ख़याल रिकॉर्डिंग — पीरा साहब

“Khayal Recording — Peara Saheb” represents the veteran's early-1920s khayal sides for the Gramophone Company, Calcutta — classical bandish compressed to the 78 rpm disc by the longest-serving male voice of the era, on His Master's Voice.

The disc khayal was its own craft: sthayi, a flash of antara, a handful of taans, finished before the groove ran out. Peara Saheb — famous for a high register that pierced the horn — had been refining that compression since the industry's birth, and his 1920s sides show the formula at its most practiced.

Khayal bandish texts — a line to the beloved, a line to the divine — served as scaffolding. On disc, the connoisseur listened for raag grammar and taan design; the words were the door, not the room.

By 1921 the industry around Peara Saheb had transformed: the Calcutta factory pressed locally, HMV's dog-and-trumpet label was a household mark, German rivals were gone, and a new generation — Indubala, the natya-sangeet stars — was arriving. The veteran adapted, as he always had, genre by genre, decade by decade.

Peara Saheb's khayal sides round out the portrait of the early industry's most versatile male professional — and document how classical music learnt to live at 78 rpm.