Ghazal, Kayhan Kalhor, Shujaat Husain Khan

The Rain is the ECM debut of Ghazal, the Persian and Indian ensemble formed in 1997 by the Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor and the Indian sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan. It presents three long improvisations, drawn from both classical traditions, recorded at a concert in Bern in 2001. The album was nominated for the Grammy for Best Traditional World Music Album in 2004.

Kalhor, from Tehran, studied both Persian classical music and Western classical music, and plays the kamancheh, the Persian spike fiddle held upright and bowed. Khan, the son of the sitar master Vilayat Khan, also sings. Sandeep Das joins them on tabla. The concert took place on 28 May 2001 and was recorded by Swiss radio DRS in Bern, with Kjell Keller as recording producer and Andy Mettler as engineer. Editing, remix and mastering were done at Rainbow Studio in Oslo by Jan Erik Kongshaug, Kalhor and Manfred Eicher, who produced the album as a co-production with Schweizer Radio DRS.

The pieces are Fire, Dawn and Eternity, each between fifteen and twenty minutes long. Each follows a similar plan: a slow, free introduction, then a faster section once the tabla enters. Hindustani music took on a strong Persian influence in the Mughal period, and the two traditions share several modes and tunings, which the players explore here. Phrases pass back and forth, are echoed and developed, and build from moments of repose to fast virtuoso passages. Kalhor plays more on the note than an Indian violinist would, with string-crossing closer to a Western concerto soloist, and that pulls Khan along unexpected paths.

Songlines made it a Top of the World selection. Simon Broughton wrote there that the music is "architectural like the filigree screen on the cover", rich in detail but held up by arch-like structures. In the Daily Telegraph, Mark Hudson found it "superbly lyrical, full of fire and tenderness and highly accessible", and noted the rhythmic imitation of rain. Writing in BBC Music Magazine, Robert Maycock stressed that Ghazal was a long-developing meeting of equals, rare in cross-cultural music.

CD, ECM 1840, recorded live in Bern in 2001 and first released by ECM Records in April 2003.