ग्रामोफोन कंपनी लिमिटेड — 1904 रिकॉर्डिंग सत्र

The 1904 recording sessions by the Gramophone Company Ltd. in Calcutta expanded the catalogue of Indian classical recordings significantly, introducing new artists alongside established stars like Gauhar Jaan. The 1904 sessions are notable for capturing a wider range of musical traditions: Gauhar Jaan recorded thumris and ghazals in the Pahadi and Bhairavi styles, while Janki Bai — another celebrated tawaif-artist from Allahabad — appeared for her debut Gramophone Company sessions. The 1904 sessions also saw the Gramophone Company recording devotional music (bhajans) by Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, a classically trained singer from a very different social background from the tawaif performers who had dominated the 1902-1903 sessions. Most significantly, Zohra Bai Agrewali's recording of the Amir Khusrau composition 'Chhap Tilak Sab' introduced the great sufi-devotional repertoire to the gramophone, alongside the thumri and ghazal traditions. By 1904, it was clear that the gramophone had become a lasting fixture of Indian musical life, not merely a novelty, and the Gramophone Company invested accordingly in expanding its Indian catalogue.

By 1904 the catalogue stretches across genres — thumri, khayal, tarana, tappa, even comic and English-language novelties — as the company learns what the Indian buyer wants on disc.

1904 brought competition: Nicole's cheap discs and rival agents bidding for the same singers. The Gramophone Company answered with volume, exclusive contracts and the prestige of its Gauhar Jaan releases.

The 1904 sessions mark the moment the Indian record catalogue grew from a star vehicle into a library of traditions. Where 1902-03 had orbited Gauhar Jaan, 1904 brought in Zohra Bai Agrewali's khayal-rooted gayaki, Janki Bai's Allahabad thumri, instrumental masters of the sitar and surbahar, and the sufi repertoire of Amir Khusrau — the qawwali-thumri stream that would flow through Hindi film music for the next century. The entry of reformist classical musicians broadened the gramophone's social respectability beyond the salon. For the Gramophone Company these sessions, part of its renewed Far Eastern recording programme, settled the question of whether India justified sustained investment: within four years the company would build its pressing factory at Sealdah, Calcutta, ending the Hanover round-trip and making India a manufacturing centre of the world record trade.

The sessions that turned a head start into dominance; the masters cut this year anchored the company's Indian supremacy until a local pressing plant arrived in 1908.