Ustad Fayyaz Khan was a very dominant voice in the world of classical music during the first half of the 20th Century.

Belonging to the famed Agra Gharana, he made many innovations in the kheyal and thumri that proved sustainable and thus influenced the future course of classical music in the subcontinent.

The connection between the dhrupad and kheyal was more obvious in the gaiki of Ustad Fayyaz Khan. He made it a point to stress the difference or the continuation of the two through a changed emphasis on the introduction of the raga in the alaap.

Alaap initiated the raga with phrases that are invocatory in character. Usually, the Hindu performers used the phrase Om and the Musilms Tero Naam: a kind of a supplication to the power and divine help both for inspiration and the resolve to carry the weight of the musical performance, its execution with dignity and without faltering. All arts all over the various civilisations, whether performing or textual, started with invocations and then moved to the actual content of the work.

In the dhrupad, the alaap was elongated and elaborate. It went on for some time as the finer aspects of the raga were enunciated with its various peculiar characteristics. Being without the active accompaniment of the percussion instrument, which in the dhrupad was generally the pakhawaj, the vocalists could extend the performance of the part with grace and majesty as was their wont with the form of dhrupad.

Said to have been created by Man Singh Toomar in the late fifteenth/early sixteenth century, dhrupad probably was the musical form that represented the scale, majesty and grandeur of the imperial power as it evolved and grew to enforce its writ over a large dominion. A form addressing what was larger than life, it was meant to be centred on the human voice and to cast a spell of the domination of music form over all else.

There was no distinction between the temporal power and its divine sanction in the medieval times and the absolute unity facilitated the nurturing of a sensibility that was reflective of the absolute power of the monarch. During the Mughal Empire and that phase of Indian history, dhrupad was the dominant form and the many legendry gaiks were all dhrupadias. They are still remembered and considered to be the pillars of our music. Man Singh Toomar, Tansen, Sawami Haridas, Baiju Bawara, Ramdas and Surdas were all dhrupadias, who made significant contributions to the art of high music.

By the time kheyal evolved as a definite form, cracks had developed in the absolute power of the monarchy and the unified worldview as represented in the dhrupad and could not be bridged any longer. The kheyal gaiki, at the peril of being simplistic, was more romantic and melodious in its essence than the domineering and masculine dhrupad.

The early kheyalias were more influenced by the dominance of the dhrupad and it took them a while to develop a high art form with its independent credentials. Many of the early kheyalias were not dhrupad vocalists and it is difficult to say who they were except that they were hereditary musicians, well-versed in the sophistications and intricacies of music. Probably some were qawwals as it is said that Bare Muhammed Khan, one of the pioneers of kheyal was a Qawwal Baccha. It is possible that the dharupdias found it more difficult to negotiate the transition that was taking place and were unable to switch to the newer form. The practitioners of minor forms may have gained access to this younger form as they were less regulated by the canon of the music. The many who are remembered as the founders of the newer form were probably the descendants of Mian Shori from Kasur who introduced or raised the level of the tappa and made it a part of the classical form in Lucknow.

It was actually the continuation of a tradition that was emphasised by the importance of the alaap by Ustad Fayyaz Khan. Alaap was an important part of the dhrupad performance. With the passage of time, its duration kept on decreasing till it just became a very brief introduction to the kheyal performance, which by combining the two lais, vilam and pat elaborated the raga with the accompaniment of the percussion in the vilampat lai. However, Fayyaz Khan kept the alaap as an important and quasi-independent part of the kheyal performance as he intoned the sur and expanded on the raga in the manner of the dhrupad.

Not that Fayyaz Khan was impervious to the developments taking place in the form of music. He also performed the hori, a traditional form that developed with the festival of holi over centuries and acquired the status of a semi-classical form but he also dwelled on the thumri and made it a popular form without compromising on the quality of the rendition. It can be said that many of his bandishes in the thumri then were rendered in a very popular vein and integrated in the evolving ang of the film song format and became regular numbers without the public knowing about the origins of the composition.

His voice and training was more about bringing out the grandeur, dominance and presentation, but the thumri was not that grand and domineering. It was romantic and more intimate in character. He, therefore, did not have the melodious tenderness, but was more staid and structured with less scope for short behlawas that were closer to the ethos of the thumri with its focus on the intimate endearment and coquettish embellishment. Ustad Fayyaz Khan died on November 5, 1950.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.