Hariprasad Chaurasia, Anindo Chatterjee

2024 Stock. The Nimbus recordings of Hariprasad Chaurasia are among the best of his recorded repertoire. Hariprasad Chaurasia's hauntingly beautiful interpretation of Raga Lalit probably is the best introduction to that raga for listeners unacquainted with Indian music. Lalit is a serene raga with a devotional mood to be performed at dawn, before sunrise. Most sandhiprakash ragas (to be performed at dawn or dusk) feature komal swaras (flat notes), which give them a certain dreamy, longing, even nostalgic quality. The scale of Raga Lalit emphasizes the minor second (Ri/Re) and minor sixth (Dha/La); it includes both natural and sharp fourth (Ma/Fa), but omits the commonly used perfect fifth (Pa/Sol).
In ragamala paintings Lalit is often symbolized as the romantic yearnings of lovers being separated at the break of day, already longing for their next rendezvous. At dawn there is a very gradual diffusion of light from darkness. A good presentation of Lalit should emulate that. It is a transitional phase where the old is fading and the new is slowly emerging, where ignorance grows into illumination and spiritual rebirth, and the great transformer, Shiva, is dancing. The freshness of the awakening mind as well as the longing for what once was. Images like these are frequently being reported by musicians trying to describe the emotional core of Raga Lalit.