ghazal has to be rendered lucidly by the ghazal singer apart from having a melodious voice and appeal. Other outstanding ghazal singers have been Farida Khatoon and Umar Zia Begum of Pakistan and Ghulam Ali.

Ghazal is thus the characteristic form of vocal music for singing Urdu poetry. It has great appeal and the manner of performance is sometimes classical or semi-classical.

The ghazals are usually sung solo or at the most in duet form unlike the qawwali which is performed by a choral group. In the text the ghazal singers usually confine themselves to the poetry of the well established Urdu poets like Mohammad Shah Zafar, Mir, Ghalib, Sauda, Zauq, Dagh, Momin, and modern poets like Firaq Gorakhpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi and Hafiz Jalandhari – Satyendra K. Sen Chib

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