Ravi Shankar - Three Ragas

Great background

I used to listen to my parent's LP of Shankar's Three Ragas. I'm psyched to have it again... it's great to listen to while I'm working or crafting. October 22, 2008

Beautiful introduction to traditional Indian music.

Whether you are familiar with Ravi Shankar or not, if you have any interest in great music you should buy this album. I believe this is Ravi Shankar's first "Western" album, and it's a magnificent introduction to 3 different kinds of Ragas. The rhythms and artistry are simply transfixing. This should be part of any music lover's collection. October 11, 2008

Ravi Shankar sitar

If you're a fan of Ravi Shankar's sitar playing, or sitar an instrument, or looking to get introduced to indian classical music/sitar, this one would be highly recommended.

This would be a great addition to anyone's collection of indian classical music. August 23, 2007

Very Pleased

I was most pleased with my CD order: I received it quickly and it was a represented on Amazon--in excellent shape. May 14, 2007

Awesome, consistent, and diverse

This is the best Ravi Shankar I've heard so far. You don't get much alap (slow arhythmic introduction to the raga being performed) on this CD, and the reason is that alap can last for as much as an hour, but whoever produced this wanted to put 3 whole ragas (scales plus plus, basically) into the same amount of time.

Anyway, what you DO get is one of the all-time masters of melodic line at peak performance, for an hour. The bunch of this CD is the fast, rhythm-centered sitarwork termed "gat". Not lyrical in a Western sense, but intense, "dancing", unflaggingly inventive twists and turns of melody. Ravi goes all out with one of his favorite tricks here: playing a phrase twice in a row, then playing just the start of it and suddenly veering away into a new melody. A full analysis of all the dozens of ways in which Ravi creates surprise, tension, release, and excitement using just a single melody line would take many pages. To say that he is a master of ornamentation would be just the beginning.

One nice thing is that for each raga you get to hear two different buildups to a climax - the first without tabla (drum) accompaniment and the second, larger buildup, with tabla. It's almost as if there are six performances on the CD, not just three. Very effective - when the drums come in each time, I get the pleasure of knowing that the superlative stringwork still ringing in my ears from the first movement will be topped by the
coming, percussion-accompanied sequel. It is also very nice that the three ragas featured here come from three entirely different melodic families, and create rather different effects.

Based on what I've heard of his music so far, it seems to me that later in his life Ravi Shankar, though losing none of his speed or showmanship, could no longer bring such sheer densely-packed melodic inventiveness to his gats as he shows here(his alaps only got better, however). Whether that's true or not, however, this is a stunning performance and some of the best music most people will ever hear. Get it. June 5, 2006

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